Today we mourn the passing of a great American and friend, Monuments Man Harry Ettlinger, who died yesterday after 92 remarkable years. In the course of my work honoring these heroes of civilization, I have known 21 Monuments Men and Women. I was closest to Harry Ettlinger. Harry embodied every great quality that defines a selfless and honorable American. He was an immigrant – the last Jewish boy to have a bar mitzvah in his hometown of Karlsruhe, Germany, just weeks before K

This morning, Friday December 16th, in Munich, the Monuments Men Foundation, in conjunction with the National World War II Museum, returned to the Bavarian State Museum a 16th century Flemish tapestry that once hung in Adolf Hitler’s famed Eagle’s Nest, in Berchtesgaden, Germany. Lt. Col. Paul Danahy of the 101st Airborne removed the tapestry and sent it home as a souvenir. It hung in the stairwell of his home for years. His daughter, Cathy Hinz, inherited the object upon his

This is one of the most famous photos of the Monuments Men, and it just so happens to also be the cover photo of The Monuments Men. It was taken in May 1945, and shows Monuments Man Lt. James Rorimer with three soldiers of the Seventh Army carrying three paintings down the steps of the Castle of Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, Germany, where they had been hidden by the Nazis. But have you ever wondered what the three paintings are? From left to right on the photo above are: Chardi

It is the world’s most famous painting, and yet few people know that the Mona Lisa was once stolen. It was Monday, August 21, 1911, when Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian worker immigrated to Paris, simply walked into the Louvre museum and walked out with the Mona Lisa in his hands. As Peruggia later explained, he was acting out of patriotic motivations, trying to steal back what Napoleon had stolen from his home country. The painting was missing for more than two years before su