Into the Depths
In May 1945, as World War II drew to a close, Captain Robert Posey and Private First Class Lincoln Kirstein entered the Altaussee salt mine in Austria’s Alps. They squeezed through a narrow opening and stepped into the damp darkness, guided by flickering acetylene lamps.
In one chamber, resting on cardboard boxes, they found eight panels of Jan van Eyck’s 15th-century masterpiece, The Adoration of the Lamb. “The miraculous jewels of the Crowned Virgin seemed to attract the light,” Kirstein later wrote.
The Monuments Men
Posey and Kirstein were members of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section, known as the Monuments Men. This small Allied unit — museum curators, historians, and architects — recovered countless artworks looted by the Nazis. Among their finds at Altaussee were Michelangelo’s Bruges Madonna, stolen from Belgium, and works by Johannes Vermeer.
They called in George Stout, an art conservator who had campaigned for such a unit and joined in 1944. Stout traveled across Europe recovering stolen works, often improvising packing materials from German sheepskin coats and gas masks due to shortages.
Hitler’s Hidden Treasure
The Allies learned of Altaussee through a chance meeting with a dentist’s son-in-law connected to Hermann Göring’s art theft operations. Altaussee had been chosen by Adolf Hitler as the repository for pieces intended for his planned Führermuseum in Linz.
Conditions inside the tunnels — cool temperatures and constant humidity — made the mine ideal for storage. By early 1945, Nazi records listed 6,577 paintings, 2,300 drawings, 137 sculptures, 122 tapestries, and thousands of other objects hidden deep inside.
A Race Against Time
In April 1945, district leader August Eigruber, interpreting Hitler’s “Nero Decree,” planned to destroy the mine and its contents with bombs. Local miners, fearing for their livelihoods, secretly removed explosives and sealed the entrances instead.
When Stout arrived on May 21, 1945, he faced another challenge: the looming handover of the region to Soviet forces, whose “Trophy Brigades” seized art for the USSR. Stout accelerated the evacuation, working up to 18-hour days. By July 19, 80 truckloads of treasures — including the Bruges Madonna and the Ghent Altarpiece — had been moved to safety in Munich.
In May 1945, Captain Robert Posey and Pfc. Lincoln Kirstein stepped into the Altaussee salt mine in Austria.
Hidden deep inside were thousands of Nazi-stolen masterpieces, secret plans to destroy them, and a race against time to save Europe’s greatest art…🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/lmdFberVHx
— Fascinating True Stories (@FascinatingTrue) September 1, 2025