Am I recording? You are listening to Stuff About Things, an art history podcast. Okay, let's bango. Hello and welcome to Stuff About Things, an Art History Podcast. My name is Lindsay, and I research, writes, and produced each and every one of these episodes, which probably explains their sporadic postings and occasional sound glitches. Oops. Thank you for tuning in to episode 11 of the podcast. Episode 11 is a follow-up to episode 10. Imagine that. In case you haven't listened to it yet, episode 10 focused on Michelangelo's Bruges Madonna. Now, if you are at all interested in learning about the early history of this glorious statue of the Madonna and Child, I would urge you to go have a listen to that episode, because this episode continues our discussion of the Bruges Madonna, specifically the story of the sculpture's theft by the Nazis during World War II, and its subsequent recovery by the individuals commonly known as the Monuments Men. If you have listened to this podcast before or just generally know me in real life, you will know that I love a good story. I love telling stories, I love being told stories, and my favorite works of art are those that tell stories, either in the actual work of art itself and or in the object's history, as with works like the Bamiyan Buddha's or Caravaggio's Taking of Christ. See episodes 7 and 8, respectively. The Bruges Madonna is an excellent example of a work of art that tells a story. See episode 10 for that one. But the sculpture also has a story of its own. In fact, I'm sure it has many stories, but I'm referring to one story in particular. Throughout history, war and art theft have been great friends. There has been a trend throughout history all over the world in which the conquering army of any given war tends to loot art objects from whatever place or people it happens to be conquering. Mind you, wars also tend to come with the massive loss and deliberate destruction of human life, which will always outrank the looting and destruction of art. But this is an art history podcast, so let's keep things topical. The Bruges Madonna, to my knowledge, has been taken as war booty twice. The first time was during the Napoleonic Wars, when the French, led by Napoleon, were putting their grimy little hands on everything. The French took the statue from Bruges in 1794 and brought it to Paris, where it remained for over 20 years until Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. By the next year, the statue had been repatriated, which is to say, had been sent back to its rightful place in Belgium. The statue would remain in Belgium undisturbed for almost 130 years before another group of insecure grabby hands came a collin. I am, of course, referring to what happened to the Bruges Madonna during World War II. Before we start with that story, I first want to acknowledge the source material that I used to write this episode, because I rely quite heavily on three books in particular, and I want to be sure that those authors are acknowledged. The first is the book The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel, which was skyrocketed to fame in 2014 when the movie, which stars Georges Glooney, Matt Damon, and a slew of other famous people, hit theaters. The movie does change the names and some of the storylines of the real life heroes featured in Edel's book, but by Hollywood standards, I thought it was pretty good. The second book is called The Rape of Europa. It was written by Lynn Nicholas, and it too has been given the screen treatment, though this one takes the form of an awesome documentary of the same name that you can watch on several major streaming platforms, and I would definitely recommend it. The third book is Salt Mines and Castles by Thomas Carr Howe Jr., who was himself a monuments man and wrote this book after he got back from the war. The vast majority of the information featured in this episode comes from those sources, though additional links and sources will, as always, be posted on the podcast's website, stuffabout things podcast.com. On with the show. As many of you may already know, the Nazis were massive art thieves. I'm talking me massive art thieves. They put the ass in massive. And if you didn't know that, then don't worry. I shall tell you all about it. You see, a man named Adolf Hitler was a man of the arts. In fact, some people attribute his desire to collect all of the art to his failed attempt at being an artist. He was, of course, rejected from art school. And you know what they say, those who cannot do steal. Or, you know, something like that. There were a few reasons why Hitler and the Nazis stole and looted arts on the scale that they did, which they called safeguarding. Literally, that's what they called what they were doing. They were safeguarding the arts of Europe. Sure, sure. Hitler was also planning an art museum that was going to be the biggest and the best art museum in the whole world, which he planned to build in his hometown of Linz, Austria. It was going to be called the Linz Art Gallery, or more simply the Fuhrer Museum, which in German means the Leader's Museum. This, of course, meant Hitler's Museum. And Hitler wanted to fill this museum, his museum, with the best Nazi-approved art that he could get his hands