THE RAPE OF EUROPA: THE FATE OF EUROPE'S TREASURES IN THE THIRD REICH AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War

by Lynn H. Nicholas

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The cast of characters includes Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering, Gertrude Stein and Marc Chagall--not to mention works by artists from da Vinci to Picasso. And the story told in this superbly researched and at times suspenseful book is that of the Third Reich's war on European culture and the Allies' desperate effort to preserve it. 90 illustrations and photos. 3 maps.

Amazon.com Review
Every few months you'll read a newspaper story of the discovery of some long-lost art treasure hidden away in a German basement or a Russian attic: a Cranach, a Holbein, even, not long ago, a da Vinci. Such treasures ended up far from the museums and churches in which they once hung, taken as war loot by Allied and Axis soldiers alike. Thousands of important pieces have never been recovered. Lynn Nicholas offers an astonishingly good account of the wholesale ravaging of European art during World War II, of how teams of international experts have worked to recover lost masterpieces in the war's aftermath and of how governments "are still negotiating the restitution of objects held by their respective nations."