Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis (32 page)

In the weeks that followed, a special detachment of the OSS, known as the Art Looting Investigation Unit—made up of art scholars hoping to become Monuments officers when the war ended—began months of interrogations of Nazis and other key figures. In the course of their investigations, they pieced together the odyssey of the Naples treasures: their seventeen-month-long, sixteen-hundred-mile journey that began in Monte Cassino and ended at Altaussee. The most frightening revelation was the discovery of the bombs that Gauleiter Eigruber had placed in the mine. Only quick and heroic action by several mining officials and workers had thwarted Eigruber’s plan.

ON FRIDAY MORNING,
July 20, an electric engine pulling twenty-two packed railcars departed Bolzano for Florence. Director of Galleries Filippo Rossi estimated the value of the Florentine art treasures found in Campo Tures and San Leonardo at $500,000,000. That figure got everyone’s attention, especially that of the man responsible for getting them home. A few days earlier, Keller had filled out a freight waybill for car number 346544, containing “art treasures.” Under “Remarks,” he wrote, simply, “extreme care necessary.”

An unexpected bureaucratic delay in Trento tested everyone’s nerves. After taking the Italian train inspector aside, Keller warned him, “If there was going to be palaver at every step we would put an MP with drawn automatic at the back of the engineer and treat him in the true SS manner.” The threat worked, as Keller later noted: “There were no more stops of any length for awhile.” The train then crossed the Po River over the newly constructed bridge that replaced the one destroyed by retreating German forces. Ironically, the lumber used to build the new bridge had come from trees felled in the Camaldoli Forest, another of the national treasures that Fred Hartt had tried to preserve.

At 4 p.m. on a scalding Saturday afternoon, some twenty-two hours after departure, the most valuable art cargo ever to be loaded aboard a single train pulled into Campo di Marte, the same station that had weathered the initial assault on Florence by Allied pilots in September 1943. Giovanni Poggi, wearing a white panama hat, and other museum officials looked on with great excitement while Hartt directed the first twelve trucks to back up to the tracks to begin loading their cargo for the short drive to the Pitti Palace.

Late the following morning, a small convoy of military vehicles assembled at the station to complete the journey. A jeep loaded with military police headed the column; Hartt, Poggi, and Rossi followed in
Lucky 13
, driven by Olschki. Bernholz drove the third jeep, carrying Keller and Lieutenant Colonel Holmgreen. Directly behind them were six trucks loaded with crates of art. Florentines cheered as the convoy wound through the center of town, retracing a portion of the flag-lined parade route two dictators had traveled seven years earlier.

The column of vehicles arrived at the Piazza della Signoria unadorned but for two flags—one American and one Italian—fixed on the hood of the first truck. A banner attached to its side bore the Fifth Army insignia and an inscription in Italian: “The Florentine works of art return from the Alto Adige to their home.” The city’s bridges no longer crossed the Arno. Many of its ancient towers existed only in the drawings of street vendors. But the riches of the Uffizi, the Palatine Gallery of the Pitti Palace, and the Bargello Museum had been returned. Keller wrote Kathy that night to describe the experience:

[driving] through streets, people clapping and weeping! Bells of Orsanmichele ringing, Florentine trumpeters, a dais with 2 Generals on it, several thousand people in the [Piazza della] Signoria square. Gen. Hume made a nice speech in Italian. The Mayor replied. That’s all, then a banquet at noon. I had three martinis. Good! Hot as blazes. The Gen. took me aside and said: ‘I have you in for the Legion of Merit Medal and will write to the top American General on your promotion.’ . . . At 8:00 tonight the last piece of sculpture was swung into the Bargello by a U.S. Army 12 ton wrecker crane. The stuff is all in Uffizi, Pitti and Bargello now and the mission is accomplished. ALL DONE after 2 months of slaving by Charley and me.

Two nights later, Keller attended what he thought was a dinner in honor of a British officer preparing to depart service and head home. After having drinks at the bar with several friends, his small group walked into the dining room at the appointed moment to a sudden burst of applause from the twenty officers in attendance. Keller assumed the clapping was for the British officer until Fred Hartt leaned over to him and said, “That’s for you, Deane.” The surprise dinner was as much a celebration of Keller as it was of the successful return of the Florentine artwork. Even General Hume and Lieutenant Colonel Holmgreen showed their respect by attending.

