of the countries of the west. adolf hitler having agents that are making acquisitions of works of art, often times distressed sales. of course, there's things that are just out and out stolen, but there was an effort to try and pass laws that stripped jews as an example of their ownership rights to try and, again, make these things look legal. it was a preposterous argument made by alfred rosenberg, one of the chief defendants at the nuremberg trials that we went into these jews' apartments, some 77,000, and nobody was will, so we just took the works of art to safe them. of course not, they'd loaded them up on trains and sent them to concentration camps. these are really hard to imagine events when we read these documents that people keep a straight face and say these things in a courtroom, but they did. so i think that you're not going to find record title or something to document the acquisition of these works of

art, and in some cases that makes it more difficult. there are nazi inventory card codes that do evidence the acquiring of these works of art, theft. they're not a legal ownership title, but they document how these works of art are acquired, photographed, inventoried, codes assigned to the families indicating what number of object it is from the families, and those documents were found by the monuments men and were used at the nuremberg trials ask very, very important in helping to return these object toss the people they were stolen from. ..

liz: terry, please go ahead with your question or comment for jeff bezos. >> caller: i was wondering if you had any opinion on the art work and obvious destruction that the catholic church has perpetrated over the centuries to art works and if they should be held accountable? peter: we have more immediate problems in places like syria where we seek works of art, these things belong to all of us and should be a concern for all of us about seeing them destroyed by both sides in this horrible civil war. there are things under threat in cairo and molly. these challenges are a challenge that aren't going to go away. to try to go back as i mentioned earlier to one of the other

viewers's questions and a dressing over the centuries, not a task when monument men was engage in. to go about standards in world war ii and cultural treasures today. liz: we identified u.s. co-author of libor because you wrote it with britt witter. >> he is a fine writer, accomplished new york times best-selling writer, number of books since then, worked with me and the research was a daunting and the race against time to write the story, and monuments officers' who went with us. the monuments officers' i interviewed, five living, and to make sure their story is

available and known to everybody and brett played an important part of getting the book written. rich: did these men recognize what they were doing? peter: they didn't understand the magnitude. they were also segregated, working in their own little areas and little interaction with monuments officers'. they were not necessarily seeing their reports, they were channeled through eisenhower's headquarters. they felt proud of the individual roles, but it has taken the passage of time to understand how extensive and pervasive this theft was, this industrial scale looting operation, and works of art today had such a dramatic increase in monetary value and not necessarily a positive development but quite real.

i looked at anonymously with money. people talk about art as part of their portfolio and this is a more modern development. the monuments officers' played any central role in the survival of these things and i don't think until more recent times they have looked at it that way. very simply what they say is like world war ii veterans this is our responsibility, we did our job the best we could. liz: an e-mail, i worked for several years in art and history museums in this pacific northwest and one story i heard from several people in both fields was about a monument man who withheld a trove of prince which he later parlayed into a position for himself as a curator at regionally prominent museum, donating his print collection as grid quote pablo. without naming anyone dino of any instances? peter: i don't and i would be interested. monumentmenfoundation.org, we

will take a look at it. liz: next call from and in frankfurt, ky. >> caller: i enjoyed seeing the movie last weekend looking forward to reading your book. if you years ago i heard about a soldier who returned a valuable piece of art to the united states while he was there. he may send it in shipments and i think it was kept -- after his death his family returned it. do we know of other traces of military men who spirited away artifacts? are their suspicions other may have been? >> no question soldiers from all sides including the united states picked up cultural objects as souvenirs. sometimes they took them deliberately.

they were not supposed to. there were rules against that. is one of the reasons the foundation created this toll-free number, 866-world war ii are, the foundation serves the clearing house, kids my age that might have had about world war ii veteran, a marine corps veteran in the pacific, a chance for people to call if they find something in their attic or basement. we have the passage of all this world war ii generation and all these objects have new owners, could inherit them, often they want to sell them but a lot of things besides paintings are important historical documents. the monuments men foundation recovered a number of documents that were donated national archives and one of the german archives albums filled with photographs of works of art, albums in his position, look through like a mail-order catalog to decide which ones he wanted to have in his museum. i am not as focused on how stuff

