Find out where the cspan cities tour is going next online. You are watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan 3. Next, on American History tv, university of pennsylvania history professor, kathy peiss examines the evolution of library and Information Science during world war ii. She argues what she says is an outline of a shift in the 1940s from librarians being neglected to being regarded as key figures. Its a little under 90 minutes. In recent years, scholars and the general public have learned about the exploits of american curators and Museum Officials in world war ii whos mission was to save the endangered art treasures in europe. I would note the work of the nicholas, robert, remarkable efforts to recover the Monuments Foundation and of course the 2014 George Clooney film. I should add monuments women, are compelling togethers. They are straight celebrated for the role they played in wartime. Absent from this story of individual heroism is any analysis and assessment of the way that culture and knowledge mattered in world war ii. How winning the war became a lion upon the accumulation of reliance upon the accumulation of knowledge and included a commitment for the protection of culture. How the objectives of the american government, the military and cultural institutions intertwined. How practices and policies in this endeavor shifted with the shifting fortunes of war. They had long term effects. Without diminishing the efforts of any individuals involved, i aim to address these larger historical issues. In addition, my work shifts from the focus on art, which is typically unique and rare in terms of Cultural Heritage to the world ever print culture. Of books and texts that serves many purposes. We will see and allied mission under the monument to preserve book collections. Most was stolen from jewish institutions and individuals. That mission did not exist in isolation. Indeed, it was beholden wartime missions. Including intelligence gathering, policies and a post war assertion of American Intellectual readership. The american book men and most of them were men, librarians, experts, collectors and the like were involved in a set of actions that involved mass acquisitions. These were collecting megses that brought the world of text and world of war into a new and intimate relationship. World war ii produced an Unusual Alliance between American Intellectual and government officials policymakers and the military. I wanted to start by saying, this was not simply a product of wartime mobilization. It was the consequence of longer term trends beginning in the new deal. The administration defined a new interest in cultural matters. Some of them related to books and documents. For example, programs like the historical Record Survey and the federal writers project and a new institution such as the National Archives, which was founded in 1934. In addition, the library of congress became a sight of a robust cultural and governmental alliance with fdrs unusual appointment of poet and playwright to librarian in 1939. He raised the stakes for librarians. He called on them to be not only custodians of culture but to be defenders of freedom. Ill quote him here. In such a time as ours when wars are made against the expert and its works, the keeping of these records is a warfare. The keepers whether they wish cannot be neutral. Thats 1940. Americans awareness of the political of books and libraries had already been raised by protests for nazi book burnings. When the u. S. Entered the war, the defensive books became a symbol of the freedom to speak, write and read. It was continue underscored in book collection drive and the annual remembrance of book burning led by the opposite war information. You can see several of their posters there and council of books in wartime. A striking sign of this alliance between academic and cultural leaders and the government maybe seen on two initiatives. One with a very long name. That im not going to give you. It was known as the Roberts Commission. It was charged with finding ways to protect and salvage art and other historical treasures in war zones. The armies monument fine arts and archives unit is known as the monument men who were charged executing this policy. Its important to note their mandate barely included books and text records. At the meetings of the roberts theission, one spoke of failure to protect them. He said theres nothing in the field of bookses that corresponds to the work being done in the field of art. By the end of the war, there were a small number of librarians active in europe. One of them, named sergeant child repeatedly griped about , the dominance of art boys and the builders. [laughter] i know this is pg rated. To be sure, the american policy towards Cultural Resources did protect a number of libraries and historical buildings holding the collection. The monument in the field have frequent emphasis of looting and destruction. Including the burning of books for heat. Using rare manuscripts to wrap food. It wasnt a policy towards the preservation of Cultural Heritage that was most important in the wartime handling of books, text and documents. At least not in the first instance. Rather it was the importance of their content in an era when new ideas about information were coming to the form. Essentially, in early information turn or information age. That had a profound impact on wartime thinking before the war, there was early version of Information Science known as documentation which gained adherence in research and Specialized Library and academia and governance. They were interested in wider access to Library Material and the uses of new technology. Its all very similar today except theyre new technology was microfilm. Not so new. The information had a broader usage as well. It referred to communication, propaganda and intelligence. In this era, many social scientists and Public Opinion researchers have come together in a new loosely defined field of Mass Communications research. Much of it directed at the potential propaganda to manipulate the Public Opinion and undermine liberal democracy. The interest in this rose in world war i with the Creel Committee and controversies over the committee, and grew in the 1920s and 1930s sale with the rise of radio. In 1939 the Rockefeller Foundation ran a secret seminar and protecting americans from nazi and soviet propaganda. Soon, there was a host of new research projects, including the researcharch war project. Now, in the summer of 1941, president roosevelt, many of you know this story, appointed william to be coordinator of information. Thats a really interesting title. I want to underscore it, coordinator of information. Intended to manage american intelligence, foreign propaganda and domestic encounter intelligence. Ultimately the c. O. I. Will be split into two divisions. Archibald, as librarian of congress was involved. He established information for research and analysis of foreign intelligence. That intertwined with operations as coordinator of information. Strangely enough, the origins of americas vast intelligence might be addressed to morning meetings in the summer of 1941. Between this unlikely pair, archibald and bill donovan. On the cool porch of in excitement of great things to come. Even before the United States declared war then, an effort to acquire information