Alford Kenneth D. Allied Looting in World War II: Thefts of Art, Manuscripts, Stamps and Jewelry in Europe
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garlands of flowers, and large portraits of Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt
hanging from its walls. The Soviet officers were all in their brilliantly colored
dress uniforms, covered with medals and wearing highly polished boots. The
Americans in their field clothes looked distressingly plain in comparison.
The luncheon was undoubtedly the most lavish ever, as it consisted of
12 courses, each containing as many as 10 different dishes. All of the food had
been brought from Russia. There was black bread, cucumbers, fresh caviar,
sardines, salmon, steaks, roast beef, chicken cooked four different ways, lamb,
pork, and various cold meats. All of this was cooked to perfection and washed
down with the finest wines and champagnes plus the inevitable Russian vodka.
Everything was served in beautiful china, crystal, and silver, undoubtedly all
looted from the better homes in Germany.
Brazelton was not impressed with the Russians’ table manners, as they
reached across the table and speared with their forks any food they wanted.
Women soldiers were waiting on the tables, and there was one for every five
men, so as soon as a dish emptied, a full one immediately took its place. There
were numerous toasts, during which the only point of etiquette was that each
glass had to be emptied in one gulp. After a few of these, the language barrier
disappeared and Brazelton also began to fork his food from a distance. Every-
one smiled and slapped one another on the back. They all exchanged insignias
and Brazelton’s uniform began to look like that of a Russian officer.
After lunch Marshall Konev had arranged for a wonderful show in the
ballroom of the castle. It began with the singing of the “ Star- Spangled Ban-
ner,” sung by a male chorus who spoke no English and had memorized every
word. Brazelton had never heard it sung more perfectly. It was followed by
numerous male and female dancers and singers. The performers for the two-
hour show had been especially picked by Konev to perform for Gen. Bradley.
9
Afterwards Konev and Bradley walked out into the garden and a Russian
orderly led out a stallion whose army blanket bore a red star. Konev handed
Bradley the bridle and a handsomely carved Russian pistol. Anticipating the
exchange, Bradley gave Konev a new American jeep with an attached holster
holding a highly polished new carbine rifle. Bradley then presented Konev
with the 12th Army Group banner, which had been carried since D- Day.
10
After more cheering, saluting, and shaking of hands, the party was over
and the Americans reluctantly left their host. It appears that Bradley’s Russian
horse was turned over to Col. Fred L. Hamilton, chief of the U.S. Army
Remount Branch, and shipped to the United States on the troop transport
Stephen Austin, arriving at Newport News in October 1945. The horse was
then shipped by rail to Front Royal, Virginia, the army’s veterinarian center
and breeding station.
Brazelton returned to Bad Wildungen and a few days later was transferred
130 Part IV : The Schwarzburg Castle
125 miles west to Weimar, Germany. By now the war was over and Brazelton
and the First Army were in the designated Soviet Occupation Zone of Ger-
many. Here he quickly mailed home two packages and noted that books in
the second box contained a series of very beautiful pictures of Spain, con-
cluding that he was pleased his mother had liked the luncheon set so much.
Then in his only undated letter, written between June 8 and 20, 1945, he
wrote that he had gotten, for $6, a wonderful set of dueling pistols made in
1720. “Will tell you about the best later.” Strangely enough the bottom half
of the next letter, typewritten, was carefully removed with a pair of scissors.
Who had cut that letter in two and what did the missing half contain? Could
this have been about “the best”? What was “the best”? Did it concern the
missing 13 paintings?
16. Churchill “Chuck” Jones Brazelton 131
On May 11, 1945, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower poses
with the U.S. Twelfth Army Group officers at Bad Wildungen, Germany. Left to right
(front row) Lieutenant General William H. Simpson, U.S. Ninth Army; General
George Patton, Third Army; General Carl A. Spaatz, U.S. Tactical Air Force, General
Eisenhower, General Omar Bradley, Twelfth Army Group; General Courtney H.
Hodges, First Army; General Leonard T. Gerow, Fifteenth Army; (back row) Brigadier
General Ralph P. Sterling, Ninth Tactical Air Command; Lieutenant General Hoyt S.
