Chapter III: Part 3

The officers’ dining room that evening was a noisy place. The clatter of knives and forks and the babble of voices mingled with the rasping strains of popular American tunes pounded out by a Bavarian band. As we were about to sit down, the music stopped abruptly and a second later struck up the current favorite, “My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time.” Colonel Charles Keegan, the commanding officer, had entered the dining hall. I was puzzled by this until Ham told me that it happened every night. This particular piece was the colonel’s favorite tune and he had ordered it to be played whenever he came in to dinner. The colonel was a colorful character—short and florid, with a shock of white hair. He had figured prominently in New York politics and would again, it was said. He had already helped Craig over a couple of rough spots and if some of his antics amused the MFA&A boys, they seemed to be genuinely fond of him.

While we were at dinner, three officers came and took their places at a near-by table. Craig identified one of them as Captain Posey. I had been told that he was in his middle thirties, but he looked younger than that. He had a boyish face and I noticed that he laughed a great deal as he talked with his two companions. When he wasn’t smiling, there was a stubborn expression about his mouth, and I remembered that Lincoln had said something about his “deceptively gentle manner.” On our way out I introduced myself to him. He was very affable and seemed pleased at my arrival. But he was tired after the long drive from Frankfurt, so, as soon as I had arranged to meet him at his office the next day, I joined Ham and Craig back at the apartment.

I got out to Third Army Headquarters early the following morning and found Captain Posey already at his desk, going through the papers which had accumulated during his absence. We discussed George’s letter at considerable length, and I was disappointed to find that he did not intend to act on it at once. Somehow it had never occurred to me that anyone would question a proposal of George’s.

For one thing, Captain Posey said, he couldn’t spare Lincoln; and for another, there was a very pressing job much nearer Munich which he wanted me to handle. He then proceeded to tell me of a small village on the road to Salzburg where I would find a house in which were stored some eighty cases of paintings and sculpture from the Budapest Museum. He showed me the place on the map and explained how I was to go about locating the exact house upon arrival. I was to see a certain officer at Third Army Headquarters without delay and make arrangements for trucks. He thought I would need about five. It shouldn’t take more than half a day to do the job if all went well. After this preliminary briefing, I was on my own.

My first move was to get hold of the officer about the trucks. How many did I need? When did I want them and where should he tell them to report? I said I’d like to have five trucks at the Königsplatz the following morning at eight-thirty. The officer explained that the drivers would be French, as Third Army was using a number of foreign trucking companies to relieve the existing shortage in transportation.

Later in the day I had a talk with Lincoln about my plans and he gave me a piece of advice which proved exceedingly valuable—that I should go myself to the trucking company which was to provide the vehicles, and personally confirm the arrangements. So, after lunch I struck out in a jeep for the west side of Munich, a distance of some seven or eight miles.

I found a lieutenant, who had charge of the outfit, and explained the purpose of my visit. He had not been notified of the order for five trucks. There was no telephone communication between his office and headquarters, so all messages had to come by courier, and the courier hadn’t come in that day. He was afraid he couldn’t let me have any trucks before the following afternoon. I insisted that the matter was urgent and couldn’t wait, and, after much deliberating and consulting of charts, he relented. I told him a little something about the expedition for which I wanted the trucks and he showed real interest. He suggested that I ought to have extremely careful drivers. I replied that I should indeed, as we would be hauling stuff of incalculable value.

Thereupon he gave me a harrowing description of the group under his supervision. All of them had been members of the French Resistance Movement—ex-terrorists he called them—and they weren’t afraid of God, man or the Devil. Well, I thought, isn’t that comforting! “Oh, yes,” he said, “these Frenchies drive like crazy men. But,” he continued, “one of the fellows has got some sense. I’ll see if I can get him for you.” He went over to the window that looked out on a parking ground littered with vehicles of various kinds. Here and there I saw a mechanic bent over an open hood or sprawled out beneath a truck. The lieutenant bellowed, “Leclancher, come up here to my office!”

A few seconds later a wiry, sandy-haired Frenchman of about forty-five appeared in the doorway. Leclancher understood some English, for he reacted with alert nods of the head as the lieutenant gave a brief description of the job ahead, and then turned and asked me if I spoke French. I told him I did, if he had enough patience. This struck him as inordinately funny, but I was being quite serious. What really pleased him was the fact that I was in the Navy. He said that he had been in the Navy during the first World War. Then and there a lasting bond was formed, though I didn’t appreciate the value of it at the time.

Eight-thirty the next morning found me pacing the Königsplatz. Not a truck in sight. Nine o’clock and still no trucks. At nine thirty, one truck rolled up. Leclancher leaped out and with profuse apologies explained that the other four were having carburetor trouble. There had been water in the gas, too, and that hadn’t helped. For an hour Leclancher and I idled about, whiling away the time with conversation of no consequence, other than that it served to limber up my French. At eleven o’clock Leclancher looked at his watch and said that it would soon be time for lunch. It was obvious that he understood the Army’s conception of a day as a brief span of time, in the course of which one eats three meals. If it is not possible to finish a given job during the short pauses between those meals, well, there’s always the next day. I told him to go to his lunch and to come back as soon as he could round up the other trucks. In the meantime I would get something to eat near by.