initiated. The nature of this intelligence was not sending five human beings into an Enemy Territory in the first instance. It was really to deploy the scholarship of the day. Looking at foreign newspapers, scientific periodicals and other kinds of published work. What today is called open sources. These could be analyzed using the tools of scholarship. With the International Book trade interrupted by war, means of acquisition had to be found and to do that, a committee was set up through the o. S. F. And c. O. I. I will give you the long name once, i will hear call it i. D. C. I was formed in december of 1941 chaired by William Langer at harvard. He hired a librarian name Frederick Kilgore who at the time was a 28yearold who worked in the Harvard Library. It got off to a slow start in four months, it failed acquire a single piece of information. They were beginning to get worried. They turned to traveling scholars. They asked embassies to microfilm newspapers. They formed a liaison with the british information. They sent eugene power who was a very energetic micro film booster. He was recruited to set up an operation in london working with the ministry of information and the British Library association. This association had received funds from rockefeller to microfilm enemy periodical. Now this effort was ramped up. Worked out plan to receive materials from the British Foreign offices and other Government Agencies and the americans would microfilm them for the american and British Intelligence. By the end of april 1942, much to everyones relief, the first 2000 feet of microfilm arrived in washington. By this time plans were set in motion to send a group of librarian, micro photographers and epidemic to neutral cities around the world. The most famous of these people is john fair banks. Who was the founder of studies here in the United States. My own connections to this story and the route by which i got into this Massive Research project is that, a relative of mine was also ones of these agents sent to acquire intelligence material this time. Unfortunately, i dont have many pictures because it was intelligence. [laughter] ill tell you about the operation. The stockholm operation was headed by the only book woman among the group. I dont have a single photograph of her except her College Yearbook photo. She received a ph. D. From the university of chicago in 1930. Like many women of her era, she was denied an academic career. Instead, she carried on her own research while employed by senior faculty at the university of chicago. She was sent abroad and she was isnt there to photograph manuscripts for their scholarships. At the vatican library, 1934, she began to observe historians. Filming their Research Materials with miniature cameras. She trained herself to do the same. The war intervened and as it did, you can trace her through europe, canceling trips through denmark. She was in the state library when war was declared in an area that she was held. She made a trip before the german marched into paris. Then fled to lisben. A year and a half later, she was sent abroad again. This time to stockholm to microphone enemy publications for the i. D. C. She was worked closely with British Intelligence but also developed her own initiatives. She went to local book sellers. She approached sympathetic academics and Government Agencies and librarians. She developed her own covert set of contacts. She knew people in the clandestine prest. She worked with the british to smuggle technical manuals from germany into sweden. There are stories that she did somewhat more robust forms of secret intelligence as well. Which i could not confirm. She was undoubtedly the most successful agent in the americans worldwide effort to acquire foreign publication. The other operation was in li sben with this highly developed economy. The dictatorship of antonio sal theren see that a are hot newspapers from the , daily express. Despite the difficulties of navigating the dictatorship of lisbon, portugal book dealers , found way to import european publications and keep their shelves stocked. Many educated portuguese and travelers haunted the bookstores and newsstands of the cities. Among them were a group of american librarians. One who had been a librarian at harvard. Ralph they made the round to bookstores, place subscriptions, took buyin trips and appealed to locals who were sympathetic to the allies. The bookstore there at the bottom of portugal, had the owners who were very sympathetic to the allies conduct some secret assignments for them including microfilm secret documents from the government. The i. D. C. Was only able to ship about 165 pounds of material by air a month on the panam clipper. This was not much. Microfilm was essential in reducing the volume and bulk what they acquired. Their camera was often going day or night. Im going to put this on a blank slide for a little bit of time. Its very difficult to assess the value of this intelligence. Despite the i. D. Cs claim. Theyre operational importance was very limited. You compare to signal intelligence or code breaking. There was no comparison at all. Yet, many of the academics and government officials in the war effort perceive this material to be highly value. They invested considerable resources in digging them out. Number of books shipped, microfilm reel shot. There seems to be a progress on the intelligence front that was still pretty murky. Printed text, also appeared to these people to be stable and credible. Especially the well educated who would favor print over spoken word. The head of american swem american intelligence found leads by reading the daily press. You could find new weaponry, industrial production. They were even advised to read the Society Columns because that inadvertently reveal the location of regimen. This is to quote the oss, which was always optimistic, columns could provide clues that secret agents could exploit. By the end of 1942 over one million pages of such materials had been duplicated and distributed to Government Agencies. Theres much more to this than simply reading microfilm. Reading microfilm will only get you so far. [laughter] it will get you a headache within a half an hour. Librarians of the o. S. F. Needed to transform the familiar form of books serials into a genre. In a way these librarians understood themselves. Initially Frederick Kilgore understood the job from the Library Point of view. Not too much from the point of view of the information in publication. Librarians were oriented and periodical, properly catalog and indexed by author title and subject. Responsibility for identifying the content of his publications rested with the reader. Indeed, the i. D. C. Initially thought there would be Government Agencies who would tell them we need this particular issue of a magazine. So go find it. Thats how they would proceed. In the press of war demands and the best number of microfilm reels that arrived in washington, kilgore came to understand that information, not the publications themselves was the i. D. C. s products. They needed to extract the useful information that contain them. And to make it identifiable to the officials with many different interests. They had to find way to guide users to what they required even to information they didnt know they needed. They polled the wartime agency asking for keywords. They