got back here as i am on what we should do. i don't care if a soldier took says something, we should honor them for their service and recover these things and get them back to their rightful owners. there was a case, the when you are alluding to in 1980, early 90s, where an american soldier, not a monuments' man but a soldier deliberately took important relics out of the church in germany, brought them home and after repasts, his state had them, attempted to sell them. ultimately these works were returned to germany. that was a precedent in a setting case, we know now today that these works can be sold. there are serious flaws in this country, the national stolen property act prohibiting sales of works of art or cultural objects that have been stolen. the monuments men foundation doesn't charge anybody, we are not for profit, we are there to amate that have home and work with people to do the right thing. liz: courtney asks did the nazi salute historical artifacts from

the vatican and if so what was taken and did we get it back? peter: the story of the close call of the vatican is a significant part of my most recent book, saving italy. there were orders issued by hitler, very outraged, upon mussolini's disappearance in august of 1943. hitler was convinced that the vatican had played a role in -- he hated the vatican anyway, hated the pope, pope pius xii and issued ordered to this fascinating character we have not studied much in a lot of literature which i talk a lot about in saving italy. carl wolf is sent to italy, he is the co leader of german forces along with alfred kesselring, his order from hitler is to go into the

vatican, all the documents, enormous history that is there, and kidnapped, one german general testified at nuremberg, kill pope pius xii. this is a really bad idea, he spent time over the next four or five months trying to negotiate with the fuhrer and the different approach of dealing with this. this is something that is debate among historians today whether hitler was serious and intended to carry this out or one of the periodic outbursts. we can document it was discussed and given to wolf. the vatican was not reached in that sense. there were german troops that formed a cordon or ring around it. the vatican played an important role protecting the works of art in italy because ultimately after a number of relocations to different hiding places, the italians felt the only safe place for the works of art was inside the vatican and the pope issued an invitation for these

works of art to come in and be placed safely to so that is where they were when the monument officers arrived. liz: we got a tweet from@monumentsmen, is that your official twitter handle? they tweeted in a question. someone did. has libor ever received awards for their work? >> the monuments men have not. it is something we have been working at. the individuals received in a few instances decorations from foreign countries right after the war. one of the first things we did after forming the monuments men foundation was to get congressional resolutions in both houses, fairly easy, and complicated process that now we're working on the congressional gold medal and we have the bill in congress and trying to obtain signatures.

is a difficult thing to obtain. and obtain signatures from both houses. we have the support of senator blunt and mendez in the senate, congresswomen kay granger taking the lead, we have 100 signatures in the house about a dozen in the senate, i want to see these men and women honored while they're still alive. there's one woman who is british, four american men, it is important to us to say thank you while we can do and have them be there to receive this honor. liz: in 2007 they did get a medal from president bush. >> the national humanities medal was awarded to the monuments men foundation and weaver surprise, incredibly honored. i was particularly pleased the president allow us to have four monuments officers' be present but to underscore the point two of the monuments officers' that ritter that they are not with us today. liz: what is the holdup in congress? >> the bill was introduced late

in november. we had recess. i don't think it is running behind per se, but i think all of these things get done because there is some obsessive person pounding the table saying listen to me, this is important, we got to get this done now. i am going to be back there and we're going to get the signatures. this is important to do. general eisenhower thought this was important enough that he issued an important directive that had never been done before that stated the policy and importance of protection of cultural treasures not just once in december '43 began in may in western europe and i think that really is, speaks volumes about why these monuments men and women should be recognized in the most formal and appropriate way. >> host: about 15 minutes with our guest. irene is calling from sausalito,

calif.. >> caller: it is admirable what you are doing. i think it is wonderful but i have a question. it crossed my mind when you were talking about how far back into history. the question that popped into my mind was there were a lot of japanese incurred during world war ii. i have a friend who lost the family for. lots of things were complicated and then returned to. i was curious what you have to say about that. >> there are a lot of stories about looting in asia theater, pacific theater, europe, western europe and eastern europe and i wish we could find everything that was taken. is particularly difficult with military objects like that that were in some cases considered

legal spoils of war which is not something the monument men foundation works on. we focused on cultural object which is not to say a sort of like the one you mentioned isn't very important personal belongings. when we get into these smaller religious objects it is difficult to locate those things because in many cases they are small, they don't have identification marks on them. paintings tend to have more information, having been published in books or show up in options and might have an inventory code on them. not the people are looking for a painting or sculpture, just that a lot of times those have more identification marks for us to locate and determine the owner. >> host: has any effort been made by the monuments men to identify russian objects that were looted by germans from the eastern front and that subsequent story told?

