>> we'd like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback. >> here's a look at the back fairs and festivals on booktv in the coming months.

which is to say colleges, this year in particular, are starting to see buyer resistance. people are thinking very hard about whether they really want to spend $50,000, $60,000 a year and up. everytime people fine out what the tuition is, it's like, i can't believe how expensive it is. they're not seeing that as a good buy. especially if it's financed by debt. right now a lot of colleges are dealing with this price discrimination -- that's what financial aid is, they figure out how much you can pay and that's the price for you because i like you.

that's what is going on. you're seeing some schools actually having a credit rating downgraded bid moodies because they look at their business model and doesn't see it sustainable. enrollments are dropping, and within colleges you're seeing humanities departments done "new york times" has a piece on this recently. the humanities department losing their majors majors and enrolles because people don't want to major in the humanities because they're concerned about getting jobs when they get out. that has ramifications in universities where budgets are set based on how many students take your classes. so i think can't go on forever, and i think it won't. what happens next? well, a lot of things people can do. one thing we might see is people just not going to college.

i mean, 40% of college graduates hind up in jobs they could have gotten without a college degree. what's the difference between a starbucks barista and a starbucks barista who went to college? 100 grand in debt. which barista would you rather be? there's some startup -- i'm not sure i got it right. when donald trump was in financial trouble he pointed at some guy in the gutter and said, see that guy he has $500 million more than just me because he was broke and not in debt. that's the lesson for some college graduates. in today's world, while getting ahead is probably harder than it's ever been, just getting by is probably easier than it's ever been. between video games, internet porn and hookup culture, who need college? those things are available much more easily.

so one thing you may see is exit, and there is some evidence that, men in particular, are less likely to go to college because they don't see it as sufficiently warning but i'll leave that to the experts. another possibility is cheer alternatives and -- cheaper alternatives. one of them is online education, and there's a lot of that going on, and it's now no longer just the domain of the university of phoenix and a few other for-profit schools. georgia tech has a masters online, and as the provost says, just like a degree, except it's super cheap. another thing we're seeing that i'd like to see more is certification in place of diplomas. i'm not as optimistic -- not as convinced, the harvard business

review says it'sed end of degrees, they have a certificate to show they can do something instead of a diploma. but i think certificates, actual ability, people who think that is colleges because they're getting behind third-party certification as a way of demonstrating to people that their certificates immediate michigan, -- something. and then there's the aprepare tis programs. i saw an article about people who had gone to college and couldn't get job, going back to trade school to learn how to be legal contributions and plumbers. nothing sad about being an electrician or plumber. i was talking to a fellow law professor few years ago about the exploitation of the working class, and his response was, yeah i thought that until i saw my electrician's house.

be an electrician is good work and there's no reason why a smart person can't be an electrician. the story said that the sad thing for these people was they'd gone to college, run up all the debt before deciding to become plumbers and electricians. but according to the article, guidance counselors in high school don't want to tell smart people, they go to college. smart people make better electricians. so i don't know if it's so bad. and electricians make good money. people in skilled trades often make more than people with bas, and the coming years one huge advantage of these hands-on jobs is that they can't be outsourced to bang -- bangalor. we heard about how the workers

were going to run the world. when you're a knowledge worker you're in competition with every other smart person on the planet, thanks to the internet. when you're a toilet fixer, you're only competition with people within 15-30 minute drive. >> you can watch these and other programs online at booktv.org. >> here's a look at the top-ten best selling nonfiction books according to indie bound:

originally i was writing as a philosophyer. i was writing on philosophical topics, and i became interested

in more cultural social issues, and would write about them when found no one else was addressing them, and so i started to write about boys when i saw that it was a neglected topic. usually upset about something. this is wrong and this is not going to help people and this is going to send us in the wrong direction. so i'm almost always motivated by concern that it's important to get this down right. all of us are susceptible to confirmation. we're much more open to arguments and evidence that supports what we already believe. something that challenges you, you resist, and i know that i have that. so, i tried very hard to compensate for that. i know some people that i've heard -- there are -- some positions, someone that holds a

very different position than mine, say male-female differences, single-sex education. and they can present their position which is respectful of what i believe and i can listen to them. if they just come in loaded for bear and obviously with some kind of set of fixed ideas and rig yesterday ideology, i don't listen. i don't want to be like that. it's not good intellectually, not persuasive, you don't make -- don't change minds. >> it is a civil rights march that begins in memphis, the beginning june 1966 and three weeks later in jackson, and the civil rights movement approaches its crossroads.

the call for black power was first heard. stokley carmichael says that. and it generates a great swelling of enthusiasm among local black people and ignites a new direction in black politics. those changed might have happened over the course of time anyway but the meredith match brought together civil rights leaders and regular people, white and black, from all across the country, and put them in this laboratory of black politics as it moves now mississippi. created all these dramatic moments that highlighted key tensions and key strengths that had long animated the civil rights movement. >> a look at the civil rights movement, sunday at 9:00 on after words. march 2nd, more about black power and the civil rights movement. historian joseph will take your

comments and tweets and e-mails on booktv, and at booktv's become club you can still comment on bonnie morris. >> next, panel discussion about robert edsel's "the monuments men," the allied unit tasked with recovering and protecting european cultural artifacts stolen by the nazis during world war ii. this is an hour and 30 minutes. [inaudible conversations]

