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

by Thomas Carr Howe

It turned out that we weren’t destined for nearly so swift an invasion of Germany as we had hoped. Later that afternoon Charlie received a letter from the Medical Officer at Naval Headquarters in Paris informing him that Lieutenants Howe and Smyth had not completed their course of typhus shots, and that he would not recommend their being sent into Germany until thirty days after the second and final shot. Charlie wanted to know what this was all about, and we had to admit that we had not been given typhus injections before leaving the States, and had only received the first one in London. After deliberating about it most of the following morning, Colonel Webb and Charlie decided that, if we were willing to take the chance, they’d cut the waiting period to ten days. We were only too willing.

Craig and I made good use of the waiting period. We were put to work on the reports submitted at regular intervals by our officers in the field. These reports contained information concerning art repositories. It was our job to keep the card file on them up to date; to make a card for each new one; to sort out and place in a separate file those which had become obsolete; to check duplications. Each card bore the name of the place, a brief description of the contents, and a map reference consisting of two co-ordinates. In Germany there was much duplication in the names of small towns and villages, so these map references were of great importance.

There was also a file on outstanding works of art which were known to have been carried off by the Germans or hidden away for safekeeping, but the whereabouts of which were as yet unknown—such things, for example, as the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, the Michelangelo Madonna and Child from Bruges, the Ghent altarpiece, the treasure from the Cathedral of Metz, the stained glass from Strasbourg Cathedral, and the Veit Stoss altarpiece. The list read like an Almanach de Gotha of the art world.

So far as our creature comforts were concerned, they suffered a great decline when we moved out to Versailles. Our lodging there was a barren, four-story house at No. 1 Rue Berthier. Craig had a room on the ground floor, while I shared one under the eaves with Charlie Kuhn. Judging from the signs still tacked up in various parts of the house, it had been used as a German billet during the occupation; and judging by its meager comforts, only the humblest ranks had been quartered there. No spruce Prussian would have put up with such austerity. A couple of British soldiers also were living there. They were batmen for two officers quartered in a near-by hotel and, for a hundred francs a week, they agreed to do for us as well. They brought us hot water in the morning, polished our shoes each day and pressed our uniforms.

Outwardly our life was rather magnificent, for we usually had our meals at the Trianon Palace Hotel just inside the park grounds. It was a pleasant walk from the Rue Berthier, and an even pleasanter one from the office, involving a short cut behind the main palace and across the lovely gardens. On the whole the gardens had been well kept up and a stroll about the terraces or through the long allées was something to look forward to when the weather was fine. Craig and I got into the habit of retiring to a quiet corner of the gardens after work with our German books. There we would quiz each other for an hour or two a day. We made occasional trips into Paris but, more often than not, we followed a routine in which the bright lights—what few there were—played little part.

At the end of our ten-day “incubation” period, Charlie gave us our instructions. We were to go to Frankfurt by air and from there to Bad Homburg by car. At Bad Homburg we were to report to ECAD headquarters, that is, the European Civil Affairs Division, where we would be issued further orders. As members of a pool of officers attached to ECAD, we could be shifted about from one part of Germany to another.

Charlie told us that he and Colonel Webb would be moving to Frankfurt in a few days as SHAEF Headquarters was soon to be set up there. The MFA&A office would continue to function with a joint British and American staff until the dissolution of SHAEF later in the summer. But that would not take place, he said, until the four zones of occupation had been established.

We left for the airport at six-thirty in the morning. Our French driver asked us which airport we wanted. Craig and I looked at each other in surprise. What field was there besides Orly? The answer was Villacoublay. We had never heard of it, so we said Orly. We couldn’t have been more wrong. When we finally reached Villacoublay we found great confusion. We couldn’t even find out whether our plane had taken off.

After making three attempts to get a coherent answer from the second lieutenant who appeared to be quietly going mad behind the information counter, I gave up.