>> guest: the situation is complicated. we in the united states lost 400,000 men and women during world war ii, soviet union lost 25 million. the policy to the extent that it was formalized was removal not just of works of art but everything from germany, they needed everything. there were trophy brigades' by stalin with specific instructions not only to take works of art but also disassemble factories and things like that. the soviets returned several million objects to germany in 1950 -- 1955-56 as a sign of good faith and getting these things back to the museums in dresden and berlin but there are things that were there, things that at the our message museum

in petersburg and are prominently displayed, some of the world's great impressionist works that the full the intend to keep at this stage. it is not a museum decision. it is the government's decision. i think there are hundreds of thousands of objects that belong to germany, poland in former soviet countries and i am sure there are things like in our country that no one necessarily knows where they are. this is a challenge. it is an open cultural -- between germany and russia. the former soviet countries and something that passage of time is going to have to continue to move forward and allow these countries to work together to solve this. >> host: barbara in jacksonville, fla.. >> hello. i wanted to tell you how much i am enjoying this program but i also wanted to point out to the

commentator i am enjoying robert edsel but the commentator might be interested in a book that was written by peter bogdanos. he has the district attorney in new york city. they sent him to baghdad, iraq, in 2004, to investigate the looting of that library. what they found out was, this is also a nonfiction book incidentally. >> guest: when did this come out? >> caller: and i believe 2004. it is a nonfiction. >> host: it is matthew, not peter. >> caller: matthew? i beg your pardon. anyway, the title is fiend's from baghdad, nonfiction, and it is a marvelous book about how he

found out all of the terrible publicity about all the things that were destroyed, looted and lost was not correct. some were lost but they were all returned. he would be an excellent interview on booktv. >> host: that is familiar. >> guest: a lot of mischaracterizations. he is a great patriot, he went in in 2003, it wasn't his fault. he was trying to fix problems and identify how many works of art have been looted and finally get them back. others participated, koren weiner, an important monuments woman in 2004, part of those teams and not the national museum that was looted but the national library, important archives. there were initial reports of

250,000 objects taken. turned out there was more 15,000, about half have been found and returned through efforts, he wrote in his book about this. he didn't have any knowledge of the monuments men even though he was over there carrying out the role they played which underscored the importance of why this story about monuments clinton needs to be told and why i have been so excited to share it with everybody because it is a story that is near and dear to all our hearts. his book is an interesting book but there is a lot to the story. not with looting of works of art but the damage is done with the appearance of the united states, with people around the world seems that we didn't care about these cultural treasures, some even accuse us of not caring because they were not judeo-christian in nature which was nonsense. wasn't a priority target it

should have been because we didn't know about the legacy we inherited from world war ii. >> host: i know this isn't your area of expertise the we're coming upon hundred anniversary of world war i. was there any effort or wide scale looting in world war i? >> guest: there was certainly damage to cultural treasures and i right about that in saving it lee because the monument fine arts and archive section was not the first time this ever been done. actually another of the paradoxes, the first formalized effort to protect works of art was a german effort in world war i but it happened not in anticipation of war but in reaction to deliberate destruction of a library, a german scholars were called in to try to advise the german military to minimize future such instances but it was a different scale than we saw in world war

ii and the leadership of the united states and great britain transformed and mitigate damage to cultural treasures. >> host: susan from florence rights thank you for making this story available to the world. after seeing the movie and reading your book we now want to go to europe to see the safeguard and monuments. the way you we've the history of war with preservation of historical sites makes the book, street for all -- how much of the lost art has been returned to the family? >> much of it has. the rothschilds have resources and attorneys when the monuments officers' worshiping works of art back to france to make sure they recover their family belongings but there are multiple rothschild family's in europe, different branches and so there are many things missing but they turned, they were more fortunate than many other families. i think for susan and others that love this story and admire

the monuments men and women they can help us honor them, visit monumentsmenfoundation.org, put there zip code in and it will generate an automatic message to their members of congress and the senate asking them to support this congressional gold medal bill, something that doesn't take but a minute of their time and is a great way to honor these clinton and women. >> host: our previous caller, booktv covered mr. baghdado's book. go to booktv.org, type in his last name in the quarter, in the left-hand corner where it says search, type in his last name and you will find the program and watch it on line. nagy in new york city, thanks for holding. you are on with robert edsel. >> caller: i was calling because i am curious about a recent news article in a munich apartment