When I returned shortly after eleven thirty—having eaten a K ration under the portico of the Verwaltungsbau in lieu of a more formal lunch—my five trucks were lined up ready to go. I appointed Leclancher “chef de convoi”—a rather high-sounding title for such a modest caravan—and he assigned positions to the other drivers, taking the end truck himself. Since my jeep failed to arrive, I climbed into the lead truck. The driver was an amiable youngster whose name was Roger Roget. During the next few weeks he was the lead driver in all of my expeditions, and I took to calling him “Double Roger,” which I think he never quite understood.

To add to my anxiety over our belated start, a light rain began to fall as we pulled out of the Königsplatz and turned into the Brienner-Strasse. We threaded our way cautiously through the slippery streets choked with military traffic, crossed the bridge over the Isar and swung into the broad Rosenheimer-Strasse leading to the east.

Once on the Autobahn, Roger speeded up. The speedometer needle quivered up to thirty-five, forty and finally forty-five miles an hour. I pointed to it, shaking my head. “We must not exceed thirty-five, Roger.”

He promptly slowed down, and as we rolled along, I forgot the worries of the morning. I dozed comfortably. Suddenly we struck an unexpected hole in the road and I woke up. We were doing fifty. This time I spoke sharply, reminding Roger that the speed limit was thirty-five and that we were to stay within it; if we didn’t we’d be arrested, because the road was well patrolled. With a tolerant grin Roger said, “Oh, no, we never get arrested. The MPs, they stop us and get very angry, but—” with a shrug of the shoulders—“we do not understand. They throw the hands up in the air and say ‘dumb Frenchies’ and we go ahead.”

“That may work with you,” I said crossly, “but what about me? I’m not a ‘dumb Frenchy.’”

For the next hour I pretended to doze and at the same time kept an eye on the speedometer. This worked pretty well. Now and again I would look up, and each time, Roger would modify his speed.

Presently we came to a bad detour, where a bridge was out. We had to make a sharp turn to the left, leave the Autobahn and descend a steep and tortuous side road into a deep ravine. That day the narrow road was slippery from the rain, so we had to crawl along. The drop into the valley was a matter of two or three hundred feet and, as we reached the bottom, we could see the monstrous wreckage of the bridge hanging drunkenly in mid-air. The ascent was even more precarious, but our five trucks got through.

We had now left the level country around Munich and were in a region of rolling hills. Along the horizon, gray clouds half concealed the distant peaks. Soon the rain stopped and the sun came out. The mountains changed to misty blue against an even bluer sky. The road rose sharply, and when we reached the crest, I caught a glimpse of shimmering water. It was Chiemsee, largest of the Bavarian lakes.

In another ten minutes the road flattened out again and we came to the turnoff marked “Prien.” There we left the Autobahn for a narrow side road which took us across green meadows. Nothing could have looked more peaceful than this lush, summer countryside. Reports of SS troops still hiding out in the near-by forests seemed preposterous in the pastoral tranquillity. Yet only a few days before, our troops had rounded up a small band of these die-hards in this neighborhood. The SS men had come down from the foothills on a foraging expedition and had been captured while attempting to raid a farmhouse. It was because of just such incidents, as well as the ever-present fire hazard, that I had been sent down to remove the museum treasures to a place of safety.

The road was dwindling away to a cow path and I was beginning to wonder how much farther we could go with our two-and-a-half-ton trucks, when we came to a small cluster of houses. This was Grassau. I had been told that a small detachment of troops was billeted there, so I singled out the largest of the little white houses grouped around the only crossroads in the village. It had clouded over and begun to rain again. As I entered the gate and was crossing the yard, the door of the house was opened by a corporal.

He didn’t seem surprised to see me. Someone at Munich had sent down word to Prien that I was coming, and the message had reached him from there. I asked if he knew where the things I had come for were stored. He motioned to the back of the house and said there were two rooms full of big packing cases. He explained that he and one other man had been detailed to live in the house because of the “stuff” stored there. They had been instructed to keep an eye on the old man who claimed to be responsible for it. That would be Dr. Csanky, director of the Budapest Museum, who, according to my information, would probably raise unqualified hell when I came to cart away his precious cases. The corporal told me that the old man and his son occupied rooms on the second floor.

I was relieved to hear that they were not at home. It would make things much simpler if I could get my trucks loaded and be on my way before they returned. It was already well after two and I wanted to start back by five at the latest. I asked rather tentatively about the chances of getting local talent to help with the loading, and the corporal promptly offered to corral a gang of PWs who were working under guard near by.

While he went off to see about that, I marshaled my trucks. There was enough room to back one truck at a time to the door of the house. A few minutes later the motley “work party” arrived. There were eight of them in all and they ranged from a young fellow of sixteen, wearing a faded German uniform, to a reedy old man of sixty. By and large, they looked husky enough for the job.

