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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2018
Only two large collections of Hildegard of Bingen's music are extant, today housed in the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven (B-LVu, no shelf number) and in the Hochschul-und Landesbibliothek RheinMain in Wiesbaden (D-WI1 2, the so-called ‘Riesencodex’). The Riesencodex, though, was almost lost during World War II. It survived both bombing and plundering in Dresden in February 1945, only to be appropriated by the Soviet Administration in 1947. Using archival records from the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv in Wiesbaden from the 1940s and 1950s, I detail the efforts of a number of people to retrieve the manuscript after the war and bring it back to Wiesbaden. Franz Götting, the director of the Wiesbaden library, spent several years trying to recover the manuscript through official channels. Its eventual return to Wiesbaden in 1948, however, came about surreptitiously, largely through the efforts of Margarete Kühn at the German Academy in East Berlin and an American woman, Caroline Walsh, in Berlin as a military spouse.
I am deeply indebted to a number of people for their assistance on this project. Many thanks to Barbara Newman, at the University of Chicago, who encouraged me to look at the files in Wiesbaden; to Martin Mayer at the Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek RheinMain, who has answered many questions along the way; to the accommodating staff at the Hessisches Landesarchiv during my visit in April 2015; to my research assistant at Dalhousie University, Rebecca Shaw and Sonia Hellenbrand; to Anni Cecil at Wheaton College, who supplied me with articles that led me to the right Walsh; to the anonymous readers who asked great questions; and finally to a family friend, Horst Bussiek, who managed to read Margarete Kühn's difficult handwriting and provided me with translations of a number of her letters (thank goodness that everyone else who figures in this story had a preference for typewriters).
All translations are mine, unless noted otherwise.
1 Klaper, Michael summarises scholarship on the dating of the manuscript in his ‘Commentary’, trans. Kruckenberg, Lori, in Lieder: Faksimile Riesencodex (Hs.2) der Hessischen Landesbibliothek Wiesbaden, fol. 466–481v, ed. Welker, Lorenz, with commentary by Klaper, Michael, Elementa musicae 1 (Wiesbaden, 1998), 23–4Google Scholar.
2 This Margarete Kühn should not be confused with her more famous namesake, the art historian Margarete Kühn (1902–95), who also lived a long life in Berlin.
3 The Dendermonde manuscript is now held in the Maurits Sabbe Library, KU Leuven Libraries, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies. Hildegard's music has had much wider circulation since the 1850s than it ever had in the Middle Ages. See Bain, Jennifer, Hildegard of Bingen and Musical Reception: The Modern Revival of a Medieval Composer (Cambridge, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Gmelch, Joseph, ed., Die Kompositionen der heil. Hildegard: Nach dem großen Hildegardkodex in Wiesbaden phototypisch veröffentlicht (Düsseldorf, 1913)Google Scholar.
5 For a sense of what was already known by the Allies during the war about the scale of looting, see Crosby, Sumner McK., ‘The Protection of Artistic Monuments in Europe’, College Art Journal 3/3 (1944), 109–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the popular account of the Commission, see Edsel, Robert M. with Witter, Bret, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (New York, 2009)Google Scholar.
6 A number of articles particularly address the theft of Jewish book and document collections. See, for example, Borin, Jacqueline, ‘Embers of the Soul: The Destruction of Jewish Books and Libraries in Poland during World War II’, Libraries & Culture, 28/4 (1993), 445–60Google Scholar, and Schidorsky, Dov, ‘The Library of the Reich Security Main Office and Its Looted Jewish Book Collections’, Libraries & the Cultural Record, 42/1 (2007), 21–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Petropoulos, Jonathan, Kunstraub und Sammelwahn: Kunst und Politik im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 1999)Google Scholar. de Vries, Willem, Kunstraub im Westen 1940–1945: Alfred Rosenberg und der Sonderstab Musik (Frankfurt/Main, 2000)Google Scholar.
8 See the 1946 report by Mason Hammond, based on his own observations in Germany and interviews with eyewitnesses in ‘The War and Art Treasures in Germany’, College Art Journal, 5/3 (1946), 205–18.
9 Akinsha, Konstantin and Kozlov, Grigorii (with Hochfield, Sylvia), Beautiful Loot: The Soviet Plunder of Europe's Art Treasures (New York, 1995), ix–xiiiGoogle Scholar.
10 Ibid., 48–51.
11 The state claimed that the art was rescued by the Soviet Union from flooded tunnels and restored by Soviet experts. Ibid., 4–6, and 192–202.