Vandenberg, Ninth Air Force; Lieutenant General W. B. Smith, General Eisenhower’s
Chief of Staff; Major General Ralph P. Weyland, Nineteenth Tactical Air Command;
Brigadier General Richard E. Nugent, Twenty- ninth Tactical Air Command (courtesy
National Archives).
While Brazelton was in Weimar, Dr. Walter Scheidig enabled him to
purchase something Brazelton had always secretly dreamed of but never
thought he would own: a Gobelin tapestry. This tapestry, in absolutely perfect
condition, was 11 feet 3 inches (3.43 meters) wide and 14 feet 7 inches (4.45
meters) long. It was originally one of a set of six, each representing two months
of the year. This one represented September and October. The fineness of a
tapestry depended to a great extent on its borders, and this one had the finest
of borders. As described by Brazelton, it was the finest tapestry of its period
that he had ever seen “in or out of a museum.”
The border was very wide and depicted fruits, flowers, bows, and sheafs
of arrows as well as animals and many others objects. The center contained
a woodland scene with people harvesting crops, picking cherries, and tending
to animals. Another area showed a village with hunters chasing an animal and
many other activities. On the bottom were woven the initials BVB and M.D.
Vos, which indicated that the tapestry had been made by Master Craftsman
Marcus de Vos in Brussels, who worked from 1655 to 1690.
11
Now Brazelton was of the very few people to own a tapestry by de Vos.
132 Part IV : The Schwarzburg Castle
Churchill Brazelton was present when General Bradley received this horse from Mar-
shal Ivan Stepanovich Konev, commanding general of the Soviets’ Ukrainian Army
Group. At Bad Wildungen, General Eisenhower looks over the horse given to General
Omar Bradley. The generals appear bewildered (courtesy National Archives).
His ownership put him in the ranks of the king of Sweden and other royal
families of Europe. To carry his new possession (with an estimated value of
$3,000 in 1945), he had a man in Weimar make a wooden box fitted with a
padlock. The box was large—the size of an army footlocker.
During this time Dr. Scheidig gave Brazelton a woodcut of a tiger attack-
ing a zebra. The woodcarving had been done by one of Germany’s finest
engravers of animals. Scheidig also gave Brazelton two enameled boxes, one
of which was French, from about 1770 and the other a Dutch brass and copper
snuffbox of the period 1720 to 1730. The pistols that Brazelton mentioned in
his affidavit as having been obtained from Dr. Scheidig are described as two
dueling pistols circa 1700 that he “was crazy about.” They had walnut inserts
with brass, and he intended, someday, to hang them in a crossed fashion.
12
He wrote about these items again in a seven- page letter on July 20, 1945, to
his mother.
Then he picked up an 18th- century Italian woodcarving of two cupids’
heads, painted and gilded. He had found it in a battered castle in western
Germany. It was a fine piece of work and he mailed it home and to see what
his mother would think about this acquisition. To justify his theft, he wrote:
“It was probably stolen in Italy and sent home by some Nazi officer.” In his
following letter, he wrote: “Dr. Scheidig, the Director of the Museum and
the man who arranged for the purchase of my tapestry gave me a very nice
woodcut of a tiger attacking a zebra.”
The plan was for Weimar to be turned over to the Soviets, and Brazelton,
along with correspondents from 15 different countries, was anxiously awaiting
transfer to Berlin. On July 4, 1945, Brazelton was transferred to Berlin and
participated in the Allies’ triumphal entry into the Soviet- controlled city. One
month later, through a persuasive crusade on his part, the press liaison job
ended and Brazelton returned to Paris, where he worked for the army’s Visitors’
Bureau, entertaining generals, congressmen, and other VIPs. He remained in
Paris until April 29, 1946, when he returned to the United States and was dis-
charged from the army at Fort Dix, New Jersey. He carried his treasured Gob-
elin tapestry with him on his return.