This watercolor drawing, printed in the weekly Italian paper
La Tribuna Illustrata,
shows Pope Pius XII blessing victims of the second Allied bombing attack of Rome on August 13, 1943. Note the blood stains on his cassock. [Biblioteca Comunale Centrale “Palazzo Sormani,” Milan]

Filled with joy and excitement about what had taken place, Keller shared a few details with Kathy:

Gen. Hume got up and described the art stuff to Florence and gave me ALL the credit in no uncertain terms and told how pleased the Chief of Staff and Commanding General of Fifth Army were about the successful conclusion of it all. He said I would not have told it properly and he wanted to and even mentioned that when the convoy of 6 token trucks and 3 jeeps entered the Piazza della Signoria with 3,000 people watching and the special people on the platform erected in front of the Loggia dei Lanzi, that I remained in the jeep with Charley and Col. Holmgreen and did not go to the place of honor—which is true, but for which I take no special credit. . . . Col. Holmgreen is going to have the General write [Yale President] Seymour about me and that will help. That was pretty nice of the Col. and he did it without my asking.

General Hume did indeed write Yale President Charles Seymour just a week later, pointing out the importance of the return of the Florentine treasures and the role Keller played. “He has been the only member of the Allied Military Government staff to perform this work . . . under shell fire, at times very severe during combat operations. . . . he has twice been recommended for American awards by this headquarters. His comparatively low rank has been a subject of much concern to me and I have done all within my power to have him promoted.”

Lieutenant Ralph Major, Hume’s Aide-de-Camp, also sent a letter to a member of the Yale faculty, adding, “During the presentation ceremony in Florence, my general was unable to find Deane to have him participate in the official return of the train load to the townspeople of Florence. After the ceremony was over, we found Deane hidden in a corner of the crowd, too modest to take credit for an achievement that was solely his.”

General Hume’s speech at dinner provided Keller with an enormous sense of validation. Hume’s letter to President Seymour helped assuage Keller’s fears that he might not have a job on his return. But another incident, nothing more than a coincidence really, reminded Deane Keller why he had volunteered for military service in the first place.

Some days after the return ceremony in Florence, while walking toward the Pitti Palace, Keller noticed an old man looking at him with great scrutiny. Having made eye contact, the old man approached Keller and asked, “Have you ever been in Sezze Romano, Sig. Capitano?”

In fact, he had. More than a year earlier, Keller had stopped in the small town, about forty miles south of Rome, during one of his daily inspections. The town had been fortunate; war had passed it by. As Keller completed his inspection, curious townspeople gathered around his jeep, some fifty in all, and asked when the Allies would bring food and come to assist them. Keller explained to them, in Italian, that he was part of the advance team of U.S. Fifth Army Allied Military Government; others would follow soon and meet their needs.

Keller looked more closely at the old man, then confirmed to him that he had indeed been in Sezze Romano the previous year. The old man replied, “Yes, I remember you very well. You told us food was coming into our little town and it did, and that the Allied authorities would come to help us and they did. Then we accompanied you to your automobile. Again, let me thank you.”

*
Modigliani’s Jewish heritage and refusal to join the Fascist Party forced him to hide in the Italian countryside during the war to avoid being sent to a concentration camp. “After 11 years of political and racial confinement, in the winter of 1946 Ettore Modigliani again held the charge of Superintendent and Director of the Brera Pinacoteca.”

SECTION IV

AFTERMATH

There is something in preserving the world’s heritage. It’s a sort of faith that we have. It is tangible and can be proven—if anything in life is worth proving.