created a subject index of newspapers and periodicals that were tailors to those needs. This digest became a dilly publication with 300 copies directed to government distributed to Government Agencies. When users found an item of interest they can ask for an , abstract and full text translation. About four percent of all the materials, were produced in the form of abstracts and the i. D. C. Has a capacity to translate 42 languages including 16 of them quickly. As you can imagine in this era before computers, theyre personnel role expanded exponentially. With these efforts, they just grew hiring an army of translators and indexers. Many of them who had the skills and women. Ultimately this acquisition mission contributed to the development of Information Science and its uses for intelligence as an instrument of the american state. The embrace of technologies of document reproduction, the disassembly and transformation of physical text. This did not originate with the war. Many of the librarians associated with this effort went on to become post war pioneers of library information, technology and management. Most notably Frederick Kilgore himself who founded o. C. L. C. In 1971. The Worlds Largest online database. The last printed catalog cards were printed last week. The end of an era. The collecting mission of librarians, scholars and book men and women continued through the war. It changed after dday in june of 1944. They acted as book buyers and collectors, ordering subscriptions and etcetera. Members of collecting teams that were known as tforces, which followed behind the allied armies as they advanced, scouring targets for operational or strategic information. They began to wear military uniforms and served specialist who were able to select records often on the fly. This unlikely was for many of role foras an unlikely many of them. I will describe one of these collectors. I dont have a picture of them. His name was ross phinney. A Smith College music professor who volunteered to do acquisition work. He learned slightly different methods of acquiring publications. He interrogated informant, he followed suspicious people. He found massive quantities of printed materials which he confiscated. I needed an convoy of them. On thanksgiving day in 1944 he made his biggest discovery, a huge cash of patent abstract concerning rockets and jets. At the same time s these wartime collectors, began to direct their attention to the fate of the european book world. Let me describe one other person here. Again, absolutely no photograph. Loeb, a germanx jewish journalist who fled in 1937 and established himself as a book dealer in new york. He listed in the army and was assigned to the i. D. C. In london in 1944. At that time, there was growing interest in the impact of allied bombing on academic and cultural institutions and concern about how the german press and Publishing Industry could be rebuilt in the planning for the post war. Max lobe came up with the idea of interrogating german prisoners of war who had connections to the book trade. Working on his own, he interviewed 200 p. O. W. s about the status and location of booed collections, archives, publishers and book dealers in berlin and elsewhere. His investigations produced information about industrial tacts, about the relocation of government and nazi party offices. This seemingly marginal line of inquiry caught the interest of military leaders and even the british war cabinet. This was a significant shift in direction for the book man with the traditional work of bibliography. Now defined in terms of target, the tforces in search of publications. All the records that would be useful in the prosecution of war crimes and in managing the reconstruction. Very quickly, however, the logic of confiscation created an every expanding mandate what we would call mission creek. Which they seen all manner of scientific of medical research, but began to sweep off other works. Certainly those with nazis content, these might be useful in post war construction. Also, those that might be advantageous in postwar relations with the soviet union. Max lobe was dogged in this regard. There were so many tempting targets. Even after a good and successful day, when he had seized a thousand medical and technical and scientific books, he still felt uneasy because theres still so much undone. Not long after the eday, his team arrived in the center of german publishing. It was devastated by the bombing. Date tracked down many of the book wholesalers and literally went as much as they could street by street. They requisitioned a number of volumes from bookstores and publishing houses. They remove books from a chamber of commerce library. They were ordered to respect the integrity of university libraries. But when they found collections ,n the service of nazi ideology they considered that fair game and took it. As the investigators dug more vasty, they found quantities of books and other publications stashed in surprising places. In the wake of the allied bombing campaign, German Authorities have relocated and hidden state archives, rare books, and library collections. These are examples of two bomb sites where there had been books and newspapers. They stored them in caves, minds, and castles for safety along with the arts and other treasures needed by the not sees that we know debt by the nasties that we know so much about. The movement of libraries had only touched the surface. Mine where gold, our treasures, and even opera costumes had been stored yielded only parts of the Prussian State Library piled in tunnels as you can see in disarray were 2 million biomes of books and journals and other records, maps, films, rare geographic library with no card catalog. Tragically, a fire had burned for several months likely set by refugees trying to keep warm mi ne was in a process of gradual destruction from fumes, smoke, and dampness. This was only one of 25 places where that single library had been stored. Mines, of 1945, over 800 , and other places contained works of art had been found in the number continued to grow into 1946. Theunforeseen discovery of vast deposits in saxony spurred a math a mass collection pushed by the americans. They were racing the clock before the area would be turned over to the soviet union. It was part of the soviet zone of occupation. Wrote, againficial and again, the team working in that area came across collections of such size it had no hope of either transporting the collections entirely or making appropriate selections on the spot. This compulsive logic of reachtion, its expanding and scope, its opportunistic quality, and its die fuse purposes extended even to all libraries. Laid theime history groundwork for the treatment of cultural art across artifacts. Created would be crated and shipped to the american libraries . Which would be rested to did . Which would be destroyed . Government andn the library of congress, these were compelling and complex questions. The library of congress established a mission in europe in late summer, 1945 which continued into 1947. Its purpose was to acquire three copies of all books and other publications issued in germany in occupied countries from 1939 onward when the book trade was suspended. This arrangement made with the war and state department drew upon the expertise and collecting procedures of the wartime