I knew enough not to ask my drivers to help, but knew that the work would go much faster if they would lend a hand. Leclancher must have read my thoughts, for he immediately offered his services. As soon as the other four saw what Leclancher was doing, they followed suit.

There were eighty-one cases in all. They varied greatly in size, because some of them contained sculpture and, consequently, were both bulky and heavy. Others, built for big canvases, were very large and flat but relatively light. We had to “design” our loads in such a way as to keep cases of approximately the same type together. This was necessary for two reasons: first, the cases would ride better that way, and second, we hadn’t any too much space. As I roughly figured it, we should be able to get them all in the five trucks, but we couldn’t afford to be prodigal in our loading.

The work went along smoothly for an hour and we were just finishing the second truck when I saw two men approaching. They were Dr. Csanky and his son. This was what I had hoped to avoid. The doctor was a dapper little fellow with a white mustache and very black eyes. He was wearing a corduroy jacket and a flowing bow tie. The artistic effect was topped off by a beret set at a jaunty angle. His son was a callow string bean with objectionably soulful eyes magnified by horn-rimmed spectacles. They came over to the truck and began to jabber and wave their arms. We paid no attention whatever—just kept on methodically lifting one case after another out of the storage room.

The dapper doctor got squarely in my path and I had to stop. I checked his flow of words with a none too civil “Do you speak English?” That drew a blank, so I asked if he spoke German. No luck there either. Feeling like an ad for the Berlitz School, I inquired whether he spoke French. He said “Yes,” but the stream of Hungarian-French which rolled out from that white mustache was unintelligible. It was hopeless. At last I simply had to take him by the shoulders and gently but firmly set him aside. This was the ultimate indignity, but it worked. At that juncture he and the string bean took off. I didn’t know what they were up to and I didn’t care, so long as they left us alone.

Our respite was short-lived. By the time we had the third truck ready to move away, they were back. And they had come with reinforcements: two women were with them. One was a rather handsome dowager who looked out of place in this rural setting. Her gray hair, piled high, was held in place by a scarlet bandanna, and she was wearing a shabby dress of green silk. Despite this getup, there was something rather commanding about her. She introduced herself as the wife of General Ellenlittay and explained in perfect English that Dr. Csanky had come to her in great distress. Would I be so kind as to tell her what was happening so that she could inform him?

“I am removing these cases on the authority of the Commanding General of the Third United States Army,” I said. If she were going to throw generals’ names around, I could produce one too—and a better one at that.

Her response to my pompous pronouncement was delivered charmingly and with calculated deflationary effect. “Dear sir, forgive me if I seemed to question your authority. That was not my intention. It is quite apparent that you are removing the pictures, but where are you taking them?”

“I am sorry, but I am not at liberty to say,” I replied. That too sounded rather lordly, but I consoled myself by recalling that Posey had admonished me not to answer questions like that.

She relayed this information to Dr. Csanky and the effect was startling. He covered his face with his hands and I thought he was going to cry. Finally he pulled himself together and let forth a flood of unintelligible consonants. His interpreter tackled me again.

“Dr. Csanky is frantic. He says that he is responsible to his government for the safety of these treasures and since you are taking them away, there is nothing left for him to do but to blow his brains out.”

My patience was exhausted. I said savagely, “Tell Dr. Csanky for me that he can blow his brains out if he chooses, but I think it would be silly. If you must know, Madame, I am a museum director myself and you can assure him that no harm is going to come to his precious pictures.”

I should never have mentioned that I had even so much as been inside a museum, for, from that moment until we finished loading the last truck, the little doctor never left my side. I was his “cher collègue,” and he kept up a steady barrage of questions which the patient Madame Ellenlittay tried to pass along to me without interrupting our work.

As we lined the trucks up, preparatory to starting back to Munich, Dr. Csanky produced several long lists of what the cases contained. He asked me to sign them. This I refused to do but explained to him through the general’s wife that if he cared to have the lists translated from Hungarian and forwarded to Third Army Headquarters, they could be checked against the contents and eventually returned to him with a notation to that effect.

Our little convoy rolled out of Grassau at six o’clock, leaving the group of Hungarians waving forlornly from the corner. Just before we turned onto the Autobahn, Leclancher signaled from the rear truck for us to stop. He came panting up to the lead truck with a bottle in his hand. With a gallant wave of the arm he said that we must drink to the success of the expedition. It was a bottle of Calvados—fiery and wonderful. We each took a generous swig and then—with a rowdy “en voiture!”—we were on our way again. It was a nice gesture.

The trip back to Munich was uneventful except for the extraordinary beauty of the long summer evening. The sunset had all the extravagance of the tropics. The sky blazed with opalescent clouds. As we drove into Munich, the whole city was suffused with a coral light which produced a more authentic atmosphere of Götterdämmerung than the most ingenious stage Merlin could have contrived.

It was nearly nine when we rolled into the parking area behind the Führerbau—too late to think about unloading and also, I was afraid, too late to get any supper. We had pieced out with K rations and candy bars, but were still hungry. A mess sergeant, lolling on the steps of the building, reluctantly produced some lukewarm stew. After we had eaten, I prevailed on one of the building guards to take my five drivers out to their billets south of town. It was Saturday night. I told Leclancher we would probably be making a longer trip on Monday and that I would need ten drivers. He promised to select five more good men, and we arranged to meet in the square as we had that morning. But Monday, he promised, they would be on time.