>> robert's second book is entitle "the monuments men, allied heroes." this panel tonight will discuss the allied heroes, the monument's men, the nazi thieves and the greatest treasure hunt in history. with ambassador's staff on the panel we'll also touch on some of the more contemporary efforts by the united states government to address the loss and return of what we began calling holocaust era assets. what's been done since the 1990s is following in the steps of "the monuments men," using the records they created as our guide to the past and

help turn history into justice, an expression i stole from the ambassador and have used frequently without attribution. we know that world war ii witnessed the greatest murder in history, the holocaust. it also witnessed the greatest theft in history. the nazis and their alaska -- axis partners took what they wanted. gold, property, moveable property, intellectual property, communal and religious property, they also took cultural property in numbers that stagger the imagination. they even took gold fillings from their victims. much of what was taken was from the european jewish community. the theft was often indirect as we learn in the 1990s as witnessed by what happen to jewish accounts in swiss banks and insurance policies issued to

jews by german and italian insurance companies. stu was greatly involved in these issues, beginning in the 1990s, and perhaps you can tell us a little bit about this swiss bank and insurance issues and whether there's been any resolution of those issues. >> thank you, greg, and thank you for hosting this, david. as greg said, the holocaust was not only the greatest genocide in history, it was the greatest theft in history. it was a war within a war, in which nazi germany diverted enormous amounts of resources, down to the very last days of the war, to strict use of everything they had including their lives in a way, the theft of art and other properties is as old as warfare. go back to the 70a.d. conquest

of jerusalem by the romans, and the insignia of the arch of titus in rome. the moan lisa in the lourve, taken on one of napoleon's ventures. but what distinguished this theft, greg, was its breadth, depth, efficiency, organization. so, for example, with respect to artworks, it's estimated that 600,000 pieces of art were stolen. eight thousand of which were personally selected by adolph hitler for a museum he planned after the war in his home town in austria. but artwork was only part of it. so, for example, homes and businesses, julie, gold fillings, insurance policies and bank accounts, and let me just mention the bank accounts and

insurance policies which you asked about and we'll come back to the art later. what we found through an article in "the wall street journal" that i read when i was an boom to brussels, and the article said there were dormant swiss bank accounts, accounts set up during the war primarily by jews, trying to shield their money in the safest banking system in europe, from the onslaught of the third reich, and those families tried to recoup the bank accounts were told they cooperate be found. in fact what happened was the accounts were drawn down month after month by charges and taken into the profits of the banks. so i got permission from the state department and nick hole brooke to go to switzer hasn't.

i met with the swiss bankers association. i gave them a copy of this "wall street journal" article and i said, is this true? and they said, yes, it is, to an extent. we have had our own ombudsman. we have found there are 732 dormant bank accounts which should have been returned and weren't, and if we pluck that up to today's values that would be $32 million and we're going to return every one. but not taking it at face value we appointed paul voelker to a mission, got major accounting firms and found there were 54,000 possible accounts and 21,000 certain accounts, and a settlement was reached for $1.25 billion. with respect to insurance, companies axa and allianz and

many others, did the following. there were insurance policies on the lives of individuals, and what happened after the war is the families of those who were killed for which there were live insurance policies, tried to recoup, and they were told that the policies had lapsed because the premiums weren't paid while people were in auschwitz, and this was only discovered, again, by news the late 1990s. we created something called the international commission on holocaust insurance claims, under former secretary of state larry eagleberger, and consensual way, after we got everyone together, there were 19,000 policies paid over around $400 million. so, the dimensions of this were peeling back the layers of an onion. one thing led to another. slave labor.

got almost $8 billion in compensation from german private companies company and german government, and the majority of that were for mon jewish forced labor. a million and a half people got compensation as a result of that. so it was very, very extensive effort of which art was a piece but only a piece. >> speaking about -- thank you. speaking about art, and going back to before and during world war ii, nancy, can you tell us what the nazis took in terms of art, who did the taking, and what did they do what if they took? >> well, it's interesting. i was thinking today about the term we use "nazi looting" the common phrase, and that gives you an idea of kind of wanton acts of opportunistic looting. there's a power outage and

people break into the television and electronics store and while that is certainly, i'm sure, occurred, what we're talking about in terms of nazi confiscation what much more system. >> bureaucratic, from the leadership down, targeting certain categories of individuals and certain countries and it was enacted by various bureaucratic arms of the nazi regime and varied with country to country, with germany and austria was much more through the taxation offices, when there were laws passed that jews had to pay certain taxes, or in later as we move into occupied countries, working in poland and in holland, and in holland particularly they were working with the banks that were taking over jewish assets, and the most well known organization

is the err, and that is an arm that was originally to be confiscating propaganda that was something the nazis were trying to subdue, and was turned into an arm for confiscating assets of jews in france and belgium. so i think it's really important -- use the term "nazi looting" but try to keep in your mound it was really a bureaucratic effort from the top down, and as to where it was going to go, hitler planned to have the greatest museum in the world because he was going to own all of europe. and then other nazi party leaders were collecting because they thought it showed them to be civilized people, and they were collecting them for themselves. like any regime, i think, like many regimes, the nazis really

used art to their advantage. >> did they sell art to raise money to support the war effort? >> maybe not to support the war effort but they saw the currency of art. the degenerate art you're familiar with would be used as a currency, and even individual collectors like goring did that. he traded it for things he would prefer. so art was a kind of currency, and is and always will be, but used in a particularly maudlin fashion. >> in january of 1943 the allies declared their intention to stop nazi plundering and looting and

warn that i go reserved the right to not recognize forced sales of property or sales of property made under duress. at the same time, the allies became increasingly concerned about the damage to and the destruction of cultural property, and in america this concern manifested itself in a twofold manner. first was the creation of the american commission for the protection and salvage of artistic and historic monuments in war areas. for short it's called theroberts commission because its chairman was a supreme court justice roberts. the second thing was the creation within the military establishment of specialist to deal with the protection of cultural property. so, robert, can you tell us about robert's commission and the creation of these "the monuments men"? >> yes.

