[CPProt.net] Americans return priceless books to Germany

[MSN CPPnet]

Americans return priceless books to Germany

BY PHILIP DINE

St. Louis Post-Dispatch


WASHINGTON - (KRT) - In a formal yet joyous ceremony, Germany regained
possession of four priceless old books that had been missing for 60 years.

In the final days of World War II, the books were retrieved from a burning
castle in Stuttgart, Germany, by an Army captain from St. Louis, John Hewitt
Doty. They were returned to German possession Thursday by two of Doty's
nephews, who did so without compensation.

Shortly before champagne glasses clinked at the Germany Embassy, a phalanx
of German officials from Washington and the homeland, international book
sleuths and attorneys and German museum curators from Stuttgart saluted the
two nephews.

"We appreciate the gesture you're doing here, because for us the objective
of getting historic objects back to their rightful place is very important,"
said Peter Gottwald, Germany's deputy ambassador to the United States. "We
know how many objects were displaced by the war."

In response, Peter Brown, one of Doty's nephews, lauded the German officials
and the lawyers for not jumping to conclusions that his uncle had stolen the
books in April 1945.

"The lawyers could have made this very adversarial, but they didn't," Brown
said. "And I appreciate that the German officials were willing to withhold
judgment on how he came by the books. It mattered to me because my uncle was
the picture of rectitude and propriety."

In letters to his wife during the war, Doty, who worked in intelligence with
the 63rd Infantry Division, "expressed distress" when Allied actions would
lead to destruction of historic objects, Brown said.

The books, in gorgeous condition considering their age and what they have
been through, consist of two separate editions of Aesop's Fables, Das
Theater - on operatic sets and costumes - and a fairy tale containing
original wood cuts.

Brown, who lives in Maine, was accompanied Thursday by his brother,
Clarence, of Oregon.

The two had been called to St. Louis in 2001 after Doty's death by his
widow, Dorothy, to help divvy up their uncle's possessions, including
antique furniture, rugs - and books. Their mother was Doty's only sibling,
and her six children were Doty's closest relatives.

It wasn't the first time Peter Brown had seen the books. In the late 1950s,
he was a student at Princeton, and he and his uncle - the only
college-educated people in the family at the time - were close. So Brown
would often visit his uncle and aunt's home, where Doty's study, full of
bookshelves, had a pullout couch and doubled as the guest room.

"We're talking about books that would get your attention. Among the novels
and other books, you'd see these volumes bound in leather, from the 14th,
15th, 16th centuries," Brown said.

Because the couple had no children, his wife asked the Brown brothers to
divide the items up among the three nephews and three nieces. The two made
six piles, but they sold some of the books that seemed valuable for $750 to
a St. Louis dealer, Sheldon Margulis, to help their aunt pay to ship the
other items.

Three books from Stuttgart, while old, weren't as ancient, and Peter Brown -
unaware that their value was enhanced by the original artwork in them - gave
one to his daughter in Colorado and two to his son in Maryland.

The fourth book returned Thursday had been retrieved after international
book and arts sleuth Willi Korte, an attorney who specializes in this sort
of thing, traveled to St. Louis on Sunday and urged a woman who had it to
"do the right thing." The next day, she agreed, Korte said.

Another book Doty brought home from the war and later sold to Margulis, and
which ended up with St. Louis rare book dealer Rod Shene, remains the
subject of litigation in federal court in New York City. And there are a few
other books whose Stuttgart origins are under investigation, including at
least one in St. Louis and another in Miami.

But on Thursday, all attention - and considerable good cheer - was focused
on the return of the four books to Germany from St. Louis, which
coincidentally is Stuttgart's sister city and whose museum has one of the
country's largest and oldest collection of books.

Thomas Kline, a Washington lawyer who has worked with the German state of
Baden-Wuertemberg to retrieve books, told the Brown brothers: "I've been
doing this since 1989, and it's never been this gracious or this easy. You
two have a lot to be proud of. You really have made this pleasant."

Ulrike Gauss, senior curator at the Stuttgart museum, offered the Browns a
guided tour, because, she said, their actions had allowed Germany to "bring
together what belonged together."