Salt mines and castles: The discovery and restitution of looted European art

by Thomas Carr Howe

As I stood there trying to take it all in, Lucienne appeared again. With her was a dapper little fellow whom she introduced as her husband, René. He acknowledged the introduction and then solemnly introduced Lucienne. After this bit of mock formality, he explained that he and Lucienne had charge of all the houses in the block. If anything was not to my liking I was to let them know and it would be righted at once.

Further conversation revealed that the two of them had been deported from Paris early in 1941 and been obliged to remain in Frankfurt, working for the Germans, ever since. All through the bombings, I asked? But of course, and they had been too terrible. During one of the worst raids they had been imprisoned in the bomb shelter. The falling stones had blocked the exit. They had had to remain under the ground for forty-eight hours. They had been made deaf by the noise, yes, for two months. And the concussion had made them bleed from the nose and the ears. I asked if they expected to go back to Paris. Yes, of course, but they were in no hurry. It was very nice in Germany, now that the Americans were there. With that they left me to unpack and get settled.

When I had finished, I decided to explore a bit. There were two other bedrooms on the second floor. Neat labels on the doors indicated that they were occupied by lieutenant colonels. There were two other doors at the end of the hall. Neither one was labeled, so I peered in. They were the bathrooms. And what bathrooms! Marble floors, tiled walls, double washbasins and built-in tubs. Although it was only the middle of the morning, I had to sample one of those magnificent tubs. And as a kind of tribute to all this elegance, I felt constrained to discard my khakis and put on blues.

Captain La Farge had stressed the urgency of setting up an art depot, so the next ten days were given over to that project. Buchman generously shelved his own work to help me with it. Together we inspected the University of Frankfurt. The newest of the German universities, it had opened its doors at the outbreak of the first World War. The main administration building, an imposing structure of red sandstone, had been badly damaged by incendiaries but could be repaired. It would be a big job, but we could worry about that later. The first step was to have it allocated for our use. That had to be done through the proper Army “channels.” Buchman steered me through. Then we had to obtain an estimate of the repairs. It took three days to get one from the university architect. It was thorough but impractical and had to be completely revised. We took the revised estimate to the Army Engineers and asked them to make an inspection of the building and check the architect’s figures. They were swamped with work. It would be a week before they could do anything. I said it was a high priority job, hoping to speed things along. But the Engineers had heard that one before. We’d have to be patient.

Charlie Kuhn and Colonel Webb had moved up to Frankfurt and were established at SHAEF headquarters in the I. G. Farben building. Their office was only a few blocks from mine, and during my negotiations for the use of the university building I was in daily communication with them.

While waiting for the Engineers to make the promised inspection, I made a couple of field trips with Buchman. The first was a visit to Schloss Kronberg, a few kilometers from Frankfurt. It was a picturesque medieval castle, unoccupied since the first part of the seventeenth century. Valuable archives were stored there. We wanted to see if they were in good condition, and also to make sure that the place had been posted with the official “Off Limits” signs.

A flock of geese scattered before us as we drove up to the entrance at the end of a narrow, winding road. We knocked on the door of the caretaker’s cottage and explained the purpose of our visit to the old fellow who timidly appeared with a large bunch of keys. He limped ahead of us across the cobbled courtyard, and we waited while he fitted one of the keys into the lock.

A wave of heavy perfume issued from the dark room as the door swung open. When our eyes had become accustomed to the dim light, we saw that we were in the original Waffenraum of the castle. But, in addition to the clustered weapons affixed to the walls, there were five sarcophagi in the center of the vaulted room. Around them stood vases filled with spring flowers. On the central sarcophagus rested a spiked helmet of the first World War. The others were unadorned.

The old caretaker explained that the central tomb was that of the Landgraf of Hesse who had died thirty years ago. Those on either side contained the remains of his two sons who had likewise died in the first World War. The other two coffins were those of the elder son’s wife and of a princess of Baden who had been killed in one of the air raids on Frankfurt in 1944. All five sarcophagi had originally stood in the little chapel across the courtyard. It had been destroyed by an incendiary bomb the winter before.