thank you very much. look, it's actually a little bit boring because we get into some very long names you have heard, greg ore rate,, -- orate and acronyms but it begins three or four years earlier. there's a man named george doubt, a pioneer in the conservation of works of art, who is so old, he fought in the last year of world war i. he was in europe and saw the destruction and damage there, and went into art conservation and worked at the fogg museum in harvard, and he had this vision watching the extraordinary damage in spain from the civil war, and the advent of new technologies of bombing that were causing fires, and a conviction due to court -- friends he had who worked in german museums who were having to flee germany and go to

england to try to get away from the bad times they foresaw. he was convinced there would be a second world war, and matching that with the events he was observing in spain, saw disaster on the horizon, that the united states might become engaged in the war and in the process of trying to defeat nazi germany, destroy so much of western civilization it would be a permanent stain on the american military and the united states. so even before the japanese neck sneak attack on pearl harbor, stout is preparing pamphlets how to protect cultural treasures during war before we're even engaged in the war. following december 7th, very minute liking following september 11, 2001, the great fear was there would be an invasion of the east coast or bombing of the east coast best the nazis and invasion of the west coast by the japanese, and

american museum directors were to convene at the metropolitan museum the third week in december, 1941, to discussion initially the protection of works of art in this country at our main museums, including the national gallery of art, which largely in the dead of night on december 3178 in '41, evacuated 70 some odd pictures to north carolina, where they sat out the war. and as happened with september 11th it became fairly clear pretty quickly that what had happened was all that was going to happen in the short term, and the focus shifted from how to protect things in this country, oh toe how to avoid destroying so much of mannedkind's great creative achievementness western europe. and stout proposed this concept of cultural preservation officers, a new kind of soldier, one charged with saving rather than destroying, and had

envisioned a much more elaborate setup of secretaries and assistants and typewriters and vehicles, none of which was manifested by the time this unfolded. and he was very suspicious as a museum director and was convinced -- he referred to them as -- he was convinced that by the time they got ahold of these ideas they'd so muck it up, it wouldn't go anywhere. and he, at some point in time, gave up on the idea and went into working with something else he knew about, which in the military was the camouflaging of aircraft. not too far from restoration of works of art because you're dealing with paint. but his great supporter was paul saks, a pioneer introducing the first museum studies course in the united states at harvard, known as the museum study course, and it was a farm club for museum directors, curators,

of the cultural country we know today. there were some 20 saks babies that became monuments officers and for those who saw the old "mission impossible" tv series, at the end peter graves would sit down after knowing the assignment and flip through his dossier of experts to decide which ones he wanted to have to deal with the challenges of that mission. well, paul saks performed this performed working for the roberts commission, starting with all the students he graduated since 1920. and there were some 20 students that were architects, length wisconsin, most educated in europe, and the key factor was who was already in the military, even reserves, because they quickly realize it it would be much easier to transfer something in the military than to get somebody in who wasn't in it so this was the origin of this idea, and by late 1942, the

idea comes from a lot of different groups, american council for -- people at the -- a lot of very well intended people, including those on this lengthy name known as the roberts commission, but it's george stout's idea that largely is represented in this, and it reaches president roosevelt others desk in late 1942 and then in april 1943. he says pretty simply, makes a lot of sense to me good idea, i approve it. and they're off and running, getting the formalities set up but the selection of officers doesn't begin until the summer of 1943, and of course, sicily, the invasion of sicily has already happened by this stage. that's the interesting explanation rather than the complicated version. >> these units that these monuments were assigned to were called monuments, fine arts and archives, and the archivists

always felt like third-class citizens. compared to their fine arts and museum colleagues. in any event, besides establishing these montments men and the roberts commission, a parallel action was guess on with the british, and part and parcel of the full cultural protection program, and also in terms of looting, was intelligence gathering. you have to know what is actually happening in axis europe. much of this was accomplished by american diplomats, and oss, officers secret services operatives in switzerland, turk yes, sweden, spain, and portugal, as well as dealings with the governments in exile in london. and also gathering intelligence

about what the nazis were doing in terms of looting cultural property, where individuals -- played by cate blanchett in the movie. can you tell us about her? >> well, rose is one of the great hero hair row wins of world war 2, and all of you ladies who get tragedy to world war ii movies, this your film. she is a hero and she is a remarkable woman, andve she can transform herself int into . rose is this woman who the though french considered a custodian, in our country we would consider her a curator or

a small museum, which if you have been to paris and walked to the lourve for the tour you walked right past this building. an earl stage indoor tennis court, built in the 17th 17th century, and it became the central headquarters for the nazi looting operation in france and in paris in particular, and it was there that the tens of thousands of works stolen from the great collectors in france, roth child, were brought in and they were often times photographed, inventoried, signed -- this is a particularly evil or pernicious element of what they did. that would assign invest -- inventory codes so the french rothschild would be r, and then there would be inventory numbers

of what had been stolen, and there were inventory numbers of 6,000, and many of the things officers later found, which michael accurate has done a great job write about this -- were jewelry chests if hundreds of objects in. the that counted at one. or thomas howell, a monuments officer, referred to a coin collection that was one object on the inventory but there were 10,000 coins in it. so the numbers get to be, as stuart said earlier, pretty staggering very quickly. rose is there with the responsibility of managing this building and the germans know they need her there to make their she lights are working bump she understands german and they don't know this, and her boss, who is another hero, the director of the french museum, including the lourve, placed her there with the responsibility of essentially spying on the activities, and so she is making

secret notes over a four-year period and is there each of the 20 times garying comes on his shopping expeditions and that's not being playful with the term. they set up exhibits with tapestries and furniture. stuart referenced things that were stolen. easy to say if there was any value the nazis stole it. so they would have champagne and a cigar, and his outfits, whether it was a white and a half -- amazing the different photo wes have of him coming in and out and making selections of the things knowing that these great things hat to go to hitler's collection, and rose hid these notes in her dress and sometimes written on the back of envelopes. she was digging through trash cans looking for photo negatives, shipping manifests, and over the course of four years she knows largely the