ibc. Members were transferred from the oss to the library of congress. He is the man that picture with the pipe. A group of wellknown Research Librarians join the mission in january, 1946 including a idenberg a former head of the new york public library, and that elderly gentleman second from the right. There Mission Began as a book purchasing operation. A was charged with finding bunch of wartime imprints that g; books left in leipzi that were on Standing Order to American Research libraries in the german publishers had managed to guard them in safekeeping that they had not been delivered before the soviet takeover of the city. There was a delicate negotiation that went on between the library of Congress Mission and the soviet authorities for their release. It was successful and people were surprised because the cold war was already beginning to be felt. However, what was initially a narrowly defined mission for the library of congress evolved into something else. These representatives operated under the authority of the u. S. Occupation government in germany and of and it proved mutually advantageous to permit librarians to go into such as Research Institutes and corporate libraries where they confiscated materials. They were also charged with screening and evaluating the vast quantities of publications that halt already been seized and work now gathered in collecting points or Document Centers across the american zone. This became an industrial scale collecting program and it required a vast system of distribution as well. This was known as the farmington plan or cooperative acquisitions by which allocated works by to specific university Research Libraries. Most research librarys typically have these books and storage where you will never find them. One dimension of this mass collecting project involved the seizure of works deemed to have nazi content and this is a sample book at the Yale University library. You can see the little stamp on the page after the title page. It was seized by the library of Congress Mission. The joint chiefs of staff directive 1067 issued in april, 1945 as well as the pot stem agreement that august had ordered the elimination of an german militarism and all its forms. As the u. S. Army took german territory, military commanders and Civil Affairs officers shattered the libraries and bookstores and demanded that all objectionable material be put under lock and key in a separate room. In may, 1946, the allied control consul issued a more expansive edict known as order number four which was to seize and destroy material n of and aa naturez which includedi and civil disorder. Directive, when it was made public, was highly controversial in the United States because librarians and the press immediately perceived it to be a betrayal of democratic values. Journall street called it book burning americanstyle. Countering this negative visits that publicity and alley public concerns, the American Military government work with the library of Congress Mission to come up with an acceptable solution. Schools,braries, stores, and publishers would turn their books that have these qualities to a centralized location. Private citizens were not required to but were encouraged to do so. The initial draft of this order was to include private citizens. These collecting centers were operated by americans by germans but american librarians would oversee the screening. Of these books, 150 copies of each work deemed objectionable or up to that many, would be put aside for future research and as a record of not see as an nazi sm. I dont think they really collected 150 copies but if they have, many of disappeared. Ironically, the collection and selection work of librarians became part of the machinery of instruction. It was not book burning pulpi but bookng. The execution of this policy was uneven with different interpretations of militaristic content that could mean many Different Things and also difficult judgments about the books themselves. The librarians had a term of art they used to describe many of the books junk. Popular novels, romances of the light. 2 the same time, about million biomes made thems made their way to university libraries. Only occasionally did American Librarys have qualms about this program. One was at my own university in pennsylvania where libertarian rudolf hursh returned a number of german books because they did not have the stamps. None of them had them because of the nature of how they had been acquired. These vast acquisition efforts contributed to the library of congressglobal stature and ambitions as a repository of knowledge and he gave many universities Extensive International polling for the first time. In this sense, Research Libraries were nearly connected to american policy and reflected and furthered american aims to lead and dominate the postwar production and dissemination of knowledge. Is in this larger context of book acquisition, confiscation, destruction, and redistribution that we should consider this remarkable effort by the u. S. Under the auspices of the monuments, fine arts unit to preserve and rested to the collections that had been looted s. These were gathered together most notably the offenbach collection which 2. 5 millionhas biomes in a significant number of manuscripts and other cultural objects. Most but not all of it was seized through from jewish institutions and individuals. In some cases, the clear provenance lead it to their that led to the rapid restitution. Restitution was to the country of origin has stipulated by allied policy and International Law not directly to individuals. However, large numbers of works of judaica whose owners were unidentifiable, stateless, or debt raise the question what should be done . Strong despite commitments about the american commitment to protect and restore european Cultural Heritage, this was a time of general demobilization and only a small number of american personnel were assigned to this task. They oversaw a large group of germans who did the heavy work, the physical work, organizing, cataloging, crating and shipping the books. There were two very creative men, Seymour Pomerantz ,and ivan bankowitz. Both were jews who emigrated to the United States as children. One was from ukraine and the other from russia. Pomerantz had work at the National Archives before the war. Bankowitz had a phd in chemistry and served as an army captain in the war. They were gifted administrators who successfully found ways to shelter, repair, and identify the books amid profound political challenges and ethical dilemmas as well. Faced with millions of items in disarray and a german workforce that could not read hebrew, yiddish or other languages, bankowitz came up with the idea of photographing bookplates and putting them on pages like this. These were memorized and used by the workers to rapidly sort the books and ultimately aided in the decisions around restitution. One thing to note is that book stamps may not reflect the library from which the book was taken. There were at least several americank stamps from libraries as you can see here. I will just give a plug for an interesting digital project that is being done by the center for jewish history and was initiated by one of my colleagues in the fraz toat penn, mitch map the location, of these book stamps and bookplates and have it be open sourced so people who