Robert M Edsel

"The previously untold story of a little-known WWII Allied division whose mission was to track down European art and treasures that had been looted by the Nazis at Hitler's command" -- "The Fuehrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: "degenerate" works he despised. In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art...

When Hitler's armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind's greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire. In May 1944 two unlikely American heroes--artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt--embarked from Naples on the treasure hunt of a lifetime, tracking billions of dollars...

Uses photographs to tell the untold story of the "Monuments Men" and their discovery of more than 1,000 repositories, many of which contained paintings, sculpture, furniture, and other treasures stolen by the Nazis.

At the same time that Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Führer had begun cataloging the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: the "degenerate" works he despised. In a race against time, a group of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Monuments Men, risked their...