on. Luckily for everyone who isn't a Nazi, and I would hope that that is everyone listening to this right now, the Germans lost the war, and Hitler's Dream Museum never came to be. During the war, though, the Nazis stole, looted, and in some cases totally ruined tens of thousands of works of art. And this weren't no slap-dash art thievery here. In fact, Hitler had been planning this portion of his world domination for years before the war had even started. He even kept a list of all of the works of art he wanted for himself. In the end, the Nazis stole a crazy impressive amount of art. I mean, the numbers are just insane, as you will hear later. And by the end of the war, they had accumulated many big-ticket, big-named items. These include Leonardo da Vinci's Portrait of a Lady with an Ermine, the Ghent altarpiece, and, of course, the Portrait of Adel Blach Bauer by Gustav Klimpt, all of which will be familiar titles to anyone interested in the topic of art restitution. But these are just a teeny teeny diny sample of the tens of thousands of works of art that the Nazis stole in what is surely the biggest art heist in history. The Nazis stole art from the beginning of the war to the end of it, even when they knew that they were losing. They would take art from museums and churches, as well as confiscate it from Jewish families. Sometimes this confiscation would be literal. They would actually take art from Jewish families or loot it from their homes when they fled. Other times, Jewish families would sell the works of art in their collection for protection or to fund their escape from German-occupied territories. And while that might not be art theft in the literal term, it is still a highly unethical way to procure art. The Nazis hid their looted art in a variety of locations, ranging from castles to salt mines and train cars to underground bunkers. When I say that this was a grand effort, I really do mean that. By the end of the war, in Germany and Austria there were over 1,000 repositories of stolen art, each of which held dozens to hundreds to thousands of works of art. Now, at first the Germans hid this art away to keep it safe, with the intention of moving it to, you know, wherever Hitler told them to once the war was over. But once it became apparent that Germany was losing the war, the Nazis continued to loot and hide art in order to keep it safe, and I know this isn't great for an audio podcast, but I'm doing air quotes here. Safe from the Allied forces who were slowly but surely retaking parts of occupied Europe. At one point, Hitler even issued what's called a Nero decree, which ordered soldiers in charge of each art repository to destroy the art rather than let it fall into the hands of Allied soldiers. Yes, that was Hitler's idea of safe. Classic Nazi toddler. If he can't have it, nobody can. Case in point, the Bruges Madonna. By 1944, it was clear that Germany was losing the war. Allied forces were quickly moving in, having liberated Paris from Nazi control in mid-August of that year. And the Germans knew that the next place that the Allied soldiers would go is into Belgium, which Germany had occupied from 1940 to 1944. Throughout the German occupation of Belgium, the Bruges Madonna remained in the Church of Our Lady. According to Lynn Nicholas, the author of The Rape of Europa, which is an excellent book, Michelangelo's statue was one of the few prized works of art that the Germans left on display rather than packed away. The Germans had wanted to be able to see and appreciate the statue while they were occupying the city. Eventually, though, the statue had to be moved from its place in the church to a small shelter that the Germans had made specifically for it on the church premises somewhere. A few nights before the Germans officially pulled out of Belgium, the man in charge of all of the Belgian art stuff, Dr. Heinz Rudolf Rosamond, visited the sculpture in the night. He told the priest that he had wanted to see it one last time before leaving Belgium. Almost as an afterthought, Rosamond also asked the soldiers in the vicinity to bring mattresses into the shelter before they left, which, okay. His official reasoning was that these mattresses would protect the statue in case of any Allied bombings that might hit the city. Which, I mean, bomb versus marble, mattresses aren't really gonna do anything. Though, to be fair, better than nothing. In truth, though, Rosamond wasn't attempting to protect the statue. He was preparing to steal it. In the middle of the night, a few days later, several German soldiers and their guards arrived with orders to take the statue. They claimed that they were taking it in order to protect it from, quote, American Jews. Okay. The truth of things is that these men arrived in the dead of night, wrapped the statue in dirty mattresses, and loaded it onto a Red Cross truck headed for the port. They had done snatched the Madonna. Mind you, this makes it sound really quick and easy, but the Bruges Madonna literally weighs hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds, given that Carrara marble, which the statue is made out of, weighs something like 175 pounds per square foot. So even though the sculpture isn't life size, it's still insanely heavy. And these German