—Monuments Officer Deane Keller

28

PERSPECTIVE

D
uring the war, acting on the authority of Adolf Hitler, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg—the ERR—operated in occupied territories and stole millions of objects throughout Europe, including works of art from museums, churches, palaces, and individuals. This organization, and others, methodically and efficiently plundered some of the most prominent works of art in the world, including Leonardo da Vinci’s
Lady with an Ermine
(from the Czartoryski Museum in Cracow, Poland), the
Ghent Altarpiece
(from St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium), the Amber Room panels (from Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, Russia), and Jan Vermeer’s
The Astronomer
(from the Edouard de Rothschild family in Paris).

German removals of paintings and sculpture belonging to the great museums in Florence have too often been characterized as theft in the same vein as the Nazis’ premeditated looting of the occupied countries in Europe. This has been repeated so many times that it has become accepted fact in many quarters. But the truth is more complicated and nuanced. German looting in Italy was different. The ERR only established operations in occupied territories. Initially an ally, Italy was thus spared the worst depredations. Nevertheless, thefts of all sorts did occur. Removal of the paintings and sculpture belonging to the Naples museums from the Abbey of Monte Cassino by the Hermann Göring Division was a classic example. Mussolini’s role in enabling Hitler and Göring to buy and export priceless works of art in violation of the nation’s patrimony laws provides a unique example during World War II of a government actually aiding the Nazis in looting its own nation. Thefts in Italy by individual German soldiers also occurred.

Certainly, when SS Colonel Alexander Langsdorff signed a receipt to take possession of the two Cranach paintings,
Adam
and
Eve
, he fully intended to remove them from Italy and present them to the Führer. On two occasions, he lied to Florentine Superintendent Giovanni Poggi about the search for the paintings. In fact, they were already in his possession. On July 25, 1944, paintings in hand, SS General Karl Wolff sent a telegram to SS leader Heinrich Himmler, inquiring whether they should be brought to Germany. Had Himmler responded affirmatively, the paintings would have left Italy and, in all likelihood, been among the other works of art found in the salt mine at Altaussee. When trying to determine why the head of Germany’s art-protection unit would do such a thing, the Monuments Men were told by other members of the Kunstschutz that Langsdorff was “a man with a divided soul, one half SS and the other half genuinely in Kunstschutz.” Regardless, there can be no doubt that Langsdorff’s actions constituted attempted theft. And Wolff’s endorsement of Langsdorff’s actions at a minimum made him an accomplice.

How then are we to judge the German removals, initiated by Langsdorff, of the Florentine treasures from their Tuscan countryside repositories to the Alto Adige region? Did Wolff act selflessly, to preserve these objects, or selfishly, placing them at enormous risk? Wolff unquestionably believed he had been their savior. In 1956, he sent a remarkable letter, in Italian, to the mayor of Florence. In it he described in detail his actions to protect the city’s works of art during the summer of 1944. “Had I then decided . . . not to do anything and to leave all of the responsibility to the Salò Government [Professor Carlo Anti, and others],” Wolff wrote, “today I would certainly find myself morally responsible in front of Italy and the entire civil world for the inevitable loss of the [treasures of the] Uffi[z]i Gallery.”

But Wolff’s assertion rings hollow. All things considered, the Florentine works of art were safest exactly where Poggi had placed them. Further, Langsdorff had already promised Poggi, Carlo Anti, and other Italian officials that the works of art in the Tuscan repositories would be left untouched unless they were in immediate danger of destruction. Then, and only then, would they be moved—and, in that event, only back to Florence. Army High Command had reached the same conclusion. Its July 14, 1944, order—which Langsdorff and Wolff chose to disregard—made it clear that works of art should remain where they were found, not removed. The plan had been sound. Keller noted: “In all the stiff fighting for Florence, the contents of only one deposit were damaged (Poppiano, Villa Guicciardini where a shell hit . . .).” Keller’s assessment refutes Wolff’s claim that his actions prevented “an inevitable loss” of the Tuscan treasures.

Wolff’s 1956 letter also stated that his decision to provide trucks and gasoline, without which the removals could not have occurred, was based on information received from Langsdorff. Wolff wrote “that with the approaching of the battlefront, these castles would have found themselves in the fire-zone of the enemy. . . . A great part of the custodians who had accompanied the treasures had already run away and the precious collections [had remained] without any defense.” Today we know that Cesare Fasola, Librarian of the Uffizi, walked
through
—not away from—the battle zone to ensure the safety of the repositories.