After checking the tarpaulins on my five trucks, I sauntered over to the Central Collecting Point on the off-chance that Craig might be working late. I found him looking at some of the pictures which George had sent in that day from the mine. The German packers whom Craig had been able to hire from one of the old established firms in Munich—one which had worked exclusively for the museums there—had finished unloading the trucks only a couple of hours earlier. Most of the things in this shipment had been found at the mine, so now the pictures were stacked according to size in neat rows about the room. In one of them we found two brilliant portraits by Mme. Vigée-Lebrun. Labels on the front identified them as the likenesses of Prince Schuvalov and of the Princess Golowine. Marks on the back indicated that they were from the Lanckoroncki Collection in Vienna, one of the most famous art collections in Europe. Hitler was rumored to have acquired it en bloc—through forced sale, it was said—for the great museum he planned to build at Linz. In another stack we came upon a superb Rubens landscape, a fine portrait by Hals and two sparkling allegorical scenes by Tiepolo. These had no identifying labels other than the numbers which referred to lists we didn’t have at the moment. However, Craig said that the documentation on the pictures, as a whole, was surprisingly complete. Then we ran into a lot of nineteenth century German masters—Lenbach, Spitzweg, Thoma and the like. These Hitler had particularly admired, but they didn’t thrill me. I was getting sleepy and suggested that we had had enough art for one day. I still had a report of the day’s doings to write up for Captain Posey before I could turn in, so we padlocked the room and took off.

Even though the next day was Sunday, it was not a day of rest for me. The trek to Hohenfurth, scheduled for Monday, involved infinitely more complicated preliminary arrangements than the easy run of yesterday. Captain Posey got out maps of the area into which the convoy would be traveling; gave me the names of specific outfits from whom I would have to obtain clearance as well as escorts along the way; and, most important of all, supplied information concerning the material to be transported. None of it, I learned, was cased. He thought it consisted mainly of paintings, but there was probably also some furniture. This wasn’t too definite. Nor did we have a very clear idea as to the exact number of trucks we would need. I had spoken for ten on the theory that a larger number would make too cumbersome a convoy. At least I didn’t want to be responsible for more at that stage of the game, inexperienced as I was. In the circumstances, two seasoned packers might, I thought, come in handy, so I was to see if I could borrow a couple of Craig’s men. There was the problem of rations for the trip up and back. Posey procured a big supply of C rations, not so good as the K’s, but they would do. While at Hohenfurth we would be fed by the American outfit stationed there. It was a good thing that there was so much to be arranged, because it kept me from worrying about a lot of things that could and many that did happen on that amazing expedition.

In the afternoon I went out to make sure of my trucks and on the way back put in a bid for the two packers. My request wasn’t very popular, because Craig was shorthanded, but he thought he could spare two since it was to be only a three-day trip—one day to go up, one day at Hohenfurth, and then back the third day. Craig gloomily predicted that I’d never get ten trucks loaded in one day, but I airily tossed that off with the argument that we had loaded five trucks at Grassau in less than four hours. “But that stuff was all in cases,” he said. “You’ll find it slow going with loose pictures.” Of course he was right, but I didn’t believe it at the time.

(4)

_MASTERPIECES IN A MONASTERY_

We woke up to faultless weather the following morning, and on the way down to the Königsplatz with Craig I was in an offensively optimistic frame of mind. All ten of my trucks were there. This was more like it—no tiresome mechanical delays. We were all set to go. Leclancher had even had the foresight to bring along an extra driver, just in case anything happened to one of the ten. That was a smart idea and I congratulated him for having thought of it.

It wasn’t till I started distributing the rations that I discovered our two packers were missing. But that shouldn’t take long to straighten out. Craig’s office was just across the way. I found them cooling their heels in the anteroom. They looked as though they had come right out of an Arthur Rackham illustration—stocky little fellows with gnarled hands and wizened faces as leathery as the _Lederhosen_ they were wearing. Each wore a coal-scuttle hat with a jaunty feather, and each had a bulging bandanna attached to the end of a stick. There was much bowing and scraping. The hats were doffed and there was the familiar “Grüss Gott, Herr Kapitän,” when I walked in.

Craig appeared and explained the difficulty. Until the last minute, no one had thought to ask whether the men had obtained a Military Government permit to leave the area—and of course they hadn’t. With all due respect to the workings of Military Government, I knew that it would take hours, even days, to obtain the permits. So, what to do? I asked Craig what would happen if they went without them. He didn’t know. But if anyone found out about it, there would be trouble. I didn’t see any reason why anyone should find out about it. The men would be in my charge and I said I’d assume all responsibility.

Meanwhile the two Rackham characters were shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, looking first at Craig and then at me, without the faintest idea what the fuss was all about. Craig reluctantly left it up to me. Not wanting to waste any more time, I told the little fellows that everything was “in Ordnung” and bundled them off to the waiting trucks.