In the postwar era, Brazelton returned to Paris and worked for three
years with Morgan Bank and then with the American Embassy for two years
as an economic analyst. He returned to the United States and opened an
antique shop in New Orleans. A few years later, he moved to New York City,
where he lived on 54th Street and opened an antique and art business on
Madison Avenue. A lifelong bachelor, Brazelton devoted most of his time and
energy to building up one of the most outstanding collections of 17th- and
18th- century French furniture in the United States.
13
Who took the 13 paintings from the Schwarzburg Castle? Paul N. Estes’
16. Churchill “Chuck” Jones Brazelton 133
lieutenants were by now successful businessmen: Clinton R. Walters, the pres-
ident of Alamo Steel; John S. Gwynn, partner in the law firm of Oven &
Gwynn; and Cecil A. Wooten, vice president of Chicago Bridge and Iron.
They all stuck by Estes’ story of having never met Dr. Scheidig. The former
army officers had no reason to perjure themselves. Dr. Scheidig, on the other
hand, had immediately started to try to recover the missing paintings and
wrote down the details in 1945. Had Scheidig been duped? Did he meet some-
one masquerading as Capt. Paul N. Estes? Was Scheidig in cahoots with some-
one to make money on the paintings and was his investigation just a red
herring? Did Brazelton and Scheidig set out to bamboozle the Weimar
Museum?
Brazelton was in Weimar when the paintings were stolen. He arrived in
New York in the spring of 1946, when Edward I. Elicofon purchased two of
the missing paintings. Brazelton knew the value of the paintings and we know
that he was not averse to stealing art items of great value.
134 Part IV : The Schwarzburg Castle
Chapter 17
The Nun and the Poster
In June 1998, Sister Rose Mary Phol, a former art teacher at the now-
defunct St. John’s Mater Christi Roman Catholic School in Astoria, Queens,
New York City, took a painting to Frank J. Vaccaro, a furniture restorer in
Rockville Centre, Long Island. The painting had been given to her by Msgr.
Thomas Campbell, a native New Yorker who grew up during the Depression
and was ordained in 1943. The monsignor claimed the painting came into his
possession in 1972; he guessed that a parishioner might have given it to him.
Sister Phol found the painting dark and kind of depressing but the gold frame
around it was beautiful, so she promptly pasted a magazine print of the Blessed
Mother over it and hung it in her bedroom. It was there for more than 26
years.
When the Long Island furniture restorer picked up the 8
1
⁄2- by 11-inch
wooden frame in his shop and started to remove the magazine print that had
been glued to it, he made an unusual discovery: he saw a pair of eyes looking
back at him, covered in black paint. Peeling off the page, he found a nose
and suddenly realized that he was looking at the painting Bust of Christ,
painted in the 16th century by the Venetian artist Jacopo de’ Barbari. The $5
million painting was one of fewer than two dozen of Barbari’s known works
and was considered a critical link between the Italian and Northern Renais-
sance schools. The fate of this missing masterpiece had been a mystery ever
since its disappearance in the summer of 1945 from Schwarzburg Castle.
Recognizing that the picture might be valuable, he returned only the
gold frame, telling Sister Phol that he had discarded the poster. He then traced
the painting’s provenance to Weimar and contacted the museum, identifying
himself as a journalist or researcher interested in works by Barbari. A museum
official told him about the looting of the museum’s collection after the war.
On August 2, 1999, Vaccaro called again, telling the museum’s director
that he had possession of the Barbari painting and offering to return it for
$100,000. In describing how he had found the painting, which he had had
for about a year, Vaccaro did not say how he had obtained it. Dr. Ralph
135
Bothe, the director, said that this price was too high for a finder’s fee and
offered $50,000. The museum had caller ID and made a note of Vaccaro’s
phone number.
The following day, in the first of several conversations that were secretly
recorded, Vaccaro described how he had discovered the painting, peeling away
the print and cleaning off the black paint. “All of a sudden, I saw two eyes
and then a nose, and then I realized it was a painting of Jesus,” a transcript
quotes him as saying. Vaccaro continued to insist on payment.
In one conversation on August 31, Vaccaro acknowledged that the paint-
ing belonged to the museum. “It doesn’t belong to me,” he said. But he also
made clear that he believed himself to be “entitled to something after saving
this painting.” He added at one point, “I’ve stared at this painting night after
night because it’s so beautiful.”
