The Berlin Masterpieces in America: Paintings, Politics and the Monuments Men

Edited by Peter Jonathan Bell and Kristi A. Nelson. Published by Cincinnati Art Museum in association with D Giles Limited, 2020. First edition. Hardcover, cloth with illustration inset on front board. 224pp., illustrated. Fine.

"As the Allies advanced into Germany in April 1945, General Patton's Third Army discovered the collections of the Berlin museums hidden in a salt mine 2,100 feet underground. Placed in the care of the "Monuments Men," the collections were sent to the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point, directed by Captain Walter I. Farmer of Cincinnati. In November 1945, the U.S. military government in Germany ordered that 202 “works of art of the greatest importance" from German public collections be sent to Washington for safekeeping"