Again our way led out to the east, the same road we had taken two days before; and again I was perched up in the lead truck with Double Roger. The country was more beautiful than ever in the morning sunlight. We skirted the edge of Chiemsee and sped on through Traunstein. The mountains loomed closer, their crests gleaming with snow. Roger commented that it was “_la neige éternelle_,” and I was struck by the unconscious poetry of the phrase.

To save time we ate our midday rations en route, pulling off to one side of the Autobahn in the neighborhood of Bad Reichenhall. Farther on we came to a fork in the highway. A sign to the right pointed temptingly to Berchtesgaden, only thirty kilometers away. But our road was the one to the left—to Salzburg. In another few minutes we saw its picturesque fortress, outlined against the sky, high above the town.

I had to make some inquiries in Salzburg. Not knowing the exact location of the headquarters where I could obtain the information I needed, I thought it prudent to park the convoy on the outskirts and go on ahead with a single truck. It probably wasn’t going to be any too easy, even with exact directions, to get all ten of them through the narrow streets, across the river and out the other side. This was where a jeep would have come in handy. I had been a fool not to insist on having one for this trip.

Leclancher asked if he might go along with Roger and me. The three of us drove off, leaving the other nine drivers and the two little packers to take their ease in the warm meadow beside which we had halted. It was about three miles into the center of town and the road was full of confusing turns. But on the whole it was well marked with Army signs. Before the end of the summer I became reasonably proficient in translating the cabalistic symbols on these markers, but at that time I was hopelessly untutored and neither of my companions was any help. After driving through endless gray archways and being soundly rebuked by the MPs for going the wrong direction on several one-way streets, we found ourselves in a broad square paved with cobblestones. It was the Mozartplatz.

The lieutenant colonel I was supposed to see had his office in one of the dove-colored buildings facing the square. It was a big, high-ceilinged room with graceful rococo decorations along the walls and a delicate prism chandelier in the center. I asked the colonel for clearance to proceed to Linz with my convoy. After I had explained the purpose of my trip to Hohenfurth, he offered to expedite the additional clearance I would need beyond Linz.

He rang up the headquarters of the 65th Infantry Division which was stationed there. In a few minutes everything had been arranged. The colonel at the other end of the line said that he would send one of his officers to the outskirts of the city to conduct us to his headquarters on our arrival. There would be no difficulty about billets. He would also take care of our clearance across the Czechoslovakian border the following day. I thanked the colonel and hurried down to rejoin Leclancher and Roger.

Since the proposed Autobahn to Linz had never been finished, we had to take a secondary highway east of Salzburg. Our road led through gently rolling country with mountains in the distance. I was grateful for the succession of villages along the way. They were a relief after the monotony of the Autobahn and also served to control the speed of the convoy. We wound through streets so narrow that one could have reached out and touched the potted geraniums which lined the balconies of the cottages on either side. Laughing, towheaded children waved from the doorways as we passed by. Roger, intent on his driving, didn’t respond to the exuberance of the youngsters, and I wondered if he might be thinking of the villages of his own country, where the invaders had left a bitter legacy of wan faces.

It was after seven when we reached the battered outskirts of Linz, the city of Hitler’s special adoration. He had lavished his attention on the provincial old town, his mother’s birthplace, hoping to make it a serious rival of Vienna as an art center. To this end, plans for a magnificent museum had been drawn up, and already an impressive collection of pictures had been assembled against the day when a suitable building would be ready to receive them.

We approached the city from the west—its most damaged sector. It was rough going, as the streets were full of chuckholes and narrowed by piles of rubble heaped high on both sides. There was no sign of an escort, so we drew up beside an information post at a main intersection. Our cavalcade was too large to miss, as long as we stayed in one place. We waited nearly an hour before a jeep came along. A jaunty young lieutenant came over, introduced himself as the colonel’s “emissary” and said that he had been combing the town for us. The confusion of the debris-filled streets had caused us to take a wrong turn and, consequently, we had missed the main thoroughfare into town. The lieutenant, whose name was George Anderson, led us by a devious route to a large, barrackslike building with a forecourt which afforded ample parking space for the trucks. Billets had already been arranged, as promised, but to get food at such a late hour was another matter. However, by dint of coaxing in the right quarter, Anderson even contrived to do that.

As we drove off in his jeep to the hotel where the officers were billeted, he remarked with a laugh that he wouldn’t be able to do as well by me but thought he could dig up something. The hotel was called the “Weinzinger,” and Anderson said that Hitler had often stayed there. Leaving me to get settled, he went off on a foraging expedition. He returned shortly with an armful of rations, a bottle of cognac and a small contraption that looked like a tin case for playing cards. This ingenious little device, with a turn of the wrist, opened out into a miniature stove. Fuel for it came in the form of white lozenges that resembled moth balls. Two of these, lighted simultaneously, produced a flame of such intensity that one could boil water in less than a quarter of an hour. I got out my mess kit while Anderson opened the rations, and in ten minutes we whipped up a hot supper of lamb stew. With a generous slug of cognac for appetizer, the lack of variety in the menu was completely forgotten.