yokels just wrapped it in a mattress and loaded it into a truck and then put it on a damn boat. They didn't care. And according to reports about this boat's journey, it was a rough one. So not only is it miraculous that the Bruges Madonna's head didn't break off when the Germans stole her from the church, it is doubly miraculous that the statue didn't end up at the bottom of the damn ocean. I mean, geez. The morning after the Germans retreated from Bruges, the Bishop of Bruges received a letter from a German officer. In it, the officer explained that the Germans had taken the Bruges Madonna in the name of preserving it not only for the Third Reich, but the Catholic Church. And according to the soldier, during the snatching, all of the soldiers remained highly respectful of the house of God. Yeah, um, I might have missed that Bible verse that talks about covert night missions to steal things from churches and the wrapping of altarpieces and dirty mattresses. But it has been a while since I've voluntarily touched a Bible, so I might be rusty. The details from here on out are a little hazy, but at some point the boat carrying the Bruges Madonna did dock somewhere. And from that somewhere, the sculpture made the journey all of the way to Austria, specifically the Kaiser Josef Saltmine in Althause, Austria, which is about 150 miles southeast of Munich, Germany. We aren't sure exactly how long that journey took in its entirety, but what we do know is that the Nazis stole the Bruges Madonna from Belgium the night of September 7, 1944, and just eight days later, one of the monumentsmen arrived in Bruges. That brings us to the good guys in our story. The monumentsmen, the men of the hour. First, some background. The monumentsmen is a general and somewhat misleading term used to describe a group of men and women who were part of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Program, also known as the MFAA. These were individuals from all over, but predominantly from the USA and the UK, who volunteered their services in the war with the goal of preserving as much arts and architecture as they possibly could. Mind you, their job wasn't just tracking down Nazi loot. It was also the MFAA's job to go to bombed-out cities like Palermo and Naples, where they would try to save whatever arts and architecture they could from the ruins of the city. In the United States, the group that we know as the Monuments Men officially started in 1943, though the impetus for the group began a few years before that in 1941, when a bunch of individuals from important museums, and I am talking important museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, the Museum of Modern Art, etc., etc., came together to discuss the devastation that Nazi bombings were inflicting on the arts and architecture of Europe. One of the individuals that was a part of that group was George Stout, the conservator for the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Stout had many friends and colleagues in the museum profession in Europe, so he knew just how dire the situation was when it came to bombings, looting, and all of the things that come along with war. Stout was called into active duty in 1943, but he wasn't called to fight, not in the way that we might think of it anyway. Stout was asked to join the MFAA and to use his skills as a conservator and his experience as a World War I veteran to supervise aspects of the program's mission statement, which was to assess and document the damage, recover stolen works, and preserve what could be preserved. Robert Edzel, who wrote the book The Monuments Men, called the MFAA a remarkable experiment. He further stated that the creation of the MFAA marked the first time that an army fought a war while actively attempting to inflict as little harm as possible to cultural monuments. These efforts are made all of the more extraordinary when one considers that the monumentsmen did not have adequate transportation, supplies, personnel, or historical precedent to illustrate how something like this should be done. And that's all from page 3 of the Monumentsmen. Speaking of the Monumentsmen, the Monumentsmen is a term that could be used to describe any and all members of the MFAA, of which there were a few hundred scattered throughout Western Europe. The most well-known of the monumentsmen, thanks to Robert Edzel's book, is a group of eleven men led by George Stout, who carried out a great deal of work in France, Germany, and Austria, and therefore who were instrumental in finding and returning hordes of art stolen by the Nazis. This group included a man named Ronald Balfour, who was a British historian of medieval art. It was Balfour who arrived in Bruges in September of 1944. In the city, he talked to the Dean of the Church of Our Lady, who recounted the story of the Germans taking the Bruges Madonna in the dead of night just eight days before. Balfour had missed the Madonna by just over a week. At that moment, it became Balfour's primary objective of the war, to locate and recover the Bruges Madonna. Balfour's friend and colleague George Stout, as well as all of the other nine men in their group, would join him in his efforts to find the Madonna and return her to Bruges. Hundreds of miles away in