12 See, for example, Kirby Talley, M., ‘Lost Treasures’, Art News, 89 (February 1990), 138–50Google Scholar. Hundreds of such reports and articles in many languages are listed in ‘Beutekunst’: Bibliographie des internationalen Schrifttums über das Schicksal des im Zweiten Weltkrieg von der Roten Armee in Deutschland erbeuteten Kulturgutes (Museums-, Archiv- und Bibliotheksbestände) 1990–2000, ed. Peter Bruhn, Literaturnachweise zu Aktuellen Russland-Themen 1, 3rd edn (Berlin, 2000).
13 Jack, Andrew, ‘German Hopes Hit Over “Trophy Art”’, Financial Times (21 July 1999), 2Google Scholar.
14 Ibid.
15 Wiesbaden, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (hereafter: HHStAW). Although the files are numbered, none of the original items are individually numbered or catalogued. Unless otherwise noted, all original documents come from HHStAW 819_285.1. For the sake of brevity, short references are used throughout this paper, but full references can be found in the Appendix.
16 Struck, who was the director of the library from 1 August 1940 to 1945, has an interesting musical connection; after the war he worked for Bärenreiter in Kassel, acting as a liaison for the Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart project: Friedrich Blume, ‘Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: A Postlude’, trans. Joscelyn Godwin, Notes, 24/2 (1967), 217–44, at 234.
17 There is a discrepancy in the documentation: Vogel's ‘Trip report’, from 6 July 1942 includes manuscripts 240–4 in his list (D-WI1 240–244), 1. A letter from the Provinzialverband Nassau to the Militär-Regierung, Education Officer (3 August 1945) provides a list of the manuscripts sent in 1942 in Enclosure 1. Enclosure 1 introduces a mistake: rather than manuscripts 240–4, it says manuscripts 241–5 (p. 1). Martin Mayer at the Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek RheinMain has confirmed that D-WI1 245 is currently in the collection (email communication, 28 September 2016 and 17 May 2017), but D-WI1 240 is missing, confirming the error.
18 There is also a discrepancy between the list that Struck included in his letter to the Girozentrale Sachsen on 29 July 1943, and Enclosures 1 and 2 associated with the letter from the Provinzialverband Nassau to the Militär-Regierung that provides a list of the manuscripts sent in 1943. Struck's letter includes ‘manuscript 37’ twice; Enclosure 1 (p. 1) has Struck's same list but without the double listing of manuscript 37, and Enclosure 2 (p. 3) adds ‘manuscript 36’ to the list, which is absent in Struck's original list. Martin Mayer has confirmed that both D-WI1 36 and D-WI1 37 are missing and so Enclosure 2 rather than Struck's original list is correct (email communication, 17 May 2017).
19 Lyons, Michael J., World War II: A Short History, 2nd edn (Boston, 2010), 228Google Scholar.
20 Mayer, Martin, ‘Unbeschadet durch drei schwierige Jahrzehnte? Die Landesbibliothek von 1914 bis 1945’, in Von der Herzoglich Nassauischen Öffentlichen Bibliothek zur Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek RheinMain 1813–2013, ed. Mayer, Martin (Wiesbaden, 2013)Google Scholar, 234 and 248.
21 Petropoulos, Jonathan, Art as Politics in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill and London, 1996), 89–90Google Scholar, 117 and 142–3.
22 There is another tantalising connection between Wiesbaden and Dresden, but the timing does not fit. Hans Posse died in December 1942, and his replacement in Dresden at the gallery and also as special advisor on the Linz collection was Hermann Voss, director of the Städtische Gemäldegalerie in Wiesbaden. On 15 March 1943 Voss was named by Adolf Hitler as director of the Staatliche Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, on top of his position in Wiesbaden, and that year was also made special advisor; he would seem to be an obvious connection for the removal of the manuscripts to Dresden, but the first shipment took place in July 1942, well before Voss had any specific connection to that city. See Iselt, Kathrin, ‘Sonderbeauftragter des Führers’; Der Kunsthistoriker und Museumsmann Hermann Voss (1884–1969) (Köln, 2010)Google Scholar.
23 Vogel, ‘Trip report’.
24 Ibid., 1.
25 Ibid., 2.
26 The boxes were marked with the text ‘Der Oberpräsident (Verwaltung des Bezirksverbandes Nassau), Nass. Landesbibliothek.’ Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Thomas Bürger, ‘Wandel und Kontinuität in 450 Jahren: Von der kurfürstlichen Liberey zur Sächsischen Landesbibliothek - Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Technischen Universität Dresdenm 55/1–2 (2006), 29–36, at 35.