number of works that have come through. the recognizes many of them bus they're so famous, and she knows the location where many of them have been taken. a lot of time wes hear about rose's secret diary. it's really a album that all these different pieces of notes and scraps of paper have been put into one document for people like us to look at where they're all in one place. and in the lib right -- liberation period in 1944, she survived and is considered a collaborator, and she doesn't turn over all the information she has to her boss, on his advice, because there's so much collaboration, no one in france knows who to trust. and her loyalty to the works of art over and above being a patriot, and she is encouraged to work with an americans

montments officer, the curator of a museum, goes on to be the six income director of the met after the war, and they do this dance over the period of six months of what i really refer to as a dance, a courtship, not in a romantic sense but in trying to see if she -- he can be trusted with this information. and the two people of destiny, each holding half of the same key. rose is determined to find every single thing taken from her country, and she persists with this until 1981 when she dies. never gives up on it and becomes a real pain in the side to mean people in france who just want the subject to go away. but she is a woman in man's world, not part over the military, has no transportation, and on the other hasn't, jim roarmer, who wants to fulfill his destiny and do something great, he realizes he can play a role in recovering works of art

stolen from france. he has transportation, a second lieutenant in the american army, but doesn't know where to go. so this is the dynamic between the two of them. back and forth. her probing and testing to see, can he be trusted? will he really return these things to france? and it's a fascinating dynamic, story within the much bigger story, and i think it's one of the great parts of the film that both matt damon and cate blanchett teased out of the story, you mentioned sicily, in 1943, the allies invaded sicily, and then the mainland of italy. at this stage of the war there were very few monuments men. they had some successes. they had some failures. and all of this is explained in robert's third book, "saving italy." robert, could you briefly talk about some of the challenges the

first monuments men -- did they have transportation? did they have maps? >> they -- it was really a pathetic beginning. we can say that. it was an army of one at the beginning. president roosevelt, who realized this is a good idea, also understood that they needed to buy time for the selection process to occur and the army bureaucracy to get these guys over, in on his orders, a man named mason hammond -- show of hands of people who have either graduated from harvard or been to a harvard commencement? you al know who mason hammon is. he read commencement at harvard every year from the late 1920s until 199 when he died, with the exception of the war years, and he was a classics professor at harvard, and he was selected by

president roosevelt and flown in tother -- to theater. he arrived in sicily three weeks after the american british led invasion. he actually is flown to algeria, thinking he is going to be a monuments officer in north africa when they say, you're just here brief live until we take you to sicily. he says i don't know anything about that area. well -- and he didn't, but mason hammond gets there, no vehicles no operation. i mean, they don't -- they're just winging it. but the thing is, these hospitalments officers and all men at the beginning -- montments officers, all men, are average age 40 years old and have accomplished careers, most have families, many have kid and they're used to big jobs with no resources so it wasn't terribly intimidating and were pretty clever and resourceful in figure ought how to do things. while the army didn't help them

any, they didn't pay much attention to them either so so in the extent they could come up with solutions they were effective. but at the beginning for the first five months the operation fell on its face over and over again to the point that general marshall wrote his protege, general eisenhower, in october of '43 and said, you need to be very careful because people here are reading horrible newspaper accounts of damage in italy by us, by the allies, and proceed cautiously. general eisenhower at the outset didn't believe any special orders were necessary. he thought these men and women are part of the civil affairs division, and they had a job to do military structure will work and people will pay attention to them. but time and time against it wasn't working. the montments officers would post buildings out of bounds so american troops and british troops couldn't live in them, damage them, take things, and the montments -- the army

officers and troupes ignored -- and troops ignored them. so by the time of november and december, when the operations clearly is failing, general eisenhower changes in my view, the face of the war, and he issues this directive on december 29, 1943, albeit six months after the war in italy has begun, but it says that it's the responsibility of all his commanders and troops to respect cultural treasures so much as war allows, and if it comes down to lives of our men or are object, the lives of the men count moore, however too often time this is used as an excuse of con screen that will not be tolerated. that is the sea change how wars were fought. the the monuments officers never got much more help than that. they've didn't have vehicles. had to hitchhike around the country and making it all. but the senior monuments officer

in italy said it was the first solid ground under our feet, and they could go around and see these military commanders and show this directive and it hat currency with them, and we should say that general eisenhower and his command staff went to school on the mistakes they made there, and by the time of the normandy landings, that same order, similarly worded, is issued two weeks before the normandy landing. >> we're way behind schedule. i asked my colleague to try to keep their answers short. but once the allies landed in france in june 1944, and the allies increased their bombings of germany, the germans began hiding their own cultural property and the property they looted, primarily in southern germany in salt mines and

monasteries, castles, aerate bunkers, and some germans at this point, especially in late 1944 believed they would lose the war and the smartest thing was to get the loot to a safe haven outside of germany, and the united states government initiated operation safe haven, to basically bring the intelligence-gathering capability of the treasury department, the state department, the economic administration to find out where these assets were going. in 1997 and 1998, the ambassador oversaw the production of two government reports about the looting, about operation safe haven, about monetary gold, and looted gold, and victim gold,

and these reports were quickly produced and were not will received in some places. so the ambassador -- tell us what prompted the clinton administration to have these reports produce expelled what was the outcome of these reports. >> first, robert has done an enormous service through his book, and i want to put it in an even broader context, and that is it's a great tribute, not only to "the monuments men" but to the united states army, and the united states of america, contrast this enormous effort to save cultural property to get it returned to its rightful owners, with the action of the soviet union coming from the east to berlin, and they were intent on doing just the opposite.

