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

by Thomas Carr Howe

We called on Bancel La Farge and Charlie Kuhn at USFET Headquarters the next morning. We were lucky to find them together. Their office at that time was a kind of house divided against itself. Thanks to the organizational whim of a colonel, Bancel and Charlie had to spend part of the day in the office at the big Farben building—where we found them—and part at their office in Höchst. Höchst was about six miles away. The remnant of the U. S. Group Control Council, which had not yet moved up to Berlin, was located there—in another vast complex of I. G. Farben buildings. It was an exhausting arrangement.

Bancel and Charlie looked tired—and worried too. They seemed glad to see us, but they were preoccupied and upset about something. Presently Charlie showed us a document which had just reached his desk a few days earlier. It was unsigned and undated.

It bore the letterhead “Headquarters U. S. Group Control Council.” The subject was “Art Objects in the U. S. Zone.”[2] In the first paragraph reference was made to the great number and value of the art objects stored in emergency repositories throughout the U. S. Zone. Farther on, the art objects were divided into three classes, according to ownership.

Those in “Class C” were defined as “works of art, placed in the U. S. Zone by Germany for safekeeping, which are the bona fide property of the German nation.”

Concerning the disposition of the works of art thus described, the letter had this to say: “It is not believed that the U. S. would desire the works of art in Class C to be made available for reparations and to be divided among a number of nations. Even if this is to be done, these works of art might well be returned to the U. S. to be inventoried, and cared for by our leading museums.”

The next, and last, sentence contained this extraordinary proposal: “They could be held in trusteeship for return, many years from now, to the German people if and when the German nation had earned the right to their return.”

Clipped to the document was a notation, dated July 29, 1945, bearing the signature of the Chief of Staff of General Lucius D. Clay, Deputy Military Governor. It read, in part, “General Clay states that this paper has been approved by the President for implementation after the close of the current Big 3 Conference.”

We were dumfounded. No wonder Bancel and Charlie were worried. It had never occurred to any of us that German national art treasures would be removed to the United States. After speculating on the possible consequences attendant on an implementation of the document, we dropped the subject. Momentarily there was nothing to do but wait—and hope that the whole matter would be dropped.

By comparison, our personal problems seemed insignificant. But Charlie and Bancel heard us out. They approved our idea of remaining together as a team working out of USFET. I was already permanently assigned to USFET and there were two vacancies on their T.O. (Table of Organization) to which Lamont and Steve could be appointed. The necessary “paper work” took up most of the day and involved a trip to ECAD headquarters at Bad Homburg. At five o’clock we had our new orders.