Book #10: The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel

I picked up this book because I'd seen it on some list like "Books to Read before the Movie Comes Out," and it really sounded like a fascinating topic. Plus, the all-star cast of the movie makes it look like it's going to be a great one to catch. And after reading the book, I am definitely going to see the movie. The story is just fascinating, and I feel like I learned so much about WWII history through this book. One of the lesser-known parts of the German occupation in other European countries was that Hitler commanded his officers to commandeer basically any and all of the artwork they could get their hands on, particularly those owned by Jewish people, and take it back to Germany for him to keep for himself and for a giant Fuhrer museum. He planned to (and did, for some) destroy anything done by lesser artists (like Jewish artist) and keep everything done by anyone else. This included everything from illuminated manuscripts to paintings to sculptures to stained glass windows from churches. All of these things were taken from their places and stored in unknown storage houses, in less-than-ideal conservation circumstances. So there was a group of Allied soldiers, most with art or museum backgrounds, who were assigned to recover and restore these priceless artworks to their original owners, as best they could. This book tells the story of where they looked and what they found--and the whole story was just amazing. The numbers of priceless pieces of art they found and saved were absolutely staggering: definitely in the tens of thousands (although, sadly, probably that many were lost as well).

The one thing I didn't really love about this book was the semi-fictionalized writing style. Maybe I'm just boring and like dry, objective writing, but it just seemed weird to me how the author must have made up entire conversations and thoughts that people had. This whole book is based on historical documents--stuff like the Monuments Mens' letters home and the army reports about their actions--so I don't see how he could know stuff like "Robert walked around the countryside, feeling the wind ruffle his hair, thinking about how sad it all was and how much he missed his family" (that's a made-up example of what's in the book). I think it makes the book very readable, but it seems too fake for me to fully accept it as a true retelling of what happened.