stripping germany, stripping its museums of everything that they could, that was moveable, taking it back to russia, as war compensation for their enormous losses. so here we are doing exactly the opposite. trying to preserve it, trying to get it back to its original owners, while the soviets are trying to compensate themselves for their losses. with respect to the reports, we had lawsuits being brought against the swiss banks. and we began to realize that there was a broader story than the amounts put in swiss banks by victims. and that broad are story was how did the germans finance a war effort for 12 years when their

currency, the reichmark, was not accepted at international currency, and to his enormous credit, william swainy, may he rest in peace, came to me and said we ought to look into this. we had an interagency study, including the cia and others, and we did a landmark study of whan happened to the gold that was a lotted by the germans and went to switzerland. not private bank accounts, not private banks, but as the germans swept through europe, they stole the gold both from jews but prime minister marrily in -- but primarily in larger amounts of the central banks of the governments they occupied, and in order to get the hard currency to finance the war, they took that gold and gave it to the central bank of switzerland, which knew exactly what they real reserve the reich bank were, realized early on

this was far in excess of the reserves the germ central bank had, and these were looted. they converted the gold into swiss francs, which the germans used to finance the war effort. and we disclosed this in our report. it caused, of course, an explosion in switzerland, and then we did a followup report the next year of what other neutral countries, portugal, spain, turkey, had done to facilitate the war effort to switzerland's great credit, they took our report and, if anything improving on it. they appointed a professor to do their own report, and his report is a landmark and self-examination, and as a result of our report and his report, we ended up getting 20 countries, greg to set up their own historical commissions, to look at their role during the war.

>> we're really running behind at this point. i mean, i knew that every single question would be a one-day answer. one-book answer. >> we're doing well. we cut it down. you can read this in robert's book. we'll skip over the whole movement in 1944 and 145, the greatest treasure hunt in history. you can see the con densed version in the movie -- condensed version in the movie. it was dangerous and hard work, and two monuments men's officers were killed. an american, walter hutch, and a british major, ronald balfour. so, these were scholars putting their lives on the line, and in both cases they were killed trying to rescue cultural

property in harm's way. this treasurehunt of where the loot was came from all these different sources, but as the war was ending there was still a lot of questions, where is all the loot? who was involve in taking the loot? things that we know now from the work by nancy and others, but at the time we didn't, and the latter part of the war, the office of strategic services created something called the art looting investigation unit. it was staffed by monuments men such as wayne. so michael, can you tell us about these art looting investigation units, where they operated, what they did and produced. >> okay. i'll try to do it not in a day or a book. it's really amazing how much is owed sometimes to a very small group. this is just ten individuals, three of them were principle

investigators, art historians, theodore russo from the national gallery, lane, a professor at williams college, and james from the fogg museum in harvard, and their task was to try to identify where this vast network ofle hidden assets, particularly -- was on cultural materials, art, archives, libraries -- and so there was a lot of concern that this material would become fodder for sale in the black market, and finance the nazi resistance. there was a lot of concern in late 1944 and 1945, that there would be a nazi resistance after the inevitable defeat. and so during the war, the a vast counterintelligence of people in the market. they had names and an idea who

were the players, and from the spring of 1945 anward they go into germany and austria and they do basically two things. they do an enormous amount of archival research because the records of the err that naps sis mentioned were located. so they're looking at that. looking at records found in munich, and they also interrogate the key individuals who were the players in the art market. and i think these three were very disappointed because after after the war, while rosenberg and -- were held accountable, the second tier actually got away without any indictments, without any sentences, and they start business again. but nonetheless, they were able to map out where all of this material was, and saved an enormous amount of time, saved these materials from being looted by others, and being

lost, and they produced detailed interrogation reports on 12 individuals, and special studies of the project of hitler's, and on goerings personal collection and on rosenberg's organization. so, this group, very small group of investigators, did an enormously critical job in laying the groundwork for the monument men's work. >> they helped assist the process of identifying where the art was, and this art, both german-owned and looted, ended up coming frequently to collecting points, and these were operated by monuments men, with immense quantities of art, trying to put humpty dumpty back together again.

michael had the great sense to write his on what happened to the property. what were the policies and procedures for returning it? >> thank god he did. >> so, michael, can you tell us how they handled this property, getting it back to rightful owners. >> robert mentioned -- he had the notion of creating these simple collecting points. there were 1300 repositories where the germans had hidden the material, most in the u.s. zone of occupation, and you just can't run 1300 of these places so as greg mentioned, they set up these operations. and it is amazing that these monuments officers were able to just create these places. germany's devastated. and they don't have a lot of support from the army, but using

either collecting point where the art and other things flood that needed to be rescued went, and by the middle of june 1945 the whole thing is refurbished can the security is set up, there's coal for heat, which was absolutely critical, actually, and so millions of items flowed in. art from the state museums, and libraries, religious items and so forth. so is innovation was critical to ultimate restitution. >> robert frequently reminds us that the mission of the monuments men is unfinished, and others will tell you the mission is unfinished.

one important activity and fulfilling the mission of the montments men was the 1998 washington conference on holocaust era assets. this conference adopted what is call the washington principles, and each of you should have in your program a copy of these principles, which were adopted in 1998, and then re-affirmed again in lithuania in 2000, and prague in 2009. how did the principles come beside and how did various countries following them? >> i negotiated the principles but it's really important to understand that there was a huge gap, through no fault of "the monuments men," the basic principle was that the art would be returned to the countries from which it was taken. rather than trying to go through an impossible task of finding

the individual owners. and so art was returned, for example, to france, and to many other countries, on the theory that they would set up their own claims processes to allow clamants to recover their individual art. and that did not happen. ...

