During the final years of World War 2, the Allied forces, were encircling Berlin, and getting prepared for the endgame. U.S President Rooseveldt, set up a group of men all in the Military, but in their previous occupations Museum Curators, Art History lecturers & Antique dealers, were assembled to travel to Europe, and in particular Germany to retrieve stolen works of art by some of the greatest Artists and Sculptors known to man.
This amazing story was portrayed in a book called 'Monument's Men by Robert M. Edsel, and in 2014, made into a movie, Directed by and starring George Clooney. In the film, he plays Frank Stokes, who is to take command of this multinational unit. This movie had an amazing cast including Matt Damon, John Goodman and the brilliant Cate Blanchett, whom I consider the best Actress along side Meryl Streep. A surprise inclusion was Hugh Bonneville, in a sabbatical from playing Lord Grantham in TV's 'Downton Abbey. His character, Donald Jeffries, main mission it seemed was to find a sculpture known as the ' Bruge Madonna & Child by Michaelangelo, which was and now is found in the 'Church Of Our Lady' in Bruge, Belgium. Donald had an almost emotional attachment to the Sculpture, and he was going to retrieve it no matter what. The movie progressed at a steady pace, and the caricatures of the Germans was amusing, either hideous and maniacal or grotesquely obese as in Hermann Goering, who was attempting to create the single largest private art collection in history.
These group of Men should forever be commended for their work, as for the generations since the end of the war, people have been able to view most of the works that could very well have been lost.
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