Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis by Robert M. Edsel Read Free Book Online Page A

Keller, had a comprehensive understanding of Italy. What Hartt lacked in time spent living in Italy he made up for with his research on the country’s art and monuments. More than half of his young life had been spent studying Italy—its artists, its culture, its history. He first traveled there in 1936, arriving in Milan on August 15, Ferragosto , the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: “I lost my heart to Italy at the time of my very first visit to that beautiful land.” Seven years later to the day, the city of Milan was ablaze and the survival of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper in question. Much of what had brought meaning to Fred Hartt as an adolescent, and provided a career for him as an adult, was at risk of being destroyed. He had been denied the chance to create art, but nothing was going to keep him from saving it.
----
    * Both Newton and Hancock would also become Monuments officers. Newton would serve with Keller in Italy; Hancock, whom Keller nicknamed “Camminatore” (Italian for his first name, Walker), served in northern Europe.

3
    “BOMBS AND WORDS”
    LATE JULY–AUGUST 21, 1943
    P rime Minister Winston Churchill, long the champion of an invasion of Italy, began strategizing the next phase of the campaign even before the battle in Sicily had been won. He wrote to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces in North Africa, expressing his determination to turn the Italian population against “the German intruders” who had caused Italy such misery: “We should stimulate this process in order that the new liberated anti-fascist Italy shall afford us at the earliest moment a safe and friendly area on which we can base the whole forward air attack upon South and Central Germany . . . the surrender of, to quote the President, ‘the head devil [Mussolini] together with his partners in crime’ must be considered an eminent object.”
    “Stimulating the process” became the responsibility of the Psychological Warfare Branch (PWB), which developed a campaign informally referred to as “bombs and words,” based on the premise that the morale of Italy’s citizens could be broken through a combination of forceful propaganda and punishing bombing. The plan called for targeting those cities containing the better-educated populations and greatest number of industrial workers. The resulting misery and fear caused by these attacks would eventually lead to a series of demonstrations and strikes designed to embarrass Marshal Pietro Badoglio and his new government and force them to capitulate and join the Allies.
    On July 29, General Eisenhower delivered the “words” to the Italian populace through a radio address translated into Italian: “We are coming to you as liberators. Your part is to cease immediately any assistance to the German military forces in your country. If you do this we will rid you of the Germans and deliver you from the horrors of war.”
    Many Italians believed that Mussolini’s removal from power had signaled that the war in Italy would soon be over. The Allies’ temporary suspension of the bombing of Italy’s northern cities only added to that mistaken confidence. Without new bombings, the Badoglio government felt a diminished sense of urgency to finalize a surrender agreement. This dithering frustrated Allied leaders. Three days later, another Allied broadcast criticized the Badoglio government, noting that it had “played for time and thus helped the Germans.” A blunt warning followed: “The respite is over. The bombing of military objectives will resume.”
    PWB compiled a list of bombing targets—including Rome, Milan, Turin, Genoa, Bologna, Naples, and Florence. Precautionary language noted that “. . . [Allied command] should attack the cultural centres always bearing in mind that accidental destruction of cultural monuments may have an adverse effect on our campaign.” PWB also recommended advance notice of bombings by leaflet