Edsel tells the very
dramatic story of how Allied art experts, known as the Monuments, Fine Arts,
and Archives (MFAA) or Monuments Men, raced through Italy to rescue art
masterpieces and to secure endangered monuments during the Nazi retreat in
1944. A special focus on the cities of Naples, Rome, Florence, and Pisa’s
treasures.
I was especially fascinated
by the story of Frederick Hartt, who loved Florentine art and risked his life
to reach the city then pursued the lost artworks in a race across Italy into
Austria to return them. Many of the
artworks the Monuments Men saved are the treasures we see in Italy’s museums
today.
When Hitler's armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind's greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire.
On the eve of the Allied invasion, General Dwight Eisenhower empowered a new kind of soldier to protect these historic riches. In May 1944 two unlikely American heroes-artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt-embarked from Naples on the treasure hunt of a lifetime, tracking billions of dollars of missing art, including works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Titian,…
Spotts tells a story that carefully documents Hitler’s long fascination with aesthetics. This is a
side of the Fuhrer which is fascinating and, according to Spotts, something that shaped his conduct of the Second World War.
Hitler had long focused his
attention on Italy and especially the artworks of Venice, Florence, Rome and
Naples. In 1940 he established the Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg to seize
artworks across Europe to fulfill his plans to create a Fuhrer Museum in Linz,
Austria which would be filled with Europe’s greatest treasures with many of
them to be taken from Italy.
Featuring a new introduction by the author. A starling reassessment of Hitler's aims and motivations, Frederic Spotts' Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics is an adroitly argued and highly original work that provides a key to fuller understanding of the Third Reich. Spotts convincingly demonstrates that contrary to the traditional view that Hitler had no life outside of politics, Hitler's interest in the arts was as intense as his racism-and that he used the arts to disguise the heinous crimes that were the means to fulfilling his ends. Hitler's vision of the Aryan superstate was to be expressed as much…
Richard Overy has written a serious
examination of the British and American Allies' efforts to plan the bombing campaign
in Europe; with a focus on their strategic debates.
What was the best way to
force both the Italian and German forces to surrender, could it be done by
airpower, and how did the technology of bombing change during the Second World
War? The book makes with a country-by-country examination of the bombing campaign from 1940-1945.
Also, Overy
discusses the impact on Dresden, Monte Cassino, and other well-known targets,
as well as the Allied debate over whether to focus on daylight precision
bombing of military targets or nighttime area bombing, and the cost in civilian
casualties.
“An essential part of the literature of World War II.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
From acclaimed World War II historian Richard Overy comes this startling new history of the controversial Allied bombing war against Germany and German-occupied Europe. In the fullest account yet of the campaign and its consequences, Overy assesses not just the bombing strategies and pattern of operations, but also how the bombed communities coped with the devastation. This book presents a unique history of the bombing offensive from below as well as from above, and engages with moral questions that still resonate today.
The Allied Bombing of Central Italy examines the results of the Second World War Allied bombing
campaign on Palestrina and Rome, Italy, and the long-term impact of the war on
the mountainside town and on the Barberini family's art collection including
the Nile Mosaic. It explores the history and cultural significance of
Palestrina, its strategic setting, the recovery of the town, the restoration of
the Nile Mosaic, which remains the largest Egyptian-style mosaic extant.
The book explores the pressure by the Mussolini regime to
control the Barberini family's art collection, the uses of cultural materials
for propaganda purposes, the Allied use of air power in the Italian theater of
war, the postwar decision-making and recovery process.
