Released from the Army, he had gone back to his teaching. Then, only a few months ago, the Dutch Government had requested his services in connection with the restitution of looted art. They had offered him a lieutenant-colonelcy and he had accepted.
The Dutch, as well as the British and French, had made a practice of conferring upon qualified civilians ranks consistent with the responsibilities of given jobs. Our government’s failure to do likewise—so far as the art program was concerned—resulted in a disparity in rank which frequently placed American MFA&A personnel at a great disadvantage.
Of all the foreign representatives, none served his country more zealously than Phonse Vorenkamp. Throughout the fall and winter months, his convoys shuttled back and forth between Munich and Amsterdam. When I last heard from him—in the late spring—he had restored to Holland more than nine hundred paintings, upward of two thousand pieces of sculpture, porcelain and glass, along with truckloads of tapestries, rugs and furniture.
I left Munich on a rainy morning at the end of September. Lamont and Steve were planning to depart for Alt Aussee at the same time. The three of us had agreed to meet in front of the Collecting Point at eight-thirty. I was a few minutes late and when I got there the guard at the entrance said they had already gone. I hadn’t felt so forlorn since the day Craig and I had parted in Bad Homburg months before. As I started down the steps to the command car, Phonse Vorenkamp called from the doorway. He had come to work a little earlier than usual, just to see me off. He was full of waspish good humor, joked about the magnificence of my new job in Frankfurt, and promised to look me up when he came through with his first convoy. The driver stepped on the starter and, as we rounded the corner into the Brienner-Strasse, Phonse waved us on our way.
(10)
MISSION TO AMSTERDAM; THE WIESBADEN MANIFESTO
I reported to Major La Farge upon arrival. Since my visit to Frankfurt with Lamont and Steve six weeks before, there had been several changes in the MFA&A Section. With the removal to Berlin of the Monuments officers attached to the U. S. Group Control Council, our office at USFET Headquarters in Frankfurt had been transferred to Höchst. The move was logical enough because we were part of the Restitution Control Branch of the Economics Division, which was located there. For all practical purposes, however, we would have been better off in Frankfurt, since our work involved daily contacts with other divisions—all located at the main headquarters.
The Höchst office was a barnlike room, some thirty feet square, on the second floor of the Exposition Building. It required considerable ingenuity to find the room, for it was tucked in behind a row of laboratories occupied by white-coated German civilians, former employees of I. G. Farben, who were now working for the American Military Government. At one end of the room were desks for the Chief and Deputy Chief. The rest of the furniture consisted of four long work tables and two small file cabinets. The staff was equally meager—Major La Farge, Lieutenant Edith Standen, Corporal James Reeds and a German civilian stenographer.
The first few days were a period of intensive indoctrination. The morning I arrived, Bancel defined the relationship between our office and the one at Berlin; and between us and the two districts of the American Zone—the Eastern District, which was under Third Army, and the Western District, under Seventh Army. He described the Berlin office as the final authority in determining policy. In theory, if not always in fact, a given policy was adopted only after an exchange of views between the Frankfurt-Höchst office and the one in Berlin. The activation of policy was our function. USFET—that is, our office—was an operational headquarters. Berlin was not.