might know something about these libraries can add to this site. The question of restitution was thorny. Various agencies and individuals claims to represent the Jewish Population and asserted rights to the books. Ultimately, the usbased jewish cultural reconstruction incorporated which was an scholartion headed by a and a wellknown political theorist. They gained the authority to distribute the volumes since owners cannot be identified. Could not be identified. Offenbach would be an important step in the evolution of International Efforts to protect Cultural Heritage and settle disputes over cultural property. As a humanitarian effort, it became the most visible instance of american wartime policy and practices toward books and knowledge. Those involved in the preservation and restitution activities extensively documented their work not only in official reports from but through photographs and albums. Pike presented the often the offenbach archival, it ingenuity effort to preserve the books and religious object and cultural habited of devastated jewish communities. There is an entry in ban kowitzdiary which has disappeared. We have this one quote which makes you nervous about not having the diary. I would come to a box of books with the debt which the sorters have brought together like scattered sheets into one fold. I would find myself straightening out these books and arranging them in the boxes. With a sense of personal tenderness as if they had belonged to someone dear to me, someone deceased. Explained thens depot. He and a situations rabbi chaplain illegally released five boxes of rare manuscripts which had been identified by the jewish scholar and enabled them to be shipped to palestine, to the hebrew university. This incident was hushed up although there was a brief article in Stars Stripes about it, remarkably. Americans wanted to distinguish their values and behavior as opposed to the looting and plundering committed by nazi germany and trophy taking by the postwar soviet union. Offenbach offered a powerful is illustration of that con dressed. Contrast. The wartime engagement in the world of books was multifaceted. For librarians and book men and women, the war spurred an intimate relationship with the state and it fostered new ways of thinking about fundamental aspects of their professional work such as storage, access, and retrieval of printed material. The war led to innovations and information and science and technology that would be fully realized only decades later. The mass collecting mission of the war and postwar era also had enduring consequences. One was the exploitation of seized german scientific journals, technical research, patent records, and other documents, a program that extended for beyond the actions of the book men and women i described today. Through an agency called feac which started under the auspices of the army and then became an agency of the department of commerce, these documents were republished and made available at low cost to American Business and industry. This program is one that one historian calls and unacknowledged form of intellectual reparation. Books play an important part in german reconstruction. Bookstores, libraries, and schools were purged of the literature that supported nazi ism and militarism. It was a measure of accomplishment, way to measure a compliment. The circumstances that led to the creation of the offenbach archival depot. Everyone was aware that the restitution of jewish books was a hot potato and it required a careful and deft response. At the same time, those who encountered looted books, bombed libraries, and collections stacked in caves were gripped by the destruction they witnessed and they wanted to repair the damage. Bound with thes entire complex of american wartime values in postwar aims mixing instrumental, strategic, and political concerns but also a sense of responsibility toward the preservation and continuity of culture and knowledge in the aftermath of a devastating war. [applause] what a fascinating story, what a fascinating talk. A little more than half an hour for your comments and questions. If you could please wait for the microphone and please state your name and affiliation, if you like. Who is first . Over here. Thank you for enlightening talk. I think the paper does a nice job of complementing and adding to the work on the languor and scholars. I heard you say that Archibald Mcleish was involved with donovan and somehow the origins of this mass collection started their. I guess i still dont understand what the urge was to collect so much information. Surely, they must have had to write reports on what good stuff that got and how it was implemented and intelligence. You mentioned error not ask and some scientific and technical intelligence. Reports came later but did they find anything in the open source material . Thats a great question. In the early years of the of the american involvement in the war, these documents were used by a large number of academics throughce many reports the research and Analysis Branch of oss which are readily available. Most of those reports are contextualizing reports. They are about the politics of the nazi party and the psychology of morale, the german people. They dont have that kind of operational use of what would a bit most important to the armed forces. That began to change especially after dday. In the early days, they were hamstrung by not being able to get direct access to what was going on on the ground. They certainly claimed these were important and useful whether they actually were. I think that is up for grabs. Also a commentary on a collection of a massive amount of information where you can collect more today. Yes. May i be allowed to be a little bit insular and talk about historians . There is a silence in what you said. That is the role of historians academics of other and academic institutions. Mobilizeffort made to the constituent members of the acls. In 1919 a was the American Historical Association or the Mississippi Valley historical association. Were they involved . Mla i would like to think the answer is yes but im worried about what it will be. I will give you an answer i hope will not thrill you but maybe a good enough answer. Acls was very involved in the issue of protection and salvaging and ultimately restitution of Cultural Heritage especially artwork. Acls, the National Gallery of art, the metropolitan museum of , the effort that i call the Roberts Commission they were very involved in mobilizing support for its creation as was a group at harvard, American DefenseHarvard Group and there were groups like this at many different institutions that wanted a more interventionist stance but were also concerned about the world of scholarship and culture. During the war. The American Historical Association, i am not so sure whether it as an associate was involved but many historians were members of the office of Strategic Services and were using the documents that had been gathered by the librarians and other collectors. In fact, some of the collectors were scholars. I think there were several anthropologists in china and india but not historians. Thank you very much. This is a fascinating topic. What is your name . My name is mary bateman. I have a question about a dell ele khyber. Adl it seems like a huge learning curve. If yourigued to know found