Maksim's On-Line Museum

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  • Home
  • North America
    • U.S. Capitol Flag
    • Coal Mine Scrip
    • Woodstock Ticket
    • Cable Car Cable
    • Pitch Pine Torch
    • Alcatraz Concrete
    • Ringling Bros. Staff Pin
    • Montgomery Bus Token
    • WTC Ticket
    • KKK Membership Card
    • Archaic Arrowhead
    • Prohibition Prescription
    • Smokey Bear Pinbacks
    • Gold Rush Nuggets
    • Edison Disc Record
    • Hoover Dam Cable
    • Jack Dempsey
    • Cal Ripken, Jr.
    • Bre Pettis
    • Steve Wozniak
    • Robert Ballard
    • Glenn Miller
    • El Cazador Shipwreck Coin
    • Panama Canal Matches
  • Political
    • Iranian Hostage Crisis
    • Watergate Scandal
    • White House Easter Egg
    • Eisenhower Rally Ticket
    • CCC Scrip Tickets
    • Condoleezza Rice
    • Gail Halvorsen
    • Berlin Wall
  • Military
    • Stalag POW ID Tag
    • Disney WWII Insignia
    • D-Day Barbed Wire
    • OPA Ration Tokens
    • WWII Polish Home Army Badge
    • Ships for Victory Pin
    • Crimean War Button
    • Korean War Safe Conduct Pass
    • USO Record Home
    • Vietnam War Mess Token
    • Kamikaze Recognition Slide
    • Kilroy Was Here
    • WWII Monopoly Pieces
    • Red Cross Thimble
    • Pearl Harbor Tool Tag
    • U-boat Badge
    • Red Ball Express Patch
    • Allied Military Currency
    • William McRaven
    • Fred Sutherland
    • Woody Williams
    • Harry Ettlinger
    • Richard Cole
    • Charles McGee
    • George Sakato
    • Chester Nez
    • Don Walsh
    • Joe Kittinger
    • Trinitite
    • Revolutionary War Cannonball
    • Antietam Bullets
  • Aeronautics and space
    • Chuck Yeager
    • Catherine Coleman
    • Soyuz Heat Shield
    • Crawlerway Rock
    • Shuttle Challenger AFRSI
    • Bernice Haydu
    • Edgar Mitchell
  • Automotive
    • Model T Radiator Cap
  • African
    • Anti-Apartheid Pin
    • Maersk Alabama Hijacking
    • Okpoho Manilla
  • Natural
    • Organ Cave
    • Woolly Mammoth Hair
    • Shiva Lingam Stone
    • Mount St. Helens Ash
    • Mosasaurus Tooth
    • Knightia Fish Fossil
    • Megalodon Shark Tooth
  • European
    • Viking Fibula Brooch
    • Olympic Clay Pigeon
    • Chernobyl Liquidator Badge
    • Titanic Coal
  • Asia
    • Great Wall Of China
    • Sikhote-Alin Meteorite
    • Petrified Wood
    • Commemorative Coins
    • Greenbrier Bunker Key
    • World Stamps
    • Russia
  • Feedback

Harry Ettlinger Autographed Photograph

Picture
During World War II, President Roosevelt approved the formation of the "American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas" widely known as "The Roberts Commission," after its chairman, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts.

As a result of this commission, the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (“MFAA”) section was created under the auspices of the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of the Allied Armies. This unlikely team of soldiers, commonly known as “The Monuments Men”,  included art curators, scholars, architects, librarians, and archivists from the U.S. and Britain. 

The Monuments Men were initially charged with identifying and protecting European cultural sites, monuments, and buildings from Allied bombing.  In the later stages of the war in Europe, their mission changed to one of locating and recovering works of art that had been looted by the Nazis.  In the final year of the war, they tracked and rescued more than five million artistic and cultural items stolen by Hitler and the Nazis, including some of history’s greatest works of art.  The role they served in preserving cultural treasures was without precedent.  Following the conclusion of fighting, the Monuments Men remained in Europe for several years to help with the restitution of stolen works of art. 
Item in my collection is a 4x6 photo that has been autographed by Harry Ettlinger, one of the Monuments Men of WWII.  Raised in Germany, Ettlinger witnessed firsthand the rise of Hitler's National Socialist Party. In 1938, his family fled Germany to the United States. Later drafted into the Army, Harry returned to Europe as an infantryman.  However, because he was fluent in German, he was re-designated as an interpreter, and ended up assigned to the Monuments Men. 
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