Treasure Hunt
By LYNN H. NICHOLAS
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How a journalist helped crack the case of the missing medieval loot
On a blistering hot day a lone figure walks down the long, narrow street of a semi-ghost town in Texas. From the ticket booth of the abandoned movie theater a whitened cow?s skull watches. Farther long, three tough-looking characters stand across the path. In the nick of time the loner finds refuge in the local newspaper office. Scene from a Clint Eastwood movie? Not at all. It is from the fascinating account by William H. Honan, a cultural reporter for The New York Times, of the recovery of priceless medieval treasures stolen at the end of World War II by a kleptomaniac soldier, who in later life would sometimes sport a woman?s pink wig. And it?s a true story. The church treasures of Quedlinburg, an ancient storybook town in Germany?s Harz Mountains, included delicate reliquaries of rock crystal and gold (in which tiny bits of cloth and wood, said to be from the Virgin?s robe and the true Cross, may still be seen), an elaborately carved ivory comb and two manuscripts in jeweled covers, one of which, the ninth-century Samuhel Gospel, written entirely in gold ink, is beyond price. The objects had accumulated at Quedlinburg as gifts to the church from a Saxon king, Heinrich I (876?-936), and his successors, Otto I and Otto II. Heinrich was especially revered as a founder of Germany, Honan says, and the church became a national shrine. Through the ages some of the objects were stolen, or hidden from the likes of Napoleon, but they had always returned.
In the Nazi era Heinrich Himmler, who secretly regarded himself as the reincarnation of Heinrich I, turned Quedlinburg into a ?Germanic sanctuary? in which Christian ritual was replaced by torch-lighted SS ceremonials featuring, on one occasion, the magical appearance of the Reichsfuhrer SS himself from a secret compartment in the church floor. In 1943, to protect them from both the SS and whatever conqueror might next arrive, local officials removed their treasures to a mushroom cave outside the town. While American troops occupied the area in 1945, 12 of the most precious objects disappeared. There was little doubt that they had been looted by soldiers, but investigation by the Army was hampered when Quedlinburg became part of the Soviet Zone, and the case was dropped.
Nothing more was heard of the treasure until 1983, when rumors of the availability of a magnificent bejeweled manuscript began to be heard in the tiny world of medieval specialists. From the descriptions it could not be other than the Samuhel Gospel. The word soon got to the West German Government, which had an agency dedicated to recovering looted national treasures. Enter Willi Korte, art sleuth extraordinary, as hired gun to track down the Quedlinburg works. Wise to the ways of America, he immediately called Honan. The search was on.
The Quedlinburg case is a classic example of the fate of war loot. An object is stolen and hidden by the thief for years. The thief dies, and his heirs, at first ignorant of what they have, try to sell the piece. When enlightened as to its value, they are overwhelmed by greed, and a minuet with middlemen begins. One of Honan?s great accomplishments in ?Treasure Hunt? is his revelation of the virtually total absence of conscience in the art world; museums, dealers and auction houses desperately tried to think of a way to acquire or profit from these treasures, which they knew to be stolen. Here the art trade, the greatest unregulated industry in the world, is revealed in all its elegant corruption.
Equally fascinating is Honan?s portrait of the thief, Joe Tom Meador, the totally misplaced esthete who, all during his wartime service as a forward observer for an artillery unit (one of the most dangerous jobs in the Army), stole and stole, explaining to buddies that he ?needed? the objects. His obsession with them would be their salvation. For Meador the treasures were not things to be sold but objects of delight, which he used after the war to impress people and to lure sexual partners. The backdrops of his life were surreal in their contrast. On weekdays, Meador, in baggy overalls, presided over a moribund hardware store in the tiny Texas town of Whitewright and lived with a family straight out of ?The Simpsons.? On weekends he repaired to the gay community of Dallas and a modern apartment decorated with his gleaming medieval collection.
But in this book the chase is the thing, and Honan, despite occasional lapses into bad dime-novel style, gives us a very good read, full of suspense, plus a chronicle of the methods of the investigative reporter. After much research and consultation with lawyers, dealers and specialists in the looting and recovery of art (including this reviewer), he found the lead that took him to Texas. He relentlessly searched obscure files in even more obscure courthouses in the Texas hinterlands. With determination and considerable charm, he elicited vital evidence from a highly colorful array of characters (some of them downright nasty) and soon discovered the identity of the thief and his heirs. Speed was of the essence, for it was known that the owners were deep in negotiation with a number of interested buyers, and should the objects be sold to a private collector they could vanish forever.
In the end, all but two of the works, which are still unaccounted for, would be bought back from Meador?s relatives by the German Cultural Foundation. Before Honan?s investigations were completed, the Samuhel Gospel was marketed through a dealer in Switzerland. The rest of the hoard, location and owners now known to all the world, were sequestered by a Texas judge after frantic legal maneuvering by Willi Korte and a Washington lawyer, Thomas Kline, whose adventuresome investigative paths constantly crisscross those of Honan in the course of the narrative. The Meadors settled. Their total take approached $3 million, but it is unlikely that they will be able to keep it all. They face possible tax penalties of some $50 million and criminal prosecution by the Justice Department.
Whitewright, besieged for weeks by reporters and television crews, is quiet again, and the treasures glow in their cases in Germany. But we can relive the whole story in this exciting and often rather touching book, written in an easygoing style. Take it to the beach?and hope for the movie.
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Lynn H. Nicholas is the author of ?The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe?s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War.?