| Registry Number: CCG 64/24. Monuments Fine Arts and Archives [MFA and A] branch relations with G-5 Ops SHAEF. Correspondence between Monuments, Fine Art and Archives [MFA and A] Squadron Leader Douglas Cooper and the MFA and A Adviser at SHAEF, Geoffrey Webb, mentioning the microfilm of a file on Bunjes [not included in the piece] and the distrust of the Vaucher Commission by the Allied governments and providing information on the presence in Zurich of E Buehrle and possibly of Van Gogh's self-portrait without an ear 'deposited in a bank' in Switzerland, dated December 1944-January 1945. Correspondence between the librarian of the Economic Research Division of the Foreign Office and the MFA and A branch of the British Element of the Control Commission for Germany regarding the conditions of the roof at the Technische Hochschule in Aachen, dated November-December 1944. Correspondence between Geoffrey Webb at SHAEF and the MFA and A branch in London on the issue of the drafting of a black list of Germans active in the art world and on the correct spelling of a few art dealers' names, dated October-December 1944. Cover letters for a report on archaeology in Greece under Italo-German domination [sic], a list of archivists employed in Reichs-, Staats- and Landesarchiven throughout Germany, two reports on the depositories of works of art in Ambleve, Belgium, and Alkmaar, Holland, and a list of pictures removed from Belgian churches [the attachments are not included in the piece], dated November 1944. Memorandum by the MFA and A branch of the Property Section of US Group CC of the Military Government on Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives in relation to the G-2 Task Force Plan for Berlin, Hamburg, Kiel and Munich, dated October 1944. Records the discussion with Lt Col Sir Leonard Woolley, Director of the MFA and A Branch of the British Element of the Control Commission for Germany, and with Mr Hilary Jenkinson, 'Adviser to the British War Office for Archives' on the guidelines and lists drafted for the protection of German works of art and especially archives, which 'may later be put to use in the control of Germany'. Lists the preventive measures for the preservation of this material and two US officers with archival training, Capt Thornton and Lt Buchman, who should have secured material relating to 'German public and private collections of works of art and other cultural materials' and to 'the looting, disposition and present location of works of art and other cultural materials plundered by the Axis Powers from territories subjugated by them', which the memorandum envisaged the Germans 'will try to conceal' or destroy. |
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