Word: art
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...book Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, American writer and art detective Robert Edsel tells the stories of seven of them, including America's top art conservator, a sculptor and an openly gay infantry private. Edsel spoke with TIME about the challenges they faced...
...Nazis target specific works, or was it more about grabbing whatever they could? There were definitely works of art they were determined to steal. An example would be the so-called big three from Krakow - Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine, Rembrandt's Landscape with the Good Samaritan and Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man. The Nazis seized them within two months of the 1939 invasion [of Poland]. They didn't go where the works of art were supposed to be hanging in the museums. They went to the country house where they had been hidden because their intelligence...
...book you describe how the Monuments Men used recovered records, overheard conversations and diaries to track down various works. What was their main tactic? They would go around and interrogate people. They would look for museum directors and curators and ask where pieces of art were. They'd hear vague things like, "Well, the last time we saw it the armies were going east," or "The Nazis came and said 'We're taking these works to safeguard them' " - a very utilitarian word to describe theft and robbery. Eventually they started finding people who knew things, and those people would send...
...When the Monuments Men found stolen art, was it generally in good condition? Early on many works were stored fairly well. But as the Nazis got more desperate in the later stages of war they were having to move not only the works they stole but also art from their own museums. Frames consume a lot of space, so paintings were literally pulled out of their frames. The Nazis were loading trucks in the open rain and putting art into damp mines. There are all sorts of cases of Monuments Men finding paintings with moss literally growing through the weave...
...than 5 million objects. That includes thousands of church bells the Nazis were going to melt down and use for war materials. The main mine that contained many of the works destined for Hitler's Führermuseum had more than 10,000 paintings, sculptures and other works of art. It's unimaginable. We're not talking about average things, but sculptures by Michelangelo and paintings by Vermeer...