out how they were trained so quickly into such a potentially changed dangerous job. The initial training was pretty haphazard so they were trying to find people who had some experience with micro photography. She had that experience and she had learned it herself. She gain some additional experience in london. She flew to london and was there for about six weeks. They had to wait for a certain weather pattern so they could scotland intom sweden safely. For about six weeks, she was learning some additional microfilming, technical training. She had incredibly good judgment. She was really a scholars scholar and she knew what she was looking at and was very meticulous great she is the only one who left meticulous records of what she had done. Whether itund was donovan or i suspect it was languor, is unclear. She is the only one who said when i look at everyones personnel file which are now i called hers up and there was the file and it was empty. So, there is probably some story there and i dont know what it is. Up against the wall here . Im from george mason university. Question about the status of the information being gathered and reported on the early intelligence work. This is when whats considered secret and classified as much is very much in flux. There are a couple of Supreme Court cases in world war ii for agents who were doing open source material. It was a decision by the courts whether they were doing espionage. The material thats being produced, is it being classified and what point is a being classified in it what point is it being considered internally in the agencies . When the agents go abroad, they go abroad under their own passports. As re identified usually connected with the embassy that they are attached to. Their not called librarians. There is no real question that what they are doing a broad is above board and thats simply is a way of protecting them. None of them, to my knowledge, have secret names and ive spent a lot of time and ive spent a lot of time in the oss records to decode a lot of secret numbers and names and none of them seem to have it. The materials were classified secret, i believe, not high andet, but secre remained so until the declassification in the 1970s and onward. In the library of congress when i looked at the papers of how the library of congress was linked with the idc, some of the papers were still classified and nobody had declassified them and there was somebody there who had the power to declassify them on the spot. They were just eventually labeled as classified even though they were extremely and oculus in oculus material. Ous material. About theou talk sources for your study . What kind of archives and collections did you look at . It looked like there was some Great Research trips connected with this project. Secondly, i wonder if you could comment on the film, the monument men. What did the movie get right and what did it get wrong . Thirdly, since we are at the Woodrow Wilson center where we like to connect scholarship and for todaysy, policymakers, what kind of lessons would you draw from the experience of world war ii . All great questions. The sources as i said, as i implied, i stumbled on this project when i learned about my fathers oldest brother who had done this work. He was long dead before i was born. I knew he was a librarian but i did not know he is done this work. He had done this work. Its like a classic google search. There is a relative who happened to be in intelligence. There were no family records whatsoever on him, not even a photograph. Sources i kind of started by following him. 1952, there was a preface to a book he had translated which was a memorial edition. It was 15 pages of recollections about him written by many of the leading lights in the library field. I was surprised so i assumed everyone was dead. I went to find where their papers were and i went up going to the Harvard Library and the new york public library. It turned out that fred kilgore was still alive and he had an email address and i emailed him. He called me that night. Is that im so glad you called. He was 90 years old and had the habits of intelligence agent. He did not tell me anything i did not already know. [laughter] as the project became bigger, clearly, i was not writing a book about this relative. The National Archives, the oh was his records, some of the state department records, the crucially important, the contrary the library of congress and the library of Congress Central files one thing that is interesting is a number of the Monuments Men they should have simply given their material to the official agency and they should went up in the National Archives that in fact they didnt. I found in the personal papers of one Richard Alexander who was this at theh university of virginia. I went on a glorious research ofp to the University Saskatchewan and found the papers of another monuments ma n who had been involved in the offenbach dip out. I have been to the british National Archives. My friends in germany say the records there are not going to be helpful. It is a very usbased focus. Those have been the main sources that i have used. Film, i know that many historians love to be disgruntled and get up in arms about filmmakers making films about historical subjects. Its good to have people at least learn about this remarkable moment in American History. It was a little bit of a cartoonish version of what happened. So much of the activity was not something you would make a film about. It was about restitution and about trying to taste test trying to trace promenades. Rovenance for. The most part, the Monuments Men were not in any physical danger. Version butlywood im glad that people had some awareness about it. I would recommend the documentary on this subject based on the Lynn Nicholas book which is first rate. As far as lessons for policymakers, i think there are lessons for policymakers and academics. This is a time. Period when they did not have so much hostility to each other and were able to Work Together to do something that was really remarkable. Maybe not as much as they would have wanted to do but its a remarkable story. That with the difficulty in protecting the national library, National Museum in baghdad during the second iraq war, the difficulty that American Scholars have been thinking about working with governments, that that is a fraudby definition and compromised position. I think there are these occasions when each party can really learn from each other and we could have done so much better job protecting some of this Cultural Heritage. Once its gone, its gone. Say would be what i would is a lesson i would draw from this history. I will take my prerogative and get my one of my many questions in. This has to do with restitution and the coming cold war. Your final slide had outward arrows going toward different countries. If i was able to read the small print correctly, it was just under a quarter of a million biomes headed to moscow. You also made reference to the trophy taking. Im assuming that is a oneway arrow. That books are being returned to the soviet union but books in the soviet zone or wherever the red army dominated, the books are not going in the other direction. Thats an assumption which may or may not be correct. If it is correct, how did that play into the discussion about during the ally and postwar, not