30 Vogel, ‘Trip Report’, 3.
31 The university library of Breslau also suffered losses, but its history is much more complicated. See Richard Bessel, Germany 1945: From War to Peace (New York, 2009), and ‘About Library - History of the Library’, Wrocław University Library, www.bu.uni.wroc.pl/en/about-library/history (accessed 15 July 2018).
32 Vogel, ‘Trip report’, 3.
33 Ibid., 4.
34 Ibid., 5.
35 Governor of the Bezirksverband Nassau to the Wiesbaden library, 8 July 1942, 2. Translation by Horst Bussiek.
36 Struck to the Girozentrale Sachsen, 29 July 1943. This time, as Struck indicates, it was Hilde Krejci who took the manuscripts to Dresden; Martin Mayer describes Krejci as an administrative employee who was unqualified for this task. Mayer, ‘Unbeschadet durch drei schwierige Jahrzehnte?’, 244.
37 Ibid., 248.
38 Ibid., 242, as well as Renkhoff, Otto, Nassauische Biographie: Kurzbiographien aus 13 Jahrhunderten (Wiesbaden, 1985), 125Google Scholar.
39 Provinzialverband Nassau to the Militär-Regierung Education Officer, 3 August 1945.
40 Ibid., Enclosure 1 (English), 2.
41 Götting to Hörtel, 26 November 1945.
42 Götting to Girozentrale Sachsen, 14 December 1945.
43 Götting, ‘Memorandum’, 14 December 1945.
44 Heymann and Schaarschmidt to Götting, 5 January 1946. Georg Schaarschmidt has an entry in the Sächsische Biografie, but there is no entry for Heymann.
45 ‘als unser Tresor die zahlreichen schweren Angriffe auf Dresden, die u.a. auch das Gebäude der Girozentrale Sachsen in Trümmer geworfen hat, volkommen unberührt überstanden hat.’ Ibid., 1. Translation by Sonia Hellenbrand.
46 ‘Befehl des Obersten Chefs der Sowjetischen Militärverwaltung, Oberbefehlshaber der Gruppe der Sowjetischen Besatzungstruppen in Deutschland, Nr. 124’, Stadt Berlin, 30. Oktober 1945, 1–2. A longer version appears in the file as well, signed by G. Shukow, Marschall der Sowjetunion.
47 Heymann and Schaarschmidt to Götting, 5 January 1946, 1–2.
48 Ibid., 2.
49 Götting to the Minister for Culture and Instruction in Greater Hesse, 17 January 1946; Götting to the Governor of the municipal administration in Wiesbaden, 17 January 1946; Götting to the provincial conservator in Marburg/Lahn, 17 January 1946.
50 Götting to Sächsischer Sparkassen- und Giroverband, 12 February 1946, 1.
51 Heymann and Schaarschmidt to Götting, 28 February 1946.
52 Götting, ‘Memorandum’, 5 June 1946.
53 Diplom-Bibliothekarin Emilie Königsbrügge wrote an official letter authorising ‘Mr. Assessor Herbert Lindner of the Greater Hesse State Ministry, Minister for Culture and Education’ to accept the box with the Riesencodex. Königsbrügge to the Girozentrale Sachsen, 22 October 1946.
54 Götting, ‘Memorandum’, 7 November 1946, 1.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 Götting to Böckeler, 24 June 1946.
58 ‘eine günstige Gelegenheit’. Schröder to Götting, 18 March 1947.
59 ‘die die Verhältnisse der russischbesetzten Zone ausserordentlich gut kennt, ist in dieser Sache massgeblich tätig’. Ibid.
60 Götting to von Hoyos, 21 March 1947, including two additional letters addressed Götting to Degner, 21 March 1947 and Götting to Sächsischer Sparkassenverband, 21 March 1947.
61 Götting to the Governor of the municipal authority in Wiesbaden, ‘Report’, 21 June 1947, 1.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid., 2.
64 Ibid.
65 Götting to Baethgen, 23 August 1947, 1–2. Götting makes reference to Paul Wandel's title in a letter to Marianne Schrader earlier that month (15 August 1947).
66 Ibid., 2.
67 According to Eugène Badoux, Friedo Lampe: une psychobiographie (Lausanne, 1986), 197, her appointment began in 1940 in Berlin, but two other sources that come directly from the Monumenta identify the year as 1941: Krause, Hermann, ‘Nachruf: Margarete Kühn’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 42 (1986), 747Google Scholar, and Eckhard Müller-Mertens, ‘Grenzüberschreitende Monumenta-Arbeit im geteilten Berlin’, in Mittelalterliche Texte: Überlieferung – Befunde – Deutungen. Kolloquium der Zentraldirektion der Monumenta Germaniae Historica am 28./29. Juni 1996, Monumenta Germaniae Historica Schriften 42, ed. Rudolf Schieffer (Hannover), 247–64, at 249.