While we topped off with chocolate bars, I asked him about conditions up the line in the direction of Hohenfurth.

“You won’t have any trouble once you reach Hohenfurth, because it’s occupied by our troops,” he said, “but before swinging north into Czechoslovakia you’ll have to pass through Russian-held Austrian territory.”

This was bad news, for I had no clearance from the Russians. I hadn’t foreseen the need of it. Captain Posey couldn’t have known about it either because he was punctilious and would never have let me start off without the necessary papers.

I had heard stories of the attitude of the Russians toward anyone entering their territory without proper authorization. An officer in Munich told me that his convoy had been stopped. He had been subjected to a series of interrogations and not allowed to proceed for a week.

“Could your colonel obtain clearance for me from the Russians?” I asked.

“He could try, but it would probably take weeks,” Anderson said. “If you’re in a hurry, your best bet is to take a chance and go on through without clearance. You never can tell about the Russians. They might stop you and again they might not.”

Then I mentioned my problem children—my German packers. Anderson didn’t think the Russians would look on them with much favor, if my trucks were stopped and inspected. I asked about another road to Hohenfurth. Perhaps there was one to the west of the Russian lines. He didn’t know about any other route but said that we could take a look at the big map in the O.D.’s office on the next floor.

To my great relief, it appeared that there was another road—one which ran parallel with the main road, four or five miles to the west of it. But Anderson tempered enthusiasm with the remark that it might not be wide enough for my two-and-a-half-ton trucks. There was nothing on the map to indicate whether it was much more than a cow path and the duty officer didn’t know. One of the other officers might be able to tell me. I could ask in the morning.

That night I worried a good deal about the hazards that seemed to lie ahead, and woke up feeling depressed. Things, I reflected, had been going too well. I should have guessed that there would be rough spots here and there. After early breakfast I called to thank the colonel, Anderson’s chief, for his kindness, and while in his office had a chance to inquire about the alternate route.

“The back road is all right,” he said without hesitation. “Take it by all means. You will cross the Czech frontier just north of Leonfelden. A telephone call to our officer at the border control will fix that up. You should be able to make Hohenfurth in about two hours. The C.O. at Hohenfurth is Lieutenant Colonel Sheehan of the 263rd Field Artillery Battalion.”

On my way through the outer office I stopped for a word with Lieutenant Anderson, and while there the colonel gave instructions about the call to the border control post. That done, Anderson said, “If you’ve got a minute, there’s something I want to show you.” I followed him down the stairs and through the back entrance of the hotel to the broad esplanade beside the Danube. The river was beautiful that morning. Its swiftly flowing waters were really blue.

We walked over to the river where a white yacht tugged at her moorings. She was the _Ungaria_, presented by Hitler to Admiral Horthy, the Hungarian Regent. Anderson took me aboard and we made a tour of her luxurious cabins. She was about a hundred twenty feet over all and her fittings were lavish to the last detail. The vessel was now in the custody of the American authorities, but her original crew was still aboard.

After this unexpected nautical adventure, Anderson took me to my trucks and saw us off on the last lap of the journey. Beyond Urfahr, the town across the Danube from Linz, we turned north. It was slow going for the convoy because the road was steep and winding. Our progress was further impeded by an endless line of horse-drawn carts and wagons, all moving in the direction of Linz. Most of them were filled with household furnishings. Presently the road straightened out and we entered a region of rolling, upland meadows and deep pine forests. After an hour and a half’s drive we reached Leonfelden, a pretty village with a seventeenth century church nestling in a shallow valley. Just beyond it was the frontier. We identified ourselves to the two officers—one American, the other Czech—and continued on our way. Our entry into Czechoslovakia had been singularly undramatic. In another twenty minutes we pulled into Hohenfurth.

It was not a particularly prepossessing village on first sight. Drab, one-story houses lined the one main street. The headquarters of the 263rd Field Artillery Battalion occupied an unpretentious corner building. Lieutenant Colonel John R. Sheehan, the C.O., was a big, amiable fellow, with a Boston-Irish accent.

“If you’ve come for that stuff in the monastery,” he said, “just tell me what you need and I’ll see that you get it. I’m anxious to get the place cleared out because we’re not going to be here much longer. When we leave, the Czechs are going to take over.” The colonel called for Major Coleman W. Thacher, his “Exec,” a pleasant young Bostonian, and told him to see that I was properly taken care of. The major, in turn, instructed his sergeant to show me the way to the monastery and to provide billets for my men.

It was after eleven, but the sergeant said we’d have time to take a look at the monastery before chow. He suggested that we take the trucks to the monastery, which was not more than three-quarters of a mile from headquarters. We drove down a narrow side street to the outskirts of town. The small villas on either side were being used for officers’ billets. The street ended abruptly, and up ahead to the left, on a slight eminence, I saw the cream-colored walls of the monastery.

