A Monumental Achievement

September 19, 2007 9:02 AM

"The “Monuments Men” [wiki] were a group of ... men and women from thirteen nations who comprised the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section during World War II....Together they worked to protect monuments and other cultural treasures from the destruction of World War II. ...They tracked, located, and ultimately returned more than 5 million artistic and cultural items stolen by Hitler and the Nazis. Their role in preserving cultural treasures was without precedent. "
posted by dersins (6 comments total)

Wow thats pretty damn interesting, seeing another facet of WW2 thats commonly overlooked.
posted by ItsaMario at 9:23 AM on September 19, 2007

Fascinating.
posted by Rarebit Fiend at 9:28 AM on September 19, 2007

Sad to read about a Raphael piece that disappeared, which reminds me there was also another great cultural treasure that was lost to the ravages of WW2, ' The Amber Room'.
posted by ItsaMario at 9:33 AM on September 19, 2007

The Amber Room previously on MeFi.

This is a fascinating topic (so much so that I was sure I had read about it here before, but... apparently not). Thanks for the post.
posted by GrammarMoses at 9:48 AM on September 19, 2007

As an addendum to the post, "metafilter's own" peacay has posted to his blog about one of the current restoration efforts (relating to Austria), which includes a database of a lot of art where the provenance is thought to possibly include nazi removal, and includes some great imagery of the artworks in question.
posted by dersins at 10:52 AM on September 19, 2007

Of course, we'd never think of doing this today.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:03 PM on September 19, 2007