Edsel, chairman of the board of the foundation, which chronicles and promotes the return of art stolen during World War II.
“Yes, they were suffering and losing buddies,” said Robert M.
Eisenhower had issued strict directives forbidding such thefts. But few suggest American soldiers were confused about the rules of war. The thefts from German castles and storage vaults in no way match the scale of Nazi looting, and were undertaken by men who had witnessed the bloody toll of German aggression. “Whether he won them in a poker game or not, they were stolen property.” “I just couldn’t keep them,” the major’s stepson, James Hetherington, 71, of Dallas, said. In a ceremony at the State Department in Washington, the three works from Dessau and two other paintings taken by American G.I.’s were handed over by the soldiers’ heirs to the German ambassador to the United States, Peter Wittig, in an event organized by the Monuments Men Foundation, based in Dallas. On Tuesday, the poker winnings began their journey home. Oftebro, who quietly mailed them home.įor the past seven decades, they have been with his family, most recently on the wall of his widow’s room in an assisted living center in Texas.
Much of the art was preserved, but three paintings by old masters somehow ended up in a poker game won by an American tank commander, Maj.
As the Allies stormed through Germany in 1945, museum officials in Dessau scurried to hide their art treasures in a nearby salt mine, where they would soon be discovered by American soldiers.
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