[MSN] Dallas oil man pursues Nazi-stolen art

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Dallas oil man pursues Nazi-stolen art

Hitler planned a museum in his hometown Linz in Austria stocked with Europe's masterpieces.

They are the treasures of Europe - mileposts of civilization's advance - DaVinci, Matisse, Michelangelo, Durer.

Priceless, irreplaceable art and in World War Two, the Nazi’s considered it loot.

Even before the Nazis advanced across Europe, museums and collectors knew they were in trouble.

"They were wise to Hitler's and Goering's ambitions on theft,” says Robert Edsel, author of Rescuing DaVinci a book about the plunder and the heroic recovery of Europe’s finest art. “[The curators] knew many of these things were going to be targets of the Nazis for looting.“

Adolf Hitler had developed plans to build a giant museum in his hometown Linz in Austria. He planned to stock it with Europe's masterpieces.

And his deputy, Air Marshall Herman Goering's appetite for art was insatiable.

German museum curators and art experts were pressed into service, secretly fanned out across Europe creating lists of what the conquerors would take.

"I think the degree of premeditation and planning that went into it really is unprecedented,” says Edsel, who was once a Dallas oilman. He has spent years and tapped his fortune to travel the world researching the subject. It also helped him acquire an unprecedented collection of photos that are displayed in the book.

Edsel says as the war loomed, curators and collectors emptied museum walls.

"Museums like the Louvre evacuated 400,000 works of art in a period of weeks,” says Edsel.

The Mona Lisa went into hiding.

Louvre officials moved the world’s most famous painting around France six times over six years, at one point, by ambulance with only a curator at its side.

One woman recalled seeing it in hiding as a girl.

"She describes with great passion the beautiful box case the Mona Lisa was in,” says Edsel. “With this red velvet interior and how it looked when they would open the thing up and see this smile of hers beneath the box.”

The Nazis never found the Mona Lisa.

Another Leonardo DaVinci masterpiece wasn't so lucky.

A Nazi general stole Lady with an Ermine from a Polish museum, keeping it for himself.

In every corner of occupied Europe, artwork was looted by the millions.

Jews were a bountiful target. One picture in Rescuing DaVinci shows a giant pile of fine furniture stolen from 52,000 Jewish homes in France.

Edsel says later at the Nuremberg trials, defeated Nazis offered a twisted explanation.

"We went into all these homes, no one was in them,” Edsel recounted. “All the Jews were gone. We were concerned they were going to be stolen, so we took them to safeguard them." Of course, the Jews were gone because they removed them, and forced them into trains to send them to concentration camps. “

But as the war - and the bombs - came home to the fatherland, the Nazis packed away both stolen and German art treasures for safekeeping.

The Italians scrambled too. Michelangelo's David was too heavy to move...so a silo of brick and sand was built around it.

And the wall, on which DaVinci “Last Supper” was painted, was protected with steel supports and sandbags. That wall alone survived.

“An errant allied bomb landed in the courtyard of [the church] and blew out three of the four walls of the refectory was the wall where the ‘Last Supper’ was."

And that was the challenge faced by the advancing Allies: Defeat the Axis, while protecting Europe's heritage.

“It was a first time in history an army attempted to fight a war on the one hand, and mitigate damage to treasures on the other,” says Edsel.

And as they advanced...the scope of the theft was revealed. In many cases, stored away inside historic castles, like Neuchwanstein. Or in caves and salt mines, deep inside the earth.

“Inside these caves would be elaborately built crates and shelves to be able to store many of these paintings and artworks,” he says.

Much of this art survives today thanks to a special Army unit: the Monument Men. 350 men and women, art experts who rescued about ten million looted treasures, and restored them to their rightful owners.

“These monument men stood up and said ‘To the victors do not belong the spoils. They belong to all peoples. They need to be given back,’” said Edsel.

Across Europe - they found the surviving treasures. Statues. Alters. Tapestries. Paintings. And Da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine” was among those rescued and returned by the Monument Men.

But many other treasures were destroyed, or simply not retrieved.

Edsel believes Raphael’s “Portrait of a Young Man” may still be intact in someone's private collection.

And mystery still surrounds the famed Amber Room in St Petersburg. Those amber paneled wass were dismantled by Nazi troops and carted away. For decades, many assumed they was destroyed during the war.

"That seemed to be the common wisdom until one of the very small mosaic pieces showed up on the art market, in 1991 in Bremen,” says Edsel.

And other artwork continues to surface.

Last year after a legal fight, a museum returned several Gustav Klimt paintings to the heirs of the Jewish family they were stolen from.

And several years ago, “Odalisque” a Matisse stolen from one of Europe finest Jewish art collectors was discovered in the Seattle Art Museum's collection. It was also eventually returned.

And last year, Fort Worth's Kimbell Art Museum learned a painting - innocently acquired in the 60's - also had been stolen from a Jewish family in France. The museum returned it to the heirs.

“If we have the resources to be able to identify an art work that was stolen from someone under horrific circumstances,” says Edsel, “I don't think a passage of time is a reason not to return that to whoever the heir is."

A way to bring some good, from a dark chapter. A time of looting tyrants... precious hostages... humble heroes.

An epic story - almost lost to the fog of history - finally being told.

If you want to learn more about Robert Edsel’s new project to track down and interview the world’s surviving Monument Men, he has a book signing on Feb 21 at 1:30 at the Barnes & Noble across from NorthPark Mall. He’s also produced a documentary The Rape of Europa which will be shown at the Kimbell Art Museum on February 25.

http://www.wfaa.com