Altause, Austria, the Bruges Madonna joined one of the biggest repositories of stolen Nazi art during the war. Of all of the places that the Nazis hid art during the war, a salt mine was one of the better locations to put some of Europe's greatest art treasures, given that the walls of the mine, which were, you know, made of salt, absorbed excess moisture from the air, providing a natural regulation of humidity. In fact, the temperature of the mine only ever oscillated by about seven degrees throughout the year. So apart from a temperature-controlled museum, and did they even have those in 1944? The salt mine was the next best place to put these works of art. Unfortunately, the mine also contained something else. Bombs. In fact, it contained several bombs, each one of which weighed hundreds of pounds. Remember, that was Hitler's backup plan. If at any point it appeared that the Nazis might lose control of the mines, he wanted his soldiers to blow the mine up. The Allied soldiers were not to get the art under any circumstances. As I said before, classic Nazi toddler. But Hitler wasn't playing chicken, and neither were his minions. The person in charge of what happened at Altause, August Eigruber, was not playing at all. He very much intended to blow up the mine if the Allied soldiers threatened to breach German defenses. Thankfully, there was someone who wasn't a complete psycho on the books, and that was Albert Speer, who managed to convince Hitler to let up on that Nero decree. Instead of going total scorched earth, Speer convinced Hitler that it was better to not destroy the mine completely, but to make the mine inaccessible. That way the art is at once saved from total destruction, which is a positive, as well as cut off from the Allied soldiers, which, if you're a Nazi, was also a positive. And Hitler was like, hey, that's not a bad idea. But Eigruber was like, Bita nicht. Hell no. Because he was an Arschloch, just like all of the rest of them. You can look that one up on your own. It's a slightly worse word than Budhead. According to Edzel's book, when the director of the Althause Saltmine went to confront Eigruber and convince him that Hitler's new policy was best, Eigruber remained staunch in his decision that the mine was going to blow the hell up. He even allegedly said that he would personally come and throw grenades into the mine himself. So yeah, not a great guy. Albert Speer, on the other hand, would go down in history as the guy who stopped Hitler from destroying thousands of works of art. He would also be known as the Nazi who said sorry, and one of the few to escape execution at Nuremberg, though he did claim to be totally ignorant of the Holocaust, which, hmm, but don't worry, he got 20 years in prison. Thankfully, some people at Al Tause came to their senses, at least in terms of artwork plus explosive equals boom. And they disregarded Eigruber's orders to blow up the mine if and when. The German soldiers retreated from Altause. These men had a different idea, one that could potentially save all of the works of art inside the mine. The first step was removing the massive bombs from inside of the mine. Check! Then workers began to set up charges at each entrance to the mine's tunnels, and then, early in the morning one day, someone flipped the switch. This set off a series of controlled detonations all around the mine's exterior, which sealed the treasure inside of the mine. After their work was done, the Germans began to retreat. Seven days later, the monument's men arrived in Altauze. Despite all of the people who told them that the mine was done, that anything inside had to be lost, that they had heard the explosions, the monument's men found a way to enter the mine, and they were rewarded for their efforts, rewarded beyond their wildest dreams. After working for about a day, workers had managed to clear enough of a hole for two of the monument's men to slip through, Robert Posey and Lincoln Kirstein. When they entered the mine and their eyes adjusted to the darkness, one of the first artworks that they saw was the Ghent altarpiece. And I know that I've mentioned the Ghent altarpiece before, but let me reiterate, the Ghent altarpiece is one of the greatest paintings, not just in Belgium, not just in Europe, but in the whole freaking world. And no, that's not just a personal opinion, though I do like the Ghent altarpiece. I think a lot of people would agree with me on that. Posey and Kirstein continued their way through the maze of the mine, and several hours later they entered one of the caves and saw something that appeared to glow white in the darkness. The Bruges Madonna lay before them on the same dirty mattress that had encased her when the Nazis fled with her from Belgium. In his book Castles and Salt Mines, the monument's man Thomas Carhau Jr., who was there that day in Altause, wrote about finding the Madonna, and I am quoting him here. The light of our lamps played over the soft folds of the Madonna's robe, the delicate modeling of her face. Her grave eyes looked down, seemed only half aware of the sturdy child nestling close against her, one hand held firmly in hers. The first thing that Kirstein, Posey, and Howe did when they exited the mine was to put in a call immediately. They had to