>> and michael wrote about this, a conference in 1995 that elevated the issue. been there was a catalyst that no one was expecting. a typical exchange that occurred with the museum in austria to the u.s. to the museum of modern art. they had forgotten remarkably to go to the simple process to fill out the forms at the state -- department from being seized they didn't and they were claimed by a holocaust

family so the attorneys subpoenaed and the art the and it sent a shock wave through the american museum community. that resulted in the american association of museum directors under pressure to create a series of guidelines for researching art, publishing potentially not seat looted art and establishing a process. we came behind that and we internationalized with our conference december 1998 at the state department. we were able to get them to agree to a set of principles to see if any were suspect publish any that maybe and with those processes to make

sure the establish alternative dispute processes based on the merits and not a technical defense. there is a great burst of activity in the american community at the national gallery. nancy returned a piece of art that they found. at the chicago art institute and others but after a search engine so a claimant does it have to go to 100 museums hugo to all 100 they still have full-time employees who look for any suspect art and it in any given year of one dozen or return to. but here's what happened.

it was a shame. that momentum was lost a and overtime they started to assert technical defenses like the statute of limitations. they even preemptively filed injunction suits they said they did that after researching themselves to determine it was not luted but there was no objective measure of that. ironically having started this process falling behind to find the dutch, germans, austrians, a british established their own commissions and they were functioning better than us. for sure those are much criticized we do not have a commission.

but we can do that we set up a harvard mediation service. after this passage of 50 years through the washington principles that we have fallen back stagnated and have to get back to filling what the monuments men did. that would be a tribute to get back to where we were. >> now vote what is the museum community doing? >> i would respectfully

disagree. the commission's letter said that figure up are for a totally different category of objects never recovered known to have a and issue a and in the custody of those countries. the objects of american collections are here by happenstance, bore erratic what the american museum community has done is that is so instrumental with the guidelines that they are misleadingly simple. the research and has always been in the museum but this specifically searched during the world war 2.are here at the national archives is very complicated and very different from what the curators have done.

i am proud to say the museum community has partnered with the archives to do multiple trading sessions for curators around the country how to access these materials. there are two major conferences with the international conference in 2007 in this room a two day international conference to access these american -- remarkable resources. in june we have another partnership. so we are trying as hard as we can open to anyone who has any questions and no american museum does not want anything on their paul's that does not belong to them. >> but the museum's would raise technical decisions to have the decisions made on

merits. second the attorney for the aamd having suggested a commission would get this out of the courts come out of litigation getting lawyers out of the picture the technical defense is out with decisions on the merits >> i have a few questions for robert. [inaudible] [laughter] >> this is not my typical role. [laughter] but i will try. >> how do get interested? but to actually enjoy doing the research? like your own treasure hunt? >> yes. ipo very impatient. a guilty as charged. i like to see things happen

and make things happen this is the big gastric when i kemp win i am with these elderly veterans and i have a chance they know i care and i am deeply passionate they will talk for hours and hours and i will set their in feel like i have the greatest job in the world to listen to their experience. oftentimes i never share with anybody else also another experience with the spouses of deceased officers that we found in one particular case a woman got married. we did not know her married name. it is a joyous process. it has allowed us to tell the story in a way i don't think has been told. this is part of why it is

resonating. talking about works of art library books, jewelry, a tapestry, a stained-glass stained-glass, though whole spectrum of the yards. but it is a people story. why these men and women would risk their lives to walk away from established careers to risk their lives in combat to do something that was not necessarily going to benefit the united states but civilization. we have not seen that before. that is the sea change. we have not done anything like that since from top to bottom. we have had modern day the monuments men in our military today who have the absolute best of intentions and training but world war

ii that made it work was leaders doing only what leaders can do which is to feed. president roosevelt decided this was important to an dorsett and eisenhower issued orders to a power these men and women to do their job. leaders have done that on a public basis. we need that today's ally submit to might agree with things that stuart and nancy have said. the museum's can become scapegoats but i spoke to the aamd earlier this year and made the comment it is not okay to have a $50 million museum budget but not be able to afford providence researchers. on the other hand, it is easy to pick to say why haven't you done this or faster?

the research is very complicated there is not a lot of providence researchers floating around. so these questions we will have to debate it is more complicated at europe with statutes of limitations in various countries that have to be revisited. but the best place is to adjudicate is in the court of public opinion. i cannot in list that unless you know, the story. it is my effort to tell the story. i am not a trained historian , i was just passionate about this over the last 16 years to let you know, to love these men and women as i have to know their story and what they did and why is so important. with these efforts to honor them with congressional gold

medals before the house and senate today in the work of the the monuments men foundation with our toll-free neighbor -- number. others have been very supportive and a care how it came back nubbly has had a chance to do it that is the effort i am undertaking that the monuments men is building to study and write about the monuments men to explain the work of nancy trying to explain to people providence is offensive word for who owned it before you? we talking complicated terms. you want to know if you have

a clear title to your home. that is providence's. and at the state department and others that tried to bring worldwide visibility to legislative and formal judicial system but i submit those that have been left out are people like me don't halt -- the don't have the academic training, legal terms, art historians we like art, great stories, we believe no passage of time should change the character. is something was stolen we should give it back. [applause] >> as i said we could spend-- talking about the past, present and future of this topic. but i would like to thank the panelist for coming out

tonight also our boss the archivist of united states for his presence and interest of the records of the monuments men and the works of 93 of subject we have an interest in. i can direct you to microphones underside you murder was the atrocity of the germans but the first major trial was the nuremberg trials. did anyone discuss these issues at the nuremberg trials? there were people there who certainly stoll was that brought out to the world? >> yes.