house, about 1400 pieces of art that have been stolen and his father was an art dealer working with the nazis and i have seen a second article, in a country house, more pieces have been discovered. this wasn't made news until it was leaked to a magazine two years after the fact of the discovery. i am curious about your take on what is unfolding with this story. >> guest: is the real hairball, at a lot of problems. there are some mental issues. there is speculation on the part of some people, who was 12 years old at the end of the war. and these works of art, something he did. his father was part of jew, he

was one of the art dealers, one of the art dealers that was selected by the nazis, one of four key dealers to move works of art that have been removed by hitler's and devil's orders from german museums, it was considered degenerate and some of the works of art in this collection are works in german museums and that is a complicated case the likes of which we haven't seen on this scale before. some of the works of art appear to have been purchased in art markets, they may be for sale. there have been a few works of art that have been identified as highly suspect of having been stolen. more work needs to take place. the germans's mistake was to allow this to be treated as a tax matter by tax officials for the first two years and only disclosed when reporters got wind of it and the germans came

out and discussed it. by then the court of public opinion back to the power of that had cast them in a bad light for not grabbing hold of this and seeing what an explosive topic it was. more times have to pass to what identify what these works of art. numbers are speculated, 1 billion euros are ridiculously too high. in particular no one has seen the works of art, the tab complete list of the works of art, how anyone can come up with a value, pretty divine guess at this stage but they're worth a lot of money. is a case that needs to be resolved and bringing visibility to this statute of limitations problem in germany limiting a period of 30 years that is going to have to be revisited and this in the process of being discussed. there's a lot to come on this, an interesting story that underscore is that a lot of works of art from world war ii are out there and beginning to show a. >> host: bridget in washington d.c.. >> caller: i want to say i think

the work the monuments men foundation does is amazing and i appreciate it. earlier it you mentioned questions of ownership prior to world war ii were slippery slope and i was curious to hear your opinion about repatriation especially for cultural objects belonging to indigenous communities which were often acquired by museums and universities in the west for nefarious and illegal means. >> guest: it is a broad question you are asking. we may be in some of the later innings to use a metaphor here of the nazi looted art question but we are in early discussion phases of the question of cultural property. people around the world, 95% of people outside the united states take matters of cultural property, acutely emotional subject. i think we are going to see as the third and four countries come to the table and become

more part of the world economic community there are going to be discussions why many of their works of art are in their country and more developed countries and these discussions are going to take place. they are going to be emotional discussions in many instances and it is healthy that discussions take place. i think what the monument men story does is highlighted point in time that is a break where wars have been fought in the past that these things should go back to the countries from which they were taken and return to their rightful owners that this is something to be proud of for the role the united states had. >> host: i wonder if you remember the e-mail earlier asking about monuments men who may have confiscated, art has e-mail again. just looked at the roster. the man in question does not appear on the roster. the stories i heard come from reliable sources including some with connections to the particular museum. appears he was not a monuments'

man but a soldier somewhere down the line who had access to a substantial number of pieces of artwork. you have a book here, any thought of conducting a tour? >> the monument to the foundation did that and is doing that. we call it in the footsteps of the monument to plant it is something we are going to be doing both to if we in 2015 and also to europe so that people can follow the stories as they took place in italy and follow the story in "the monuments men". we had monuments' officer accompany us when we went on the trip last year and one of the stops we made was the american cemetery to see the grave of walter hatchhouse and who was killed in combat. >> host: monumentsmenfoundation.org is the web site if your interested. here are robert edsel's books, rescuing da vinci, a beautiful

picture book your interested in the works of art, saving italy came out this past year and of course "the monuments men," now a motion picture, 2009, thanks for being on booktv. >> guest: thank you. >> welcome to booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. here are some of the programs you will see this weekend on booktv. steven jimenez argues the 1998 killing of that you sheppard was not an anti-gay hate crime but the result of a drug-related robbery gone wrong. phyllis chester describes her experience as a jewish woman in afghanistan married to a muslim fundamentalist. rich benjamin talks about his book