Remembering the Monuments Men

An A-list film adaptation of Robert Edsel’s The Monuments Men is slated for a Christmas release. It’s a story ready-made for the screen; an ideal and award-ready prestige picture for the holiday season. I recently read Edsel’s book after hearing the author lecture on his subsequent work, Saving Italy, at the National Gallery of Art. Monuments Men and its follow-up convey some detailed, if unsurprising, accounts of the Army’s intensely bureaucratic structure and the limitations of war planning. Both books make clear how perilously close the world came to losing some of its most valued works of art. They also, deliberately or not, point to concrete discrepancies between government efforts to protect cultural artifacts in past conflicts and the lack of similar efforts during more recent ones.

The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, controversial in itself, included international condemnation of the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. Although U.S. forces made efforts to spare the Museum in bombing raids, it did not adequately secure it, and many museum treasures were lost. Contrast this with the language of Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower in an order issued eleven days before D-Day, which Edsel quotes in full:

“Shortly we will be fighting our way across the Continent of Europe in battles designed to preserve our civilization. Inevitably, in the path of our advance will be found historical monuments and cultural centers which symbolize to the world all that we are fighting to preserve. It is the responsibility of every commander to protect and respect these symbols where possible.”

Eisenhower made clear that strategically, “the lives of the men are paramount.” And it was left to the few Monuments Men, not the commanders themselves, to identify the artistic “symbols” in need of protection. Still, the language of Eisenhower’s order – made in advance of the action – is striking. It emphasized that the act of war, brutal and uncivilized, was being employed in defense of civilization.

Edsel’s reporting highlights the degree to which fine art was coveted for the status it conferred, on both nations and individuals. Hitler, a failed artist, planned a major redesign of his hometown of Linz, Austria, including an art museum filled with looted masterworks that would relabel the Nazi Empire as the cradle of civilization. In March 1945, the waning days of the war, Edsel describes Hitler’s “Nero Decree”  — a “scorched earth” policy calling for the destruction of anything, from transport facilities to food supplies, that might aid the enemy – as enveloping art looted by the Nazis. Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring, one of the chief Nazi looters of art, also preferred to see artistic treasures destroyed rather then lost to the Allies. But great art is wealth. Particularly in wartime, famous works of art were stores of economic value as well as cultural status symbols. Awareness of both these factors may have helped ensure their preservation. However, art historians and art lovers alike will cringe at the descriptions of the shoddy treatment these masterpieces received in the war years.

Art crosses borders. Its preservation and appreciation acknowledge a shared human history.  Its monetary value is quantifiable; the status its ownership confers is widely acknowledged. Part of what makes Edsel’s narrative a striking read now is the evidence it provides of the U.S. taking more interest in the cultural heritage of other countries – even its strategic foes – than it has displayed in recent years.