Once Italian officials became aware that German troops had taken the Florentine treasures to northern Italy, Carlo Anti pleaded with Langsdorff to turn them over to the Social Republic government. This began an extensive effort on his part, with the help of others—even Mussolini—to regain possession. But the window of time in which Wolff could have, without consequence, approved their request was limited to a few days. Himmler’s July 26 reply about the Cranach paintings, which implied if not outright stated that all works of art should be placed in Alto Adige under German protection, de jure prohibited Wolff from ceding control of the Florentine artworks to Italian officials. The opportunity to capitalize on the August 3, 1944, order making the Borromean Islands available as a repository came a week too late.

As early as August 30, 1944, the Bologna Superintendent of Monuments expressed his frustration, stating that “Germany has no plans for the Italian works of art . . . one doesn’t understand why they are taken to the German border, a territory which is no longer under the [Italian] State control, and are handed over to German personnel, instead of being taken to the repositories, created by the State on Italian territory and protected by Italian officers. . . . Such a way of acting cannot but raise some legitimate doubts, especially for the place chosen to gather these works of art.”

Anti’s efforts to take possession of the Florentine works of art continued until mid-April 1945. He offered numerous alternate locations that could have served as Italian-controlled repositories, including the Doge’s Palace in Venice, and St. Moritz, Switzerland. Each suggestion was rebuffed. There can be no question that some officials of the Social Republic, Anti in particular, made significant efforts to free their art from German control.

We must have a more favorable view of Wolff’s actions from December 1944 through May 2, 1945, whether they were motivated by survival or altruism. What we know is this: In December 1944, Wolff ignored Himmler’s order to transfer the Florentine works to the salt mine at Altaussee. Believing that Nazi Germany was doomed, Wolff began developing a plan to end the war in Italy. The Florentine works of art proved to be an important component.

Following the end of the war in Italy, Ernest DeWald and British Royal Air Force Wing Commander Douglas Cooper, a man with three years of experience conducting interrogations for British Intelligence, investigated the Kunstschutz operation in Italy. On June 30, 1945, DeWald and Cooper circulated their findings in a twenty-four-page report. Of the major suspects, only Himmler and Gauleiter Hofer eluded their interrogation. Himmler had committed suicide on May 23 while in British custody; Hofer had been arrested in Innsbruck.

Their report described “a strange and characteristically German tale of honest intentions mixed with opportunism, which, if not at the outset deliberately dishonest, all too rapidly degenerated in the minds of its prime movers into an unparalleled scheme for the enrichment of the Reich at the expense of Italy.” The two officers concluded that most of the Kunstschutz staff had performed their work admirably. DeWald and Cooper did assign blame—on the basis of “culpable negligence”—to Langsdorff’s predecessor, Dr. Hans Gerhard Evers, for his failure to determine whether any of the Monte Cassino treasures were missing from the Hermann Göring Division deliveries to Rome in December 1943 and January 1944. They considered the removal of the two Cranach masterpieces “a clear case of attempted looting by Langsdorff and a German unit.”

The DeWald/Cooper report provided a remarkably accurate assessment of events, especially considering that they had just seven weeks to locate the key participants and conduct interrogations before submitting their findings. But limited access to General Wolff, and a lack of information about the full extent of his role in negotiating the surrender of German forces in Italy, handicapped their investigation. They cited several instances of what they deemed Wolff’s unwillingness to explain certain actions. For example, they couldn’t understand why he had ordered the preparation of a photo album for Hitler’s birthday, or why the Bourbon-Parma private collection was discovered in the Castle Dornsberg, one of Wolff’s residences. DeWald and Cooper weren’t informed that Wolff had been instructed to avoid discussion of his secret negotiations with the OSS. Like Keller and Hartt, they were unable to connect the last few dots. One man who did understand the big picture, however, was Allen Dulles.

