Summary of Robert M. Edsel's The Monuments Men

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The Monuments Men were a group of men and women from thirteen nations, who volunteered for service in the newly created Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section. They were tasked with saving as much of the culture of Europe as they could during combat.

#2 The city of Karlsruhe, in southwestern Germany, was founded in 1715 by the Margrave Karl Wilhelm von Baden-Durlach. It was a rare luxury for Jews to be allowed to settle where they pleased, and in 1718, a Jewish congregation was established there.

#3 The Ettlingers were not strictly observant Jews, but they still went to the Kronenstrasse Synagogue. The synagogue was a large, ornate hundred-year-old building. The men wore pressed black suits and black top hats, and the women sat in the upper balconies.

#4 In March 1938, the Nazis annexed Austria. The public adulation that followed cemented Hitler’s control of power and reinforced his ideology of Deutschland über alles, or Germany above all. In July, the Ettlingers moved up the date of their son’s bar mitzvah ceremony, and their passage out of Germany another three weeks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669395867

IRB Media

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Insights on Robert M. Edsel's The Monuments Men

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Monuments Men were a group of men and women from thirteen nations, who volunteered for service in the newly created Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section. They were tasked with saving as much of the culture of Europe as they could during combat.

#2

The city of Karlsruhe, in southwestern Germany, was founded in 1715 by the Margrave Karl Wilhelm von Baden-Durlach. It was a rare luxury for Jews to be allowed to settle where they pleased, and in 1718, a Jewish congregation was established there.

#3

The Ettlingers were not strictly observant Jews, but they still went to the Kronenstrasse Synagogue. The synagogue was a large, ornate hundred-year-old building. The men wore pressed black suits and black top hats, and the women sat in the upper balconies.

#4

In March 1938, the Nazis annexed Austria. The public adulation that followed cemented Hitler’s control of power and reinforced his ideology of Deutschland über alles, or Germany above all. In July, the Ettlingers moved up the date of their son’s bar mitzvah ceremony, and their passage out of Germany another three weeks.

#5

In September 1938, Harry Ettlinger, who was 12 at the time, went to visit his grandparents for the last time. His grandparents were Jewish, and they were moving to Baden-Baden. Opa Oppenheimer showed him a few select pieces from his art collection.

#6

When Harry Ettlinger returned to Karlsruhe, he was not looking for his relatives or the remains of his community. He was there to retrieve the art collection of his grandfather, which had been stolen by the Nazis.

#7

In early May 1938, Adolf Hitler made one of his first trips outside Germany and Austria. He met with his Fascist ally Benito Mussolini in Rome, and spent more than three hours in the Uffizi Gallery staring in wonder at its famous works of art.

#8

The Führermuseum was to be Hitler’s artistic legacy. It was to be the most spectacular art museum in history, and it would house the personal collection he had begun amassing in the 1920s.

#9

Hitler had already purged the German cultural establishment by 1938, rewriting the laws to strip German Jews of their citizenship and confiscate their art. He would use these laws to gather the great artwork of Europe and sweep it back into the Fatherland.

#10

The American museum community had been buzzing with activity since the Nazis took Paris in 1940. It had taken the British almost a year to retrofit an enormous mine in Manod, Wales, for the safe storage of evacuated artwork.

#11

The American Museum community was summoned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the morning of December 20, 1941. They were there to discuss the possibility of an air raid on a major American city.

#12

The American museum community was shocked by the images Sachs presented. They had unanimously agreed that America’s museums would remain open as long as humanly possible.

#13

In time of war, museums are important to the community. They are a source of inspiration and fortification for the spirit on which victory depends.

#14

Stout’s solution was to train a large new class of conservators, who could handle the largest and most dangerous upheaval in the history of Western art. He