the art investigation unit was critical. actually the volume actually interrogated caring at nuremberg. of lot of the documents entered into evidence in nuremberg as related to the art theft came from the work of this unit and it came from their research as they went through the german files to locate documents to have them verify by various interrogations' that they did. they even brought the second tier nazis it to give testimony about rosenberg. >> what was most effective is the 39 photographic albums with the had taken literally putting them in front of evidence to the

affair is file footage coming from the national archives you can watch. it is reviving. it is all online. >> do we have current the monuments men for the the of wars recently like iraq and afghanistan? >> we do. we have people in the community that have advised the state department prior to the invasion in 2003 but for a variety of reasons the other half of this that has to work with the leadership from the top in number country it is the ceo, the president of united states. i say this is a politically i don't care who the president or secretary of defense is, there was a monuments' woman named edith

who said it is not enough to be virtuous but also appear so. she understood the power of appearances. we taught first appearances matter. we did not have these officers there because of the priorities was not there. to go into installation you have to have you will you protect the electrical grid but we did not protect the national archives or the national library where the net jobs tried to destroy young flood and damage. it is a big problem. what we have to have today is to be treating people and we are doing that and doing a tremendous job but it to restate in my opinion from general eisenhower the united states respects the

cultural treasures of other countries if it comes down to lives of men and women or in object that is the excuse of convenience. that does not happen then the best efforts will work up through the bureaucracy then stall and fail. in 2004 we went over to fix the problems and they did a tremendous job. but what does everybody remember? remember to thousand three? but it was 2004 so before us it is a huge part again of our effort if we can make sure they all know about this in no political leader will go into combat again to say do we have monuments officers'? >> i was out of office at the time when we bombed the defense ministry excuse me

in baghdad i will ship was damascus. [laughter] when we did dash it pipes burst with our troops came in they found they found jewish treasures, archival treasures, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years and called me and said what should we do? get it out of the water coming get it to the national archives so we can be cured righted -- treated never return them. an agreement was reached to return this jewish cultural property which itself was looted in my opinion after the formation of israel. that is a very topical issue

now with congressional interest. so what robert has exposed is still a current issue. >> of would like 2.0 my wife went over there to help bring stuff back and has overseen it ever since. my wife's mother would call every day to see if she was safe i would say compared to the beltway she is probably safer there than here. >> germany is considering to change the 30 year statute in light of the case of the man in the looks like he can legally keep it but there may be a change. 69 years out after there will be a way for these countries that have the statutes of limitations to

end those? >> a great question. the biggest disagreement rehab is about the looted art in the united states is minimal. the greater amounts are in europe and germany and in particular of russia that has the greatest treasure trove of looted art to. they passed a law that says we will keep our so-called trophy art to pay for the war loss contrary to our policy in to the monuments men they are to return that art that the red army turk that was taken by the end nazis but they never implemented.

this is an incredible case. of a guy goes from switzerland to munich to come to the border and asked if he has anything to declare. i have 9500 euros and cash but i sold a piece of our. barely? in his apartment are 1200 pieces some have empty cases indicating he sold its. if it turns out to a lot was nazis looted art. initially the germans were treating it as tax evasion so we intervened as the state department based on the washington principles. based on what we have done it is not just tax evasion looking at the washington

principles and publish the arch which originally they would not do but now to their credit, 450 pieces have been published on the internet so claims can be made. know i cannot guarantee this will happen but we urge technical defenses not be used and they are seriously considering to create a new law to waive the statute of limitations as to the art but if they will do it or not remains to be seen. the publicly indicated they are looking at. so this story never ends. >> i hate to predict the future coming it is a perilous thing to do but i believe we will see changes

in the principal reason is the public, the court of public opinion will now know what the heck people are talking about. it is in step with legislators and lawyers debating in fancy terms like providence and the general public does not know what they talk about. so now it is on the front page around the world with a trove of pictures so help me out. no one has seen the works of art nobody has the list of works but somebody has of billion and a half year rose? now everybody is paying attention is it worth hundreds of millions? probably boveri don't have the information to determine the value. it is a hairball case but people around the world in the western half are

governed by laws and they feel that no passage of time makes it okay for somebody to keep something if it was stolen and we can identify who is it belongs to. if we can massage the process to make sure legislators in germany and others, when we were up the berlin film festival beaver with the german cultural minister for 30 minutes. we were her favorite people. especially in our monuments officer. if the voting public understands the story not just of the discovery but the old-fashioned unfolding in slow motion if you get google alerts there is stories every single day. but the public doesn't know the story. they've read the case it is complicated, etc..

the film will reach a worldwide audience that we could never get out to tell it to. the principles of what took place are accurate. so now people can understand it does not seem right rebates such efforts to discuss and be open about all the things that happened with germany there is a museum built the yet that same transparency is not evident in how the country's approach to discussing these works of art. but if the public who goes to the museum's elects the politicians and they see the movie now the game has changed. never betty can purchase a pate in the discussion instead of legislatures now the public can express their view and i believe if i write they feel it is

not okay to keep things just because there is a passage of time we will see te laws changed because it is the right thing to do. >> his father was a bid to the given art back to take to switzerland to get hard currency and return it. he kept some for himself but what is fascinating is after the war he convinced the allies he was a victim not a nazis he allowed them to get out at discounted prices now this is his son he kept them in a dusty room with trash it is an incredible story. >> we have five people with four minutes left. >> we discuss your up what about a shot? >> yes.

there were a handful of one of its officers but of course, there are british or uk monuments officers' that working in southeast asia but we talk about five or less then five or six fat work in japan but they cannot get there until after the war is over. so that is a different kind of operation where the american british effort in western europe is about trying to preserve works of art. and in japan that effort had to be skimmed as a result of dropping the atomic bombs. >> to raise the question of presidents with berlin art museum. that is one of the eeriest things to go through room after room there is no providence attached to any of those.

