I watched it today before my final.
It's a historical documentary educational film about what happened to art and culture during the European front in WWII. It was absolutely insane. I knew a bit about the looting, but the images and stories they shared was mind-boggling.
Basically Hitler was very systematic about what was to be kept and what was to be destroyed, and what was going to happen to all of these artworks. He saw Warsaw as being Slavic, and thus degenerate, and ordered its complete annihilation- every building was to be toppled, and the palace completely destroyed. By the end of the War, the Nazis did so. Everything you see in the main city of Warsaw now that looks old- it was all reconstructed. None of it is the original.
However, the southern Polish city of Crakow was spared the fate because he saw its culture and people as Germanic in origin. All of the buildings remained up. He thought about doing to Paris what he did to Warsaw because he did not want Paris to be the crown jewel of the world of beauty and strength. However, after his architect Speer showed him the layouts and model for the new Berlin, Germania, Hitler left Paris be because it would be nothing compared to the magnificence of Germania once it was completed.
It also described what museums around Europe did to protect their vast collections. The Louvre was prepared for the invasion- they shipped out all 14,000 pieces of work they had, including the very fragile Nike statue. They were hidden in estates and castles in the countryside; the reason Hitler did not pursue those pieces was because his forces were so spread out that he could not control France if they went in an all-out rebellion. So France was mostly spared what Poland and Russia were not.
It also talked about the Allies, especially the US effort to preserve and not bomb as much artwork as possible. It was not always possible- unfortunately one bomb was misfired and destroyed the famous Campo Santo because of a fire. They are still restoring the frescos that once stood there. To the US's credit, it was an American art-type (specifically assigned the job, one of a few hundred) that had all the locales gather every single fresco piece and organized the effort to start putting them back together. He is buried there today.
There was also talk about Florence, one of the greatest art cities well, ever. The Allies wanted to preserve it as much as possible, but the Nazis had an important railyard right in the middle of the town. They managed to bomb the railyard in a raid without touching one building considered significant to art and cultural history. It made Florentines rather happy, according to someone interviewed in the film.
The Nazis, however, when they found they would lose the city, destroyed the beautiful bridges Michelangelo himself had designed. Looking at the film footage, I wanted to cry.
The thing about the Nazis, though, is that while the destruction of the bridges in Florence was just petty destruction, other times, especially in the middle of the war, they were very systematic about what was kept and what was destroyed. They were not simply killing people-- as horrible as that is. They were attempting to completely erase any reference to Jewish or Slavic culture by completely dismantling all Slavic and Jewish buildings. While at first only valuables and works of art were taken from Jewish (and other "degenerate") homes, by the early 40s they were taking *everything* in those empty homes, having Jewish slaves sort through them, and then sending them back to Germany. One poor man recalls seeing his possessions- and pictures of his family- as he sorted through them. And he saved them for a year or so until he was sent to Birkenau.
I think one reason WWII still fascinates people is because of the very methodical and systematic destruction of not just people, but a *certain* people of very specific races and cultures. It takes a very special type of evil person to do that. In war throughout the ages, lands were pillaged just as they were crossed. They were targeted often for political reasons, and even if the other culture did loathe another, they attempted to conquer the people, not completely annihilate them. Men like Hitler are thankfully rare.
One wonders what would have happened if he was just a better artist and got accepted into that art school he applied to. One wonders.
