WWII Monuments Men weren’t all men. The female members finally move into the spotlight

DALLAS– After World War II, U.S. Army art experts searched for and recovered millions of works stolen by the Nazis. Among them was Mary Regan Quessenberry, known as the Monuments Men, who traveled from her base in Berlin to investigate stolen works, track down looting, and investigate suspected art dealers.

Decades later, Quessenberry and the other female members are receiving recognition.

The Dallas-based foundation honoring the group has updated its name in recent years to recognize their contributions, spotlighted their work in a new exhibit at a national museum, and will publish a memoir in English for the first time in which one of the women describes spying on the Nazis while they worked in a museum in Paris.

“The Monuments Men were not all men,” said Anna Bottinelli, president of the Monuments Men and Women Foundation.

The Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of the Allied armies had 27 women and approximately 320 men during and just after the Second World War. The Army recently revived the concept, with the first new class of monuments officers graduating in 2022.

When battles raged during World War II, it was men who protected works of art and architectural treasures. Women came into the picture after the war, when the emphasis shifted to restitution.

It’s a pivot the foundation has also made since Dallas-based author Robert Edsel founded it nearly two decades ago, focusing on the war years. Edsel made the monuments officers a household name and wrote books, including “The Monuments Men,” which was made into a movie in 2014 starring George Clooney and Matt Damon.

As the years passed, the foundation became increasingly involved in restitution, from helping to return works taken during the war to producing a pack of playing cards containing missing works.

“As our mission evolved and as our work developed, it became very natural to focus more on the postwar effort, and as a result, on the women,” Bottinelli said.

In November, a permanent exhibit on the monument officers opened as part of a new addition to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. The Monuments Men and Women Gallery includes a replica of a salt mine where monuments officials found stolen art.

The exhibit also features the story of Quessenberry, who joined what became the Women’s Army Corps when the U.S. entered the war. After the Allied victory in Europe, she discovered that the army was looking for art experts. Quessenberry, who had a master’s degree in art history, jumped at the chance.

When she arrived in Berlin, she was greeted by Lt. Col. Mason Hammond, a classics professor at Harvard University whom she knew from her studies at Radcliffe College, which later merged with Harvard.

“He opened the door … recognized her, put his arms around her and said, “Mary, thank God you’re here,†Edsel said.

In 1948 she returned to the US as a major.

Quessenberry’s friend, Ken Scott, said she described her time as a historic preservation officer as “the most exciting time of her life.” He said she was “cheerful” when Edsel traveled to Massachusetts to interview her a few years ago. before her death in 2010 at the age of 94.

“She was an absolute gun as they would say, just full of stories,†Edsel said.

It was important to Quessenberry to ensure that women received the recognition they deserved. “She was very strong and outspoken about it,†Scott said.

This fall, the foundation will publish Rose Valland’s memoirs. In “The Art Front,” originally published in French in 1961, Valland, a French art expert turned monuments official, writes about secretly tracking where stolen works were sent after the Nazis based their looting operation out of the Paris museum. she worked.

“It was thanks to her notes and all her spying that when the Allies entered Paris in 1944, they were able to trace the steps where this art had been taken and to whom it belonged,” Bottinelli said.

Valland, who inspired the role of Cate Blanchett in the film “The Monuments Men,” died in 1980 at the age of 81.

Edsel said the last working World War II monuments officer was a woman. After operations ended around 1950, Ardelia Hall continued the mission from the State Department until the early 1960s, maintaining a list of works still missing and urging museums and art dealers to be on the lookout. One woman, Captain Edith Standen, also set out in post-war Germany to write down the names of all her fellow monuments officers, he said.

The Army’s first class of new monuments officers, called heritage and conservation officers, will graduate in the summer of 2022.

Among them was Captain Jessica Wagner, who has worked at museums in the US. She said it feels a bit surreal to be part of the new version of the group she studied while earning her master’s degree. €

“You always ask yourself: would I want to do that? I think the answer is yes,” Wagner said.

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Videojournalist Kendria LaFleur contributed to this report.