it is just artist and title. that is it. you don't know if it came from the prussian state or which municipal gallery or anything. that is the principal museum of germany. it is very, very weird. >> i will just contrast that with france. they had a collection is essentially limited jewish art they've made minimal efforts but to their credit much more recently after the washington principals what they did with their art is for example, it was a question of the jewish community should claim that are to have a museum of their own? they said no. in belongs to the french

state but they got history of what happened. it may save from the unknown jewish family but someone who's sees at 100 years will say what was that about? so it is very important even when there are no errors to identify where it came from. the germans have a wonderful process there are 40,000 so-called little risers outside the apartments of jews that were expelled with the names and dates raised 1 inch above the sidewalk so when you are walking you have to look down or you will tripp. is a way to say a jewish family was expelled from here and a way to teach lessons for the future.

>> but there are websites the german government has put to gather with providence information with missing information. there is information out there in the published form but whether they label in it in the gallery i cannot speak to that. >> i hate to cut off the questions at this point. [laughter] how much time do we have? ten minutes. great. >> i noticed in the books you very rarely mention the monuments women act also why haven't you told their story as well as the men? [laughter] >> i have not been busy

enough? the women play an important role however during these times the women were not in combat. the effort of the women plays of rule more behind the scenes with the maps for the allied pilots, some of the early intelligence work like the important curator for one collection is the earliest to come into the national it gallery of art. their story comes into the focus at the conclusion of the war with the integral role they have that the collection points to get them unsorted and restitution process. my three books, the first one that i wrote lists the names of all these people but it is not a narrative.

the two books that followed tell the story from the origination of the idea and then discuss the historical background of the arch dam preservation officers going back to world war i. then through 1945. the answer is not yet been i am not unaware and it is on my best of things to do. [laughter] >> my colleagues cover raise your hand will have a block tomorrow or friday on a my demands will did. i am looking forward to reading that's senate we found one in 2009 my labor day was spent at a v.a. hospital interviewing the lady who was a remarkable

woman bronze star recipient a tremendous experience hers is a story you will have a chance to know about. >> why weren't there monuments men now? there are. the special functions team there was a plan to save the artifacts that was not implemented but she was only part of that command of the special functions team. also undertaken by the colonel and his men to save the treasures of iraq. speaking of some rich army's civil affairs move to save the treasures of modern iraq as well as the dynasty. the ambassador might like to know there was also ceramic art in baghdad but connie

was forced to flee for his life with the assassins got loose. unfortunately he died in boston airport the army is interested to preserve the artifacts were ever rico. >> with the iraqi government to show any interest to maintain its treasures, but keeping it in the basement of the defense ministry what do they do if they get back? >> if everyone feels like they're sitting on a gold mine you really are. to elderly jewish gentleman cave into the congressional office and told a story of austria having thousands of still suited are working and cultural property in the government buildings and museums.

of the key was did you know, congressman about the captured german war records in the national archives? i was a young staffer and he sent to me to the collection but not for word to a9 and a fine work of the archives we never would have forced the austrians into the restitution plan. way the legislature is in good democracies to be better in bad democracies we had to get those laws recreated from austria. the list was frightening with the pressure it took to bring this about. we had a jewish ambassador at the time in vienna who would not lift a finger. >> people don't want to get involved so we need champions but they could not make their case. the records i went through

coming we have in the national archives are the blueprints for the hitler museum. it is pretty frightening. for his birthday coming up hitler would produce for color brochures about the size of reader's digest of his favorite looted art to send this to the front lines of his troops. i want to compliment the archives so how did they get all this stuff? it includes the captured german war records and hitler. >> and all the documents of the first detectives on the scene at the time. >> it is due to the national archives that we know this. >> in the late 1990's the ambassador you ask for a report how many pages of material do you have?

i said 10 million? that sounds like a good number but actually i underestimated as we uncover more and more material. >> the national archives inherited the records seized by the army. over the process of many years the archives picked up the project of the captured german records that they said the microfilm to germany. so we kept all the record said the united states as it relates to the functions of combat and postwar operation.

when i started my research 1979 there was no google. [laughter] but craig was very helpful. [laughter] also the united states national archives but there were trying to achieve with the principles for the nazi era cultural property. as a family member to trace the work of art to study what is available if you are a historian due to the work of the national archives

there are 19 archival institutions around the world. you can do a great deal of research that would be physically impossible before five or 10 years ago spent the right to go to the national archives i kid you not these documents these photographs are a great privilege to see the labor to make them available whether it is the day off it is an extraordinary opportunity. >> i will let the ambassador make closing remarks then to sign copies of his books. >> you can always address

it. >> on a personal note we should all be very proud to the americans for what robert disclosed about the heroism of the monuments men the determination of the u.s. army the war was hardly one here we are in the midst of a cataclysmic battle in general eisenhower takes upon himself to issue this directive. these men and women risk their lives because they think the providence of art is so important in that spirit we need to get back to you to continue the momentum.

i would say what went into this is to save those jews in europe but that should not detract from this remarkable heroic story. only in the united states of america could take this during the midst of the of war is going to be a great tribute to robert. [applause] >> 84 coming. we will see you outside. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] t bookr of "the monuments men," robert

edsel. how did you get started in this business? >> it wasn't my third >> how did you get started in this business? and. >> guest: i move to florence in 1996 studying art and architecture i walked over the only bridge not destroyed by the nazis and wondered how those treasures survived and who are the people that saved it? i did not know the answer but i was embarrassed that i've never wondered. people would say that is a great question. so its evolves out of curiosity. i could not have foreseen written three books and a major abortion pitcher and a foundation to continue their work but it is a privilege