Vermeer’s Portrait of the Artist in His Studio in the Alt Aussee mine was purchased by Hitler for his proposed museum. It has been returned to Vienna.
One of the picture storage rooms in the mine, constructed with wooden partitions and racks. The temperature was constant, averaging 40° Fahrenheit in summer, 47° in winter.
Panel from the Louvain altarpiece, Feast of the Passover, by Bouts, was stored at Alt Aussee.
Hitler acquired the Czernin Vermeer for an alleged price of 1,400,000 Reichsmarks.
Craig was rapidly building up a staff of German scholars and museum technicians to assist him in the administration of the establishment. It would soon rival a large American museum in complexity and scope. Storage rooms on the ground floor had been made weatherproof. Paintings and sculpture were already pouring in from the mine at Alt Aussee—six truckloads at a time. In accordance with standard museum practice, Craig had set up an efficient accessioning system. As each object came in, it was identified, marked and listed for future reference. Quarters had been set aside for a photographer. Racks were being built for pictures. A two-storied record room was being converted into a library.
Craig had also requisitioned the “twin” of this colossal building—the Führerbau, where Hitler had had his own offices. This was only a block away on the same street and also faced the Königsplatz. It was connected with the Verwaltungsbau by underground passageways. It was in the Führerbau that the Munich Pact of 1938—the pact that was to have guaranteed “peace in our time”—had been signed. Craig showed me the table at which Mr. Chamberlain had signed that document. Craig was using it now for a conference table.
Repairs were being concentrated on the Administration Building, since its “twin” was being held in reserve for later use. At the moment, however, a few of the rooms were occupied by a small guard detail. The truck drivers and armed guards who came each week with the convoys from the mine were also billeted there.