much of an ally where the soviet union is not reciprocating or participating in the same exchange that the americans are. Does that factor in or was there a larger political purpose in sending books to places where who knows what would happen to them . That slide is a little bit deceptive. It was sort of the wishful version of what was happening. Restitutionoviet officers who came to the offenbach archive depp oh and identified items depot that clearly belong to soviet institutions. The issue that was more problematic was the return of jewish books to the soviet union and poland and czechoslovakia in particular. They stopped of those from being sent there. There was a lot of political pressure from jewish organizations, not only american but also in palestine and later israel. Not to send them to the soviet union. It was already a somewhat fraught issue for the policymakers. The idea that being a hot potato these of be the jewish organizations that are protesting with each other to get possession of these works but also because of the awareness that they would be going to countries where they orht not ever be seen again may not ever be used again by jewish groups. I know there were a couple of more questions we will start with the one in the back with a microphone back there. Usia officerred and i was involved in this later. Im jim bullock. Might question there are two things one is what later became an open source center. Its current stuff and you get one copy of a newspaper and is not a rare document. That stuff that is sliced and diced and red for open source rare and then you got the books and valuable cultural artifacts like illustrated manuscripts. These are separate. Are all kind of together in world war ii being dealt with. So many things were invented during that time but what happened after . Take us into the next chapter. Did the viable books get returned and that was the end of the story . Over ofcia then take collecting current periodicals . Several embassies were buying everything in print. Those were direct descendents of what you are talking about. What is the connection between the world you describe in the world i lived in after mark im not sure how well i can do that. I made a decision early on to the newspapers, periodicals, the reproduced and rareducible texts and the ones because they are separated. I wanted to think about entire world of print culture. What happens afterwards is the rare materials are rested to typically the countries of origin and then rerestitution. Ted. Some of them never got back to their owners and some are still being contested whether its france or germany. In the United States, there is a question of opportunistic looting or taking by individual soldiers. And those materials being returned to where they had been created or who their owners were. One of the consequences was to expand the microfilming program. It was the idea that everybody could see what these rare materials looked like. It was an initiative that had started in the 1930s before the threat of war and destruction but really took off during the war. That continues so American Librarys have microfilm copies or micro print copies of some of the rare manuscripts in europe. That was very much pushed by ande in the mla, aha, American Scholars. The library of Congress Mission which i described here is a shortterm effort during a time when the book trade still has been suspended. Normality returned to , the194748, increasingly state Department Sets up publication procurement offices. The library of congress has their people going out and purchasing as adventure before but now at a higher level. I think some of the practices before the work continued but have been ramped up and wrapped up in more of the propagandistic elements of usia an bringing the american story to these libraries around american libraries around the world. Thats how i would see these different strands coming together. Continue but at a more accelerated pace after world war ii. The gentle man up. Impatiently waiting. My name is Fred Augustine from the library of congress. I thought you were a familiar face. I am impressed by the role of the library of congress. After Archibald Mcleish left the library of congress to work in the state department luther evans took over, a political scientist. The fact that Archibald Mcleish was in the state department and the political scientist was in charge of the library congress, was there a special dynamic there . In carrying out these programs . Another institution with because aas involved lot of librarians are members of the American Library association , the American Library association, i was wondering if the archives in illinois it were at all helpful. They were and i look at them early on. Ald forgotten but the archives Ata University of illinois are incredibly helpful on all of these. Subjects they had a very Robust International division and harry germany in 1946, he was a leader on international librarianship. Is a wonderful character. He is an american type out of mark twain. It was great to read his work. There were other librarians who went been on the library of Congress Mission and left their papers there so its a great resource. As far as the relationship between Archibald Mcleish and luther evans, i have not really whend at it from the point Archibald Mcleish goes to the state department and luther evans is the librarian of the library of congress. Archibald mcleish was well behind this library of Congress Mission. More of anhat administrator. Great administrator but was also a visionary and had this understanding of what was at stake. He was calling librarians to tell them what is at stake, its democracy, its your rights. Evans was more bureaucratic and anxious when the library of Congress Mission seemed to be acquiring massive amounts of confiscated nazi materials. He got really worried about whether this could be read as looting. If yout know know his secondincommand but he wrote a piece that appears in one of the Library Journals that this is not looting, its legitimate acquisition. Thank you. Back to ad to go couple of specific questions. I am arnite jones. , that they areos were active in this effort, the American Historical Society not so much. Very skeletal. Im wondering how that worked. Is, you alsostion mentioned the Rockefeller Foundation. Is, was thathere an isolated thing or were they more involved . Were other foundations involved . I dont know about other foundations. Had put a fair microfilmeffort into and the technology in the 1930s and the importance of microfilm not only for preservation purposes but also access purposes. Idea of interlibrary loan and the old concept among librarians going back to world war i and before that interlibrary loan would be for world peace. [laughter] hope. N always the idea that the exchange of knowledge, the Intercultural Exchange is a good thing. Rockefeller put a nice amount of money behind that and continued to support it during the war years. Largely ass involved a clearinghouse for identifying scholars who could be helpful. This was particularly with the aim of protecting what they called cultural monuments in work areas. They got archaeologists, art and aians, curators variety of people to create these lists of the most important monuments in rome to protect from bombing and they appeded lists and m them on maps. They