get George Stout to Altause as soon as possible. According to Edzel, Stout's first task when he arrived at Altaus was to do an inventory of all of the works inside of the mine. Now this inventory blew my mind. The final inventory includes but is not limited to 6,577 paintings, 230 drawings, 954 prints, 129 pieces of armor, 122 tapestries, and 137 pieces of sculpture. The Bruges Madonna was a drop in the bucket. But oh my god, what a drop she was. In the weeks that followed, the monument's men had the incredible task of emptying the mine. Now I can only imagine what kind of effort this took. George Stout and a colleague spent several days alone on the evacuation of the Bruges Madonna, which they wrapped so securely that in Howe's words, it looked like a trust ham. Stout used a rope and pulley system to get the sculpture out of the mine and eventually onto a truck, which was destined for Munich, Germany, where a collection point had been set up. The monuments men and the workers at the mine made sure to get the Bruges Madonna and the Ghent altarpiece to that collecting point. The rest was up to Belgian officials who had to come and get their girl. The Bruges Madonna returned to Bruges with much fanfare in November of 1945. After over a year away, she was finally home. Speaking of homecomings, George Stout and most of his men made it home from the war, but at least one member of the monument's men did not. Ronald Balfour, the man who had arrived in Bruges just eight days after the Germans had stolen the Bruges Madonna. Balfour had made it his mission to see the Bruges Madonna returned to its home. Unfortunately, Balfour died in a shell burst in Germany in March of 1945. He was only 41 years old. A few months later, his fellow monuments men would find and recover the Bruges Madonna in that salt mine in Austria. The Bruges Madonna would make it home, but Ronald Balfour would not. The Bruges Madonna, to my knowledge, has only left Belgium one other time since World War II. In 1952, the Bruges Madonna returned to Florence, Italy for the first time in 446 years. The sculpture was on a short-term loan to the Bargello Museum, where people could come and marvel at one of Michelangelo's most beautiful creations. In return, Italy lent Belgium a work called the Portonari Altarpiece by the artist Hugo van der Goges, who was one of the greatest painters of the Northern Renaissance. The Portonari altarpiece is often mentioned as a foil to the Bruges Madonna, given that a Belgian artist, van der Goges, had made the altarpiece for an Italian family in the late 15th century. The altarpiece sailed from Belgium to Italy, where it remained for hundreds of years. When these exhibitions were over, each work of art was returned from its place of origin to its respective home. An Italian sculpture to Belgium, and a Belgian painting to Italy. But that's a story for a different day. And that, my friends, is all that I have for you on the Bruges Madonna. I encourage you to go to the podcast's website, Stuff About Things, Podcast.com, for all of the sources, images, and links related to today's episode. I especially encourage you to check it out this week because many of the images are actually photographs that document the recovery of the Bruges Madonna in 1945. Take my word for it, they are fascinating. So please go look at those. As for Gus Corner this week, I am finishing the writing of this podcast at 11 30 p.m. on a Thursday night. And Gus the Dog is snoozing right by the fire, about five feet away from me, just snoring away. And it's time for both of us to go to bed. Just because he's sleepy though, doesn't mean he's not sassy. And yes, he is still getting into things that he shouldn't be. And no, I'm not talking about our garbage, which he does love. This week, Gus took a different turn. Instead of invading famous works of art, Gus somehow has time traveled and became, to what is my knowledge, the only monuments dog. He can be seen helping with the recovery of the Bruges Madonna, the Ghent altarpiece, as well as a work by Edward Manet. He also got a little bit cheeky, and he stole Matt Damon's spot in the Monuments Men poster. I formally apologize to Matt Damon on Gus's behalf. Head on over to the website or the Facebook page to see those images. As for moi, I have already picked the subject for the next episode, and I will give you a hint. It is my favorite church that I have ever had the privilege of visiting. Ugh, intrigue. That episode will be up in about two weeks. Thank you so much for listening to episode 11 of the podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on iTunes, and as always, feel free to drop me a message through the website or the podcast email. Stuff about things podcast at gmail.com. I love hearing from listeners, it makes my day, and I will always reply. The usual thanks goes to hooksounds.com and freemusicarchive.org for the music used in the opening and closing of the podcast, which are Kevin McLeod's version of Box Brandenburg Concerto number four and a song called Success Dreams. That is where I will leave you for this episode. Thank you so much for listening, and as always, I hope that you take the time to look at something beautiful today. A la próxima, Michi! Das ist keine Schlechter Ida. Bye.