Refuges for movable cultural property in wartime: lessons for contemporary practice from Second World War Italy

ABSTRACT

Experiences of the Second World War were recent to those who drafted the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and many of its provisions reflect those lessons. One under-used area of provision in Hague 1954 that reflects such experience relates to wartime shelters (‘refuges’) for movable cultural property including works of art, museum collections, books and archives.¹ This paper examines damage and risk to movable cultural property sheltered in refuges in Italy during the Second World War to demonstrate that their secrecy exposed them to damage by (i) careless military occupation, (ii) deliberate combatant damage, (iii) accidental and collateral damage, and (iv) looting. The 1954 Hague Convention provides for marked refuges for movable cultural property under both special and general protection, and these historical case studies also highlight some of the potential advantages (and problems) of internationally recognised refuges in advertised locations, and of the Convention's ‘special protection’ regime more generally.

KEYWORDS:

• wartime Italy
• Cultural property
• monuments, fine arts and archives
• monuments men
• 1954 Hague Convention

Acknowledgments

This paper forms part of my research project Protecting and Reconstituting Museums in Times of Conflict: An Historical Case Study in Cultural Property Protection from Wartime Naples, funded by British Academy – Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant SRG 170675. I am grateful to the British School at Rome (BSR; particularly Valerie Scott and Alessandra Giovenco) for access to illustrations and archival materials, and to the anonymous reviewers of IJHS whose comments were invaluable in developing the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Following the terminology of Hague 1954, I use ’refuge’ to denote shelters for movable cultural property, although wartime documents typically use ‘repository’ or ‘deposit’.

2. See, for example, HQ AAI (1944) of 30 March 1944, requiring decisions on military occupation of buildings of particular historical importance to be taken at divisional level or above. In almost all the Second World War case studies in this paper, had the existence of a refuge been brought to the attention of a commander at divisional level or above, it would have been at less risk of incidental damage.

3. Protection of historic buildings, monuments and museums was rooted in the same legal provision – Hague Convention (IV) 1907 – throughout the Second World War. However, aspects of Allied treatment of cultural property changed even while the law remained the same, in great part due to greater awareness of the problems among service personnel instigated by publicity and symbolic/public statements such as Eisenhower’s famous 29 December 1943 letter to commanders on Historical Monuments (Nicholas 1995, 237–238).

4. American Defense – Harvard Group (1943, 3): ‘Castel del Monte: castle **. Castle del Monte (Mountain Castle) of Frederick II, the finest castle in Italy, recently restored.’ The ** indicated the monument’s importance as judged by academics compiling the inventories, with other monuments ranked from *** (most important) to listed (so still relatively important) but with zero stars. The castle is now on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

5. By 30 March 1944. See Lists of Protected Monuments: Apulia, appended to HQ AAI (1944): ‘Castel del Monte (Bari), O9078. *** castle with deposits of art objects from Apulia.’

6. Norris’s list is undated but is probably part of a report he wrote before 1 October 1943.

7. Unpublished letter of 16 September 1977 from Ward Perkins to author David W. Richardson (British School at Rome War Damage Documents collection, Box B).

8. At Montecassino, the situation was further complicated by the fact that the armed forces using the surroundings of the Abbey for military purposes were those of a third party (Germany).

9. Subcommission MFAA 1945a, 4–19 provides the most complete contemporary account, written in June 1945 by MFAA officers Douglas Cooper (British) and Ernest T. de Wald (US) from interrogation of Kunstschutz personnel.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust [SRG 170675].

Notes on contributors

Nigel Pollard

Nigel Pollard is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology, College of Arts and Humanities, at Swansea University, UK. Originally an archaeologist by training, with fieldwork experience in Italy, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and the UK, he is now primarily a historian of cultural property protection in the Second World War. He is a board member of UK Blue Shield, and a member of the UK Military Cultural Property Protection Working Group.