were taken on board planes that were bombing around rome. Did was the way that acls it and it was a question of who were the experts and how can they be mobilized to protect cultural treasures. Thank you. The gentle man appear. Up here. We are quickly running out of time so lets take a few questions to give you a chance to respond and then we will wrap it up. I am from the museum across the street. I was interested in your comments about the restitution as i understood what you were saying, the material was returned to the country from which it had been looted. End of it as far as the americans were concerned were was there some policy about returning it to the original owners . Admittedly, many of them were dead and not available but certainly, many were not. The gentle man back there . Im from the university of china. My question was about the japanese records after the second world war. Japan,he surrender of the Japanese ForeignMinistry Records were in american hands. I was concerned about the fate of these records. , did they records undergo a process of selection and review and what was the standard of that selection . There in the blue on the right side . I am a librarian at the United States holocaust museum. How do you think the restitution that was done at offenbach affects the issues that are still happening today, that there are materials that never , there areed libraries and parts of germany and austria that are finding books they did not realize they had or the americans missed and now they are trying to restitute them years later. Do you think there was positive or negative of what we did back then in respect to what is happening today . Jim banner . Has a rethink been found . [laughter] has everything been found . [laughter] what about the train that may be buried underground . What percentage of the materials that were legit have been found . Thank you. Let me add one final question. [laughter] was this a uniquely american and ever or are there examples in other countries to engage in this kind of effort . Very quickly on all of these five questions. The restitution to country of origin that was an understanding that was within International Law and it was codified by the 4 allied powers. The allies were not really able to come up with an agreement on the details of individual restitution. They fell back on if it had been looted from the spinoza house in the netherlands and there was a book stamp on it, it went back. It was these other materials that were much murkier. The japanese records thats a great question. I dont know very much about it. What i do know is that there was not this kind of program on the part of the library of congress or the American Military governance to make these selections. Massive quantities were brought to the United States and i think it was pretty indiscriminate. It was not seen as something that was wrapped up with the issue of Cultural Heritage and cultural protection as it was in europe. I think that is something about the different status of these fronts and wars in the europe and the pacific. Restitution 70 years later positive or negative, its hard to know as an historian how to assess this. If nothing had happened, it would have been terrible. Thats the bottom line for me. There are plenty of instances where nothing would have happened. I think they did a relatively good job given the political pressures of the time particularly around the jewish materials. The fact of the holocaust but also that there was no state of israel. Had there been a state of israel, this could have been that might have been one solution. There was no state, these were stateless books. Jewish cultural reconstruction, one can argue about the decisions they made about where materials should go. Somebody will need to look at that almost on a buy book, library by library basis. I looked at that of the university of pennsylvania and we have some very odd things that came in under jewish cultural reconstruction, things that probably should not have come into the library. The percentage of books of materials that were looted that we now have, i dont know if thats possible to know. I think thats just an unknown. Whether it was uniquely american, think the idea of mass acquisition, industrialstrength acquisition [laughter] is american. Some efforts on the part of the british to do restitution. They were not particularly the bookd in acquisition projects of the library of congress, for example. Before this time, i cannot think of another country that engaged in this kind of activity. It seems to me very much an americanstyle mission. Thank you. On that note, we have to draw the seminar to a close but please join us right now for a reception on the other side of those doors. I will note that there will be no seminar next week in this room as it is columbus day. October 19, you can come back and hear a presentation from harvard university, china and the world in 1750. Thank into our process participants. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] thank you for your support to all of you and the kids are just saying no. Thank you. [applause] hope is that the women of the future will feel truly free to follow whatever path their talents and the natures tell them. I think i thought the white house was so glamorous and the role what you did was so glamorous and your life was so glamorous. Parties and was the meeting people, you know. Ive got to tell you, i never worked harder in my life. Nancy reagan served as longtime political partner, ferocious protector, and ultimately as caretaker president ronald reagan. She was active with key staff decisions, policymaking, and campaigning. She made drug use her Signature Initiative with her just say no campaign nancy reagan, tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans original series, first ladies, influence and image. From Martha Washington to michelle obama, tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan three. Im a senior officer from hollywood california. This is the first time i is ever that i have ever been in the movies. I have been working overseas and occupied countries in the balkans for 18 months in october, 1944, i was the fly overied officer to austria. I was captured december 1. Even severely beaten though i was in uniform, i was severely beaten and considered a nonprisoner of war. I was taken to the present where i was held for four months. When the russian came near to vienna, i was taken through a concentration camp. It was an extermination camp. It was one of the worst in germany. We had been starving. And people were killed. Fortunately, my turn had not,. Come. American officers2 have been killed there. Here are the dog tags. Gas. S executed by how many ways to they execute people . Five or six ways, by gas, by , byting, by beating exposure, standing out in the snow naked for 48 hours and having cold water thrown on them in the middle of winter, and pushingogs over 100 foot cliffs. And has beenrue where did you get that uniform . I came here in uniform and this was taken away from a substitute. Condemned to death as had another american in this camp. Fortunately, the American Division came through at this time. I am the officer commanding artillery guarding this camp. Task has beenant making the ss, of which there are about 60, bury the dead. We have buried about 17,000 people. Expect ur