A curving dirt road wound around to the entrance on the west side. The monastery consisted of a series of rambling buildings forming two courtyards. In the center of the larger of these stood a chapel of impressive proportions. An arched passageway, leading through one of the buildings on the rim of the enclosure, provided the only means of access to the main courtyard. It had plenty of “Old World charm” but looked awfully small in comparison with our trucks.

Leclancher pooh-poohed my fears and said he’d take his truck through. He did—that is, part way through. With a hideous scraping sound the truck came to a sudden stop. The bows supporting the tarpaulin had not cleared the sloping sides of the pointed arch. This was a fine mess, for it was a good two hundred yards from the entrance to the building, behind the chapel, in which the things were stored. It would prolong the operation beyond all reason if we had to carry them all that way to the trucks. And what if it rained? As if in answer to my apprehension, it suddenly did rain, a hard drenching downpour. I should have had more faith in the resourcefulness of my Frenchmen; at that critical juncture Leclancher announced that he had found the solution. The bows of the trucks could be forced down just enough to clear the archway.

As soon as this had been done, nine of the trucks filed through and lined up alongside the buttresses of the chapel. The tenth remained outside to take the drivers and the two packers to chow. After seeing to it that they were properly cared for, the sergeant deposited me at the officers’ mess.

At lunch, Colonel Sheehan introduced me to the military Government Officer of his outfit, Major Lewis W. Whittemore, a bluff Irishman, who gave me considerable useful information about the setup at the monastery.

“Mutter, an elderly Austrian, is in charge of the collections stored there—a custodian appointed by the Nazis. He is a dependable fellow so we’ve allowed him to stay on the job. You’ll find him thoroughly co-operative,” said the major. “One of the buildings of the monastery is being used as a hospital for German wounded.”

“Are there any monks about the place?” I asked.

“Hitler ran them all out, but a few have returned. When Hohenfurth is turned over to the Czechs, it will make quite a change in this Sudetenland community. Even the name is going to be changed—to its Czech equivalent, Vysi Brod. All the signs in town will be printed in Czech, too. It will be the official language. Except for a few families, the entire population is German.”

“How will that work?” I asked.

The major apparently interpreted my question as an expression of disapproval of the impending change-over, for he said rather belligerently, “The Czechs in this region have had a mighty raw deal from the Germans during the past few years.” I rallied weakly with the pious observation that two wrongs had never made a right and that I hoped some satisfactory solution to the knotty problem could be reached.

By the time we had finished lunch the rain had dwindled to a light drizzle. I started out on foot to the monastery, leaving word at the colonel’s quarters for the sergeant to meet me in the courtyard of the _Kloster_. He got there about the same time I did, and together we started looking for Dr. Mutter, the Austrian custodian. We went first to the library of the monastery—a beautiful baroque room lined with sumptuous bookcases of burled walnut surmounted with elaborate carved and gilded scroll-shaped decorations. The room was beautifully proportioned, some seventy feet long and about forty feet wide. Tall French windows looked out on the peaceful monastery garden, which, for lack of care, was now overgrown with tangled vines and brambles. Along the opposite side of the handsome room stood a row of massive sixteenth century Italian refectory tables piled high with miscellaneous bric-a-brac: Empire candelabra, Moorish plates, Venetian glass, Della Robbia plaques and Persian ceramics. Across one end, an assortment of Louis Quinze sofas and chairs seemed equally out of place. What, I wondered, were these incongruous objects doing in this religious establishment?

The explanation was soon forthcoming. The sergeant found Dr. Mutter in a small room adjoining the library. He was a lanky, studious individual with a shock of snow-white hair, prominent teeth and a gentle manner which just missed being fawning. Hohenfurth’s Uriah Heep, I thought unkindly. The moment he began to speak in halting English, I revised my estimate of him. He was neither crafty nor vicious. On the contrary, he was just a timid, and, at the moment, frightened victim of circumstance. What German I know has an Austrian flavor, and when I trotted this out he was so embarrassingly happy that I wished I had kept my tongue in my head. But it served to establish an _entente cordiale_ which proved valuable during the next few days. They were to be more hectic than I had even faintly imagined.

After a little introductory palaver, I explained that I had come to remove the collections which had been brought to the monastery by the Germans, and that I would like to make a preliminary tour of inspection. I suggested that we look first at the paintings.

“Paintings?” he asked doubtfully. “You mean the modern pictures? They are not very good—just the work of some of the Nazi artists. They were brought here—and quite a lot of sculpture too—when it was announced that Hitler was coming to Hohenfurth to see the really important things.”

Then I learned what he meant by the “really important things”—room after room, corridor after corridor, all crammed with furniture and sculpture, methodically looted from two fabulous collections, the Rothschild of Vienna and the Mannheimer of Amsterdam. By comparison, the Hearst collection at Gimbel’s was trifling. The things I had seen in the library were only a small part of this mélange. In an adjoining chamber—a vaulted gallery, fifty feet long—there were a dozen pieces of French and Dutch marquetry. And stacked against the walls were entire paneled rooms, coffered ceilings and innumerable marble busts. Next to that was a room crowded with more of the same sort of thing, except that the pieces were small and more delicate. In one corner I saw an extraordinary table made entirely of tortoise shell and mounted with exquisite ormolu.

