How Hitler Failed to Create the World's Greatest Museum: Treasures in the Salt Mines

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The history of the Great Patriotic War consists of many separate episodes, each of which can become a monument to human heroism, generosity, cowardice or stupidity. The story about the collection collected by the Nazis in the Altaussee salt mines is probably one of the brightest pages in history, since if not for a happy ending, humanity in April 1945 could have lost a significant part of its cultural treasures.

The places of childhood always remain special for us. Great tyrants and dictators seem to be no exception. Adolf Hitler, enthusiastically received in 1938 by the majority of Austrians, decided to give the city of Linz, dear to him since childhood, a gift extraordinary in its generosity and scope. The construction of a gigantic art museum was planned. Within its walls, the dictator wanted to collect all the creations worthy of living for centuries.

The dream captured Hitler so much that he even made the initial sketches of the complex with his own hand, which was supposed to include, in addition to the museum buildings, also opera and theater (the dictator, whatever you say, was still an artist and in his own way attached great importance to art) … The future beacon of world culture was supposed to be called the "Museum of the Fuehrer". To fill the walls that have not yet been built with masterpieces, a massive collection of paintings and statues began.

The collection is based on the treasures of the Rothschild family - the owners of the richest banking house. While the head of the family was in the Gestapo, objects of art were taken out of their mansions by trucks. Also began a massive purchase of paintings throughout Europe from private collections. True, the word “buy” in this action was more symbolic - the owners were forced to part with their property for a ridiculously low fee. A huge influx of exhibits for the future museum was given, of course, by the war. Precious trophies were, for example, the Ghent altarpiece by the Van Eyck brothers and Michelangelo's Madonna of Bruges, brought from Belgium.

In the summer of 1943, after the defeat of the German troops at the Kursk Bulge and the onset of the Red Army offensive, the question arose about the preservation of the priceless collection. A little later, American troops launched air raids on Austria, and the salt mines near the resort town of Altaussee were recognized as the safest place. The unique microclimate of these natural caves, expanded by humans, was simply ideal for storing ancient rarities. By the way, salt has been developed here since the 12th century. There is still an underground chapel inside the mines, in which frescoes, paintings and statues have been preserved for several centuries and are in excellent condition.

It was here that the masterpieces of culture plundered throughout Europe began to be brought by trucks. Michelangelo's Madonna, paintings by Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Bruegel, Dürer and Vermeer - in total, about 4, 7 thousand units of the most unique exhibits were collected in the salt mines. Later, it was decided here to hide art treasures from Austrian churches, monasteries and museums in order to save them from bombing, and by the end of the war more than 6, 5 thousand objects of art were stored in the mines. In addition to paintings, there were numerous statues, furniture, weapons, coins and unique libraries. The total cost of this incredible collection was estimated in 1945 at 3.5 billion US dollars. There is a version that it was here during the war that Gioconda was also hidden, whose location from 1942 to 1945 is still unknown, but some contradictions in the documents cast doubt on this.

However, rescued from the Allied bombs, the masterpieces were threatened more dire, as they came under the blow of human madness. On March 19, 1945, Hitler publishes Nerobefehl - The Order of Nero. By analogy with the order of the ancient emperor to burn Rome, the Fuhrer was going to destroy almost everything significant on the territory of the Reich: transport, industry, urban infrastructure, cultural objects. This plan, which is now called the "death sentence of the nation", was, of course, also related to the collection in the mines of Altaussee. Gauleiter August Aigruber was entrusted with the task of destroying a significant part of the cultural heritage of mankind collected in Austria. This fanatic was personally responsible for the deaths of several tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners, and he did not hesitate to prepare the explosion. Eight boxes with the inscription "Caution, marble!" Were delivered to the mines, in reality containing bombs weighing more than four tons. Additionally, containers with gasoline were placed in the adit. An explosion was to take place on April 17th.

Today historians argue about whether Hitler really changed his order after a while. Judging by his will, it was so, but in those weeks of anarchy, when the agonizing Reich system began to devour itself, the order to cancel Nerobefehl probably did not reach the executor, or Aigruber did not want to believe him. Now it is very difficult to reconstruct the sequence of events, but one thing is clear, the explosion was prevented and the cultural treasures collected in Altaussee were practically not damaged.

A few days before the explosion, boxes with powerful bombs were removed from the mine, and the entrance to the store was sealed with gunpowder explosions for safety. For several years after the war, controversy continued over who humanity should thank for this. Lincoln Kerstine, an American art critic who was one of the first to visit the mines after their capture, then wrote:. Kerstein, by the way, believed that the Austrian miners showed heroism. In his opinion, they accidentally discovered Aigruber's boxes with explosives and carried them out of storage under cover of night. When Aygruber realized that he was betrayed, he

However, after the war, many were happy to "cling" to the salvation of a cultural treasure of such enormous value: the leaders of the Austrian resistance, local officials and even some Nazi leaders. By the way, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the Main Directorate of SS Reich Security, apparently played a positive role in this matter, albeit for the promise of the miners to shelter him later in the Alps. There is evidence that a telephone conversation took place between him and Aigruber, during which Kaltenbrunner shouted into the phone:

On May 12, American troops entered the Altaussee and on May 17 the first exhibits were brought to the surface. The long process of returning them to their owners began. It is curious that during the rescue of cultural treasures one of the doors of the Ghent altar of van Eyck was lost in the mines. They found her many years later. It turned out that the miners had adapted the painted board as a table top. Thank God, the image is facing down, so that numerous traces of a kitchen knife remained only on the back of the masterpiece.

Despite the fact that art lies outside the realm of diplomacy, masterpieces are often involved in political games. So, for example, the painful question remains to this day, What does the composer Wagner have to do with the Third Reich, and why his music is never performed in Israel.