EACH OF THE
principal Allied participants in the Operation Sunrise negotiations in their own way echoed the sentiment expressed by British Major General Terence Airey, one of the two “military advisers” introduced to Wolff during his second meeting with Dulles on March 19. “The surrender of the German armies in Italy was due to the initiative of Karl Wolff,” Airey noted, “who contacted Allied Forces while the war was still in progress and consequently against the wishes and declared policy of the Nazi government and at great risk to himself. His actions led to the abandonment of a fighting withdrawal . . . into Austria and must necessarily have saved the lives of a large number of German soldiers, Austrian and Italian civilians, and avoided useless destruction.”

Wolff risked his life on multiple occasions to effect the surrender agreement. It is impossible to quantify how many lives were saved, and how much destruction of industry and infrastructure was avoided, by the early surrender of German forces in Italy. However, if the acts of vengeance exacted on the city of Naples in the fall of 1943 by embittered German soldiers are any guide, Wolff’s actions were significant. Additionally, from December 1944 onward, he made certain the Tuscan treasures were not moved out of Italy to the salt mines of Altaussee. Because of his orders, Kunstschutz representatives were at both repositories to deliver the works of art to American forces—and the Monuments Men—once they arrived.

Yet the good deeds of Karl Wolff, from December 1944 until his arrest in Bolzano on May 13, 1945, must be considered alongside his role in facilitating the Holocaust, and almost fourteen years of devoted service to the SS, including six years as Chief of Staff to its supreme leader, Heinrich Himmler. It was hardly surprising that Allied authorities included Wolff’s name on the list of major war-crime suspects (No. 346 on “List 7”). Himmler’s death left Wolff as one of the two most senior SS leaders—Kaltenbrunner being the other—to survive the war.

The first public session of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg commenced on November 20, 1945. On the second day of the proceedings, the U.S. Chief Prosecutor, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, delivered the opening statement for the prosecution, certainly one of the most sweeping and macabre indictments in history. The opening statement consumed the entire day. Jackson made a point of mentioning the names of some of the men—including Wolff—who would forever be associated with the most barbaric acts of cruelty in modern time.

Alfred Rosenberg, the man in charge of the principal Nazi looting organization, and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, who claimed, “none of my so-called looting was illegal. . . . I always paid for them or they were delivered through the Hermann Göring Division, which, together with the Rosenberg Commission supplied me with my art collection,” sat three seats apart in the front row of the prisoner dock. They and the other nineteen defendants present listened impassively as Jackson spoke. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who had threatened to expose Wolff to Hitler for his dealings with Dulles and the Allies, was seated between them, to the right of Rosenberg. But Wolff wasn’t among the defendants in this or any of the twelve subsequent war-crimes trials. Wolff hadn’t even been indicted.

The verdicts of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg Trial were delivered on October 1, 1946. Göring, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, and nine other defendants were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. In light of Justice Jackson’s opening statement, how did Karl Wolff elude prosecution?

Allen Dulles maintained to his grave that he had made no “deal” that would have shielded Wolff from prosecution. However, events following Wolff’s arrest undercut Dulles’s assertion. “One cannot be sure that, at some level, Wolff may not have been given some inducement by agents of OSS,” British Military Governor General Sir Brian Robertson later commented. “Although I have no information whatsoever that such inducements were given, my experience of the workings of the occult services led me to conclude that it would be wise to assume that they were.”

There are many reasons the OSS would have buried such information. Eager to see the wartime security services unit become permanent, Dulles quickly sought to highlight the OSS’s role in achieving the surrender of German forces in Italy. Having Wolff testify in open court would expose Dulles and his intelligence colleagues’ dealings with Nazis accused of war crimes—an embarrassing and counterproductive event, especially after Dulles had asserted that no protection had been given. The disclosure of a secret arrangement with Wolff would also have exacerbated the deteriorating relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Switzerland’s appearance of neutrality would have been tarnished for having so proactively assisted Dulles and the Allies. Powerful forces thus had an interest in seeing Wolff and his immediate circle—Wenner, Dollmann, Harster, Zimmer, and Rauff—fade away without public condemnation.
*
The available evidence indicates that without the steady influence of Dulles and his associates, Wolff would have been tried as a war criminal and convicted of crimes against humanity.