The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History

This book clearly could have been another 200 pages and it still would have kept me interested. I was a little weary at first of reading this book when I considered how many reviews had been completed ahead of me. Ironically, on my old spreadsheet/workbook I used to keep - this book was placed there on the "old list" in 2010. It would seem now it has notoriety as a result of the movie that is currently in movie theatre's around the country. Lieutenant George Stout was a U.S. Navy Officer assigned to the U.S. First and Twelfth Army; a simple annotation to his rank and photo in the beginning of the book would have been appreciated - I kept looking at the "rail road tracks" on his helmet and couldn't understand why he was being called "Lieutenant" when I believed him to be "Captain". Blame this small find on my USMC mentality for military detail; it really is no big deal to the story line nor the book overall. The first thing I personally thought of before I opened up a page to this book was the Battle for Monte Cassino. This battle within the Gustav Line to this day (as with all other parts of the battle for the Gustav Line) simply is a great battle to study and from both the Allied and Axis perspective. Immediately as I dove into the book; and, within the Author's Note, Edsel discusses the need for a book to be written by him on this topic specifically for the Italian Campaign. Happily for me he at least discusses the Battle of Monte Cassino early on (and to no great depth)which was well versed and accountable at least from my personal level. What he failed to mention within these few pages was how the Abbey was destroyed twice before the Second World War, and I speculate he will save that detail for the book on Italy and Italian Art. A small reference of two or three sentences could have been worthy, but I don't want to be too critical of a book that was simply terrific! As with good books on the Second World War one must be critical of the maps that are included. The maps in this book and given this topic are highly appropriate. The maps provide the reader a chance to see from a higher level what the difficulties were geographically with no less than a mere one dozen people doing a job while more than 1 million service members were confronted in combat operations across Europe. The truly fascinating part of this book and historical account of course are the people involved, the art they attempted to locate and save, and the many locations they had to travel into while destruction was occurring in around them at the time of discoveries. The author included relevant photo's of both art and personnel, and provided the historical flash backs where appropriate to the history of the location where the art piece was made, ended up into, and stolen away from by the Nazi Regime. The additional part for me that was interesting was reading of the First Canadian Army as they treked across Belgium under Montgomery's 21st Army Group - my 11 year old Father at the time was about to be rescued with his family, his town, and their lives - some of the things I have heard from Dad are literally unbelievable; I myself am a decorated US Marine Veteran. Edsel provided me with clarity of purpose, poise in prose, and sadness in death while feeling relief in "discovery" of the many faceted art pieces for mankind. He has promised to write a book on Italy and I will accept his word - I hope he would consider one for the Pacific Theatre of Operations as well in the future. The book ends with a follow up to the lives of the Allied players and Axis thieves - it was a terrific ending to a book well worth the read. *** Movie - entertaining - historically off - points of major works and gold captured likely will make interest in some to read more about the stolen treasures; that's my hope anyway. Movie "based on a true story" as indicated in the beginning. ***

This is a great book! About an aspect of WWII that you probably never knew about--unless you have seen the movie. The history here is important. War/Conflict, by definition, causes monumental (pun intended) damage and much of this is to the culture of a country and region. These very few men and, per the story, one amazing French woman kept the artwork in check--not to mention the gold and treasure from all the nations that Hitler conquered. That guy was an absolutely crazy loon (not the word I really want to use) and so dangerous that he was able to mobilize an entire nation to do wrong. But you already know that. The one aspect of H's megalomania was his intent to create his own museum--named after himself of course--in his birthplace after the complete annihilation and conquering of Europe and beyond. To that end he squirreled away the art of the ages in deep underground mines, warehouses, trains and other places. In that regard he did the world a favor. When you visit the Louvre or any of the other great museums of Europe the reason you are able to view the work of the masters is because H stashed it away before and during the war. (God! Did I just say something good about this madman?!) My reason for giving Monuments Men a 4 star rating as opposed to 5 stars is that it is a slow read. It is, after all, a history book. Nevertheless the story is compelling and should be learned. Monuments Men should also be the model and handbook for culture salvation taught at every military school and college globally. One more note: Hats off to George Clooney who decided this was a story worth telling on the big screen.

The big note to start this review is that if you watched the movie, fine—it was entertaining and you gotta love the actors. However, if you want the real scoop on the real Monuments Men, you must read the book. I’m not sure why Hollywood (does most of what it does) decided to change the characters or make light of the contributions put forth by Rose Valland by intimating her having a crush on Matt Damon’s character. The Monuments Men were courageous and enterprising, pushing to be in active war zones in their pursuit of art of every kind. They worked closely with residents and a broad array of military personnel. Where the bigwigs so often took the credit—shock—these were the men behind the scenes doing their job and saving millions of pieces of art from the destruction of Hitler’s madness. The book follows the team from their inception to the close of their work. The author, Robert M. Edsel, did a brilliant job solidly taking us along the path of the battles while not losing sight of the point of the story. You may find yourself doing what I did throughout the book—gasping in horror as more and more of what Hitler was doing comes to light. I knew about his confiscation of artwork from everyone, everywhere, and yet I was astounded to find out even more of his evil egomaniacal ways. There are descriptions of the men—and Rose—that I noted along the way, James Rorimer, “He had no practice in failure, and he had no intention of starting now.” Ms. Valland, “Destiny is not one push, she thought as she waited to cross a quiet street on that cold Paris evening years later, but a thousand small moments that through insight and hard work you line up in the right direction, like a magnet does with metal shavings.” You’ll enjoy reading about Harry Ettlinger’s journey with the Monuments Men. A German Jew with American citizenship, he served bravely along with the others. George Stout, “’The sun is fine and, after the rat race, I begin to remember that I am myself and not merely a set of functions.’” Having been blessed with the experience of standing in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam—a haven of art—reading that paintings were taken from there made me sad and appreciate at all that was saved. It took them six years for the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives to return what they’d found to the proper owners. This book reads like an adventure story and will keep you interested the entire way through. If you like history and heroes, read this book, don’t just watch the movie.

Perfetto

I've watched the movie a couple times and really enjoyed it. But I wanted to get more of the details as related to this historic event. The book definitely succeeded in that regard. I definitely enjoyed the read. If you think this would be of interest to you, I would recommend it.

If you enjoy factual history, this is a great book which tells an incredible story. It is not a novel, it's more of a documentary. I found it fascinating and inspiring.

De fácil lectura, aunque sea en la lengua original. Además, con el Kindle es muy sencillo utilizar su diccionario. El tema del que trata me parece muy interesante porque quizá no le damos la importancia suficiente a la labor de estos soldados, pero es cierto que sin ellos nuestro mundo sería diferente.

Robert Edsel's very factual account of what it took a group of extraordinary (yet unseeingly ordinary people) to recover thousands of years of glorious art work during the Second World War, is more astounding a tale than any of the recent publications claim to be. Chronologically arranged events with a very cause and effect treatment to the narrative makes this book what one can easily summarize as 'Unputdownable History'. Thoroughly glad that I came across this piece of work and cannot wait to read his other works. PS: Do not watch the movie; it is a sadistic joke compared to the book!!