March 21, 2019 at 12:35 PM EDT - Updated March 21 at 12:37 PM
TOLEDO (WTOL) - In 1949, the world was changing. Quickly.
A television set was becoming a permanent piece of furniture in the living room. Europe was still deep in the recovery from the ravages of World Two. China was declaring itself a future super power, while Russia and the U.S. began to chill in the run up to the cold war.
Here at home in Toledo, family life was starting to return to normal in Post War America as the economy was starting to shift into a new civilian posture.
Men were home from the war and new houses were sprouting up throughout the city. In short, America and Toledo were trying to heal from the wounds of a long war.
In March of 1949 - 70 years ago this week - a remnant of that war came to Toledo and put the Glass City in America’s spotlight as the Toledo Art Museum hosted one of the most important art exhibits in its history.
For ten days, more than 10,000 people a day came to the museum to witness and view the greatest masterpieces of European art. The paintings of the iconic artists that had been stolen by Adolph Hitler and the Nazis during the scourge of the Third Reich.
The Toledo Museum of Art Archivist Julie McMaster says thousands descended on the museum for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the masterpieces that had been rescued by a special detachment of art experts and curators.
They were known as the Monuments Men, made famous in the 2014 movie of the same name. This group of several hundred were able to find many of these treasures in various hiding places, including some deep in a salt mine in Merkers, Germany.
These included priceless works that had been stolen from the Berlin Museum
“There were 202 of them that came over for for safe keeping, and we showed 96 of those paintings.” said McMaster.
Toledo was the last stop on an American tour of 14 large city museums that got to display the masterpieces.
Toledo’s opportunity to have an exhibit was made possible partly because TMA’s curator at the time was Otto Wittman, one of the Monument’s Men.
McMaster said Wittman spent about a year working to research and document the many works of art that were being uncovered by the special team. By late 1946, Wittman accepted a job in Toledo and stayed for 30 years.
Toledo was fortunate to have a man of Wittman’s expertise and stature, and also fortunate to have been a part of this cultural event in 1949.
Area citizens and businesses embraced the show and raised money for charter buses to transport 42,000 schoolchildren to see the paintings that few Americans would ever see.
"It was an opportunity to see things that we would not necessarily be able to see without traveling to Europe,” McMaster said.
In a local grace note to this story, these paintings hidden deep in the Merkers Salt Mines were in part found because of a local solider fron Genoa. Captain Merril Rudes.
It is written that while on patrol with his company at Merkers, two women came up to him and said something about the “treasure in the Salt Mines."
Rudes, a Genoa High School graduate, who later became an Ottawa County Judge, said he didn’t know what they were talking about, but just put the information in his notes and sent it up to headquarters.
The rest is history.
And so, too, is the story of this exhibit that came to Toledo for 10 days, drew 100,000 visitors and raised $190,000 to be given to the children and orphans of Germany.
After the paintings left Toledo, they were sent back to Washington D.C. and eventually returned to Europe and their rightful owners and museums.
Toledo residents were the last Americans ever to see them in person all in one place on U.S. soil.
Copyright 2019 WTOL. All rights reserved.
http://www.wtol.com/2019/03/21/greatest-art-exhibit-ever-seen-toledo-was-made-up-paintings-saved-by-monuments-men-wwii/?fbclid=IwAR3Msq0oXqznEISOy2dVCBtkjcKmsoryNA0dopUnn5vyTjcyC6YAZYu2m-c
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