Dr. Bothe hired Thomas Klein, a Washington, D.C., lawyer, who con-
tacted the U.S. Customs Service, which was more than willing to take an
active role in retrieving the missing painting. Klein furnished the customs
agents with Vaccaro’s phone number and they taped a number of conversations
between Vaccaro and the Weimar Museum officials.
Customs agent Bonnie Goldblatt, posing as a representative of the
Weimar Museum, told Vaccaro that she wanted to pay the finder’s fee and
collect the painting for the Weimar Museum. She then traveled to the restora-
tion shop on Long Island and asked for the painting. Vaccaro climbed onto
a filing cabinet and pushed up a tile on the ceiling of his shop; then he took
down the painting. As Vaccaro was waiting for payment from Agent Goldblatt,
she presented him with her customs badge and stated the museum’s position,
which was that the painting was stolen property, that it belonged to the
museum, and that they would not pay for its return. Thus on November 8,
1999, the painting was seized and then the furniture restorer from Long Island
was arrested. He was charged with one count of possessing and trying to sell
a stolen artwork.
That same Monday night Vaccaro was released on $10,000 bond by a
federal magistrate judge in Manhattan. Michael Handwerker, his lawyer, said:
“It was not, and is not, his intention to harm anyone. He acted in good faith
and we’re going to try to dispose of the matter.” Apparently the lawyer’s state-
ment was acceptable, as Vaccaro was sentenced only to community service.
Later the charges were completely dropped.
A year later, on December 6, 2000, the painting was displayed in the
U.S. Customs House in New York while German authorities signed the cus-
toms documents and the painting was turned over to them. Rose Mary Phol,
when she met with the German officials to return the frame (which she carried
in a shopping bag), laughingly said “So much for my art expertise.” Smudges
136 Part IV : The Schwarzburg Castle
of glue that Phol had used to secure the magazine print were visible on the
black background of the haunting portrait. “Being a bureaucrat, I need a
receipt,” said Customs Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, turning over the
magazine- sized oil- on- wood painting to Dr. Thomas Foehl, vice director of
the Kunstsammlungen Museum in Weimar.
The painting was flown back to the Kunstsammlungen zu Weimar that
afternoon in a special wooden briefcase- box carried by Thomas Foehl, sur-
rounded by armed guards. “This is like Christmas was to me as a young boy,”
Foehl said.
1
Among the 13 works taken from the Schwarzburg Castle were the two
15th- century oil- on- wood panels titled Hans Tucher and Felicitas by Albrecht
Dürer. Those two were recovered from Edward I. Elicofon. In July 1995,
another missing painting, Johann Heinrich Tischbein’s Portrait of Lady Eliz-
abeth Hervey, was offered at auction by Sotheby’s. It had been traced back to
1964 in the shop of an art dealer in New York’s Upper East Side. The painting
was sold several times and later presented to Sotheby’s and auctioned off to
an unnamed couple from St. Louis. Christopher Apostle, a specialist in
Sotheby’s Old Masters department, noticed the missing painting during
research routinely done before a sale. Comparing its uniform pattern of cracks
in old paint to that of the Weimar Museum’s missing Tischbein, he ascertained
that they were one and the same. Apostle alerted his colleagues and the Weimar
Art Museum. The painting was returned to Germany in February 1997. Thus
with the recovery of Jacopo de’ Barbari’s Bust of Christ, four paintings had
been recovered. The Lucas Cranach, Venus with Cupid, Pursued by Bees, found
its way into Yale University’s art collection in the early 1970s and was even-
tually sold to a private Swiss collector. Then the trail goes cold.
Still, nine paintings also believed to have been stolen by American troops
remain missing (see Appendix C). After extensive research and reviewing what
others have found, the author is still no nearer to finding the person or persons
who stole the paintings from the Schwarzburg Castle. A missing piece of this
puzzle has a New York City connection.
Sister Rose Mary Phol died on September 5, 2006.
17. The Nun and the Poster 137
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Part V
Vignettes of Looting