It was an antique-hunter’s paradise, but for me quite the reverse. How was I going to move all of this stuff? Dr. Mutter could see that I was perplexed, and apologetically added that I had seen only a part of the collections. Remembering that I had asked to see the pictures, he took me to a corner room containing approximately a hundred canvases. As he had said, they were a thoroughly dull lot—portraits of Hitler, Hess and some of the other Nazi leaders, tiresome allegorical scenes, a few battle subjects and a group of landscapes. The labels pasted on the backs indicated that they had all been shown at one time or another in exhibitions at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich. While I was looking at them, Dr. Mutter shyly confessed that he was a painter but that he didn’t admire this kind of work.

On the floor below, there was a forest of contemporary German sculpture—plaster casts, for the most part, all patinated to resemble bronze. In addition there were a few portrait busts in bronze and one or two pieces in glazed terra cotta. The terra-cotta pieces had some merit. The sculpture occupied one entire side of a broad corridor which ran around the four sides of a charming inner garden. The corridor had originally been open but the archways were now glassed in. Turning a corner, we came upon a jumble of architectural fragments—carved Gothic pinnacles, sections of delicately chiseled moldings, colonnettes, Florentine well-heads and wall fountains. At one end was a pair of elaborate gilded wrought-iron doors and at either side were handsome wall lanterns, also of wrought iron. These too were Mannheimer, Dr. Mutter replied, when I hopefully asked if they were not a part of the monastery fittings.

As final proof of the looters’ thorough methods, I was shown a vaulted reception hall, into the walls of which had been set a large and magnificent relief by Luca della Robbia, a smaller but also very beautiful relief of the Madonna and Child by some Florentine sculptor of the fifteenth century, and an enormous carved stone fireplace of Renaissance workmanship. The hall was stacked with huge cases as yet unpacked, and from the ceiling were suspended two marvelous Venetian glass chandeliers—exotic accents against a background of chaste plaster walls.

This partial tour of inspection ended with a smaller room across from the reception hall where Dr. Mutter proudly exhibited what he considered the finest thing of all—a life-sized, seated marble portrait by Canova. It was indeed a distinguished piece of work. Hitler had bought the statue in Vienna, so Dr. Mutter said, from the Princess Windischgrätz. It had been destined for the Führer Museum at Linz.

I learned afterward that the statue had belonged at one time to the Austrian emperor, Franz Josef. Canova began the statue in 1812 as a portrait of Maria-Elisa, Princess of Lucca—a sister of Napoleon. The sculptor’s more celebrated portrait of Napoleon’s sister Pauline had been carved a few years earlier. When Maria-Elisa lost her throne and fortune, she was unable to pay for the portrait. But Canova was resourceful: he changed the portrait into a statue of Polyhymnia, the Muse of poetry and song. He accomplished this metamorphosis by idealizing the head and adding the appropriate attributes of the Muse. Later the statue was given to Franz Josef. Eventually it passed into the collection of his granddaughter—the daughter of Rudolf, who died at Mayerling—the Princess Windischgrätz.

The statue was one of the most delicate and graceful examples of the great neoclassic master’s style, and I marveled both at its cold perfection and the fact that it had come through its travels completely unscathed. For all her airy elegance, the Muse must weigh at least a ton and a half, I calculated—suddenly coming down to earth with the realization that I would be expected to take her back to Munich!

Over Dr. Mutter’s protest that I had not yet seen everything, I said that I should get my men started. There was no time to be lost. Colonel Sheehan provided eight men and, after cautioning them about the value and fragility of the objects, I detailed Dr. Mutter to supervise their work. The first job was to bring some of the furniture down to the ground floor. As yet we had no packing materials, so we could do no actual loading. The next step was to show the packers what we were up against. At first they went from room to room shaking their heads and muttering, but after I had explained that we would only select certain things, they cheered up and set to work. Luckily, some of the furniture had a fair amount of protective padding—paper stuffed with excelsior—and that could be used until we were able to get more. We had enough, they agreed, to figure on perhaps two truckloads. Leaving them to mull over that, I went off to round up a couple of the trucks. Here was another problem. Not only did the furniture have to be brought down a long flight of stone stairs, but to reach the stairs in the first place it had to be carried a distance of two hundred yards. Once down the stairs it had to be carried another two hundred yards down a long sloping ramp to the only doorway opening onto the courtyard. I told Leclancher to bring one of the trucks around to that doorway and then took off in search of paper, excelsior, rope and blankets. In one of the near-by sheds I found only a small supply of paper and some twine. We would need much more.

Major Whittemore came to the rescue and drove me to a lumber and paper mill several kilometers away. As we drove along he told me that he had been having trouble with the German managers of the mill, but they knew now that he meant business, so I was not to _ask_ for what I wanted, I was to _tell_ them. At the mill I got a generous supply of paper, excelsior and rope and, on my return to the monastery, sent one of the trucks back to pick it up. But there wasn’t a spare blanket to be had in all of Hohenfurth.