68 Müller-Mertens, ‘Grenzüberschreitende’, 250. Kühn's relationship with the homosexual Lampe was unusual. She had known him since 1928 and was devoted to him. Once she moved to Berlin, as she reports in letters from the 1970s and 1980s to Lampe's biographer, Eugène Badoux, the two spent several evenings together every week, and had planned to embark on a Platonic marriage after the war. Badoux, Friedo Lampe, 196–9.
69 Schrader to Götting, 13 August 1947.
70 The term used in the letters is ‘fotokopieren’, which in 1947 meant making photostatic copies.
71 Götting to the Ministry for Education, University and Science, 15 August 1947.
72 Götting to Schrader, 23 August 1947.
73 The letter to Kühn: Götting to Kühn, 23 August 1947, with the enclosure Götting to the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, attention Kühn, 23 August 1947. The letter to Baethgen: Götting to Baethgen, 23 August 1947, with the enclosure Götting to the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, attention Baethgen, 23 August 1947.
74 ‘die gewünschte Vollmacht ausstellen. Vielleicht gelingt es uns doch noch, den Codex zurückzuführen’. Götting to Kühn, 23 August 1947.
75 Degner to Götting, 15 November 1947.
76 Schrader to Franz Götting, 24 November 1947.
77 Götting to Schrader, 29 November 1947.
78 Kühn to Götting, 14 April 1950, 3. Handwritten letter. Translation by Horst Bussiek.
79 Götting to Führkötter, 8 December 1949; Führkötter to Götting, 12 December 1949, 2.
80 US Air Force website, ‘Major General Robert L. Walsh’, www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/105289/major-general-robert-l-walsh/ (accessed 15 July 2018). See also US Air Force website, ‘Major General James H. Walsh’, www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/105288/major-general-james-h-walsh/ (accessed 15 July 2018). James Walsh was younger than Robert and referred to as ‘Colonel James H. Walsh’ in March 1948, so it would have been strange for Führkötter to refer to him as the ‘General Chief of Intelligence of the American Army’. Harris, William R., ‘March Crisis 1948, Act II’, Studies in Intelligence, 11 (1967), 9–36Google Scholar, at 21.
81 See Baker, Anni, Wiesbaden and the Americans 1945–2003: The Social, Economic, and Political Impact of the U.S. Forces in Wiesbaden, Schriften des Stadtarchivs Wiesbaden 9 (Wiesbaden, 2004)Google Scholar, especially 45–53.
82 Hugh N. Ahmann, ‘Interview of Major General Robert L. Walsh’, transcr. and ed. Mary E. Monday, United States Air Force Oral History Program (9–10 January 1984, Washington, DC), 206.
83 Harris, William R., ‘March Crisis 1948, Act I’, Studies in Intelligence, 10 (1966), 1–22Google Scholar, at 6.
84 They were married in St Matthew's Catholic Cathedral in Washington, DC (announced in many newspapers throughout the United States), and their son (also Robert Walsh) went to Portsmouth Abbey School, a Benedictine Catholic day and boarding school. For wedding announcements, see, for example, the Detroit Free Press (Detroit, MI, 20 May 1928), 56; Press and Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY, 26 May 1928), 17; Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL, 26 May 1928), 3; Asbury Park Press (Asbury Park, NJ, 26 May 1928), 16. Reference to Robert Walsh Junior's school is in Obituary for Robert Legrow Walsh Jr, Seacoastonline.com, 26 July 2012. (accessed 15 July 2018).
85 Führkötter to Götting, 12 December 1949, 2.
86 Krause, ‘Nachruf: Margarete Kühn’, 747, and Müller-Mertens, ‘Grenzüberschreitende Monumenta-Arbeit im geteilten Berlin’, 247–64.
87 Heinrich Götting to Franz Götting, 3 April 1949.
88 Heinrich Götting to Franz Götting, 21 April 49. I have not been able to track down this journal reference to the manuscript being in Wiesbaden.
89 Born to Götting, 3 May 1949; Götting to the Governor of the municipal administration in Wiesbaden, 3 May 1949; Götting to the Governor of the municipal administration in Wiesbaden, 11 May 1949.
90 Götting to the Governor of the municipal administration in Wiesbaden, 3 May 1949.
91 Heinrich Götting to Franz Götting, Deutsche Post telegram (19 May 1949).
92 Götting, ‘Memorandum’, 8 December 1949. The shelf-mark of the manuscript was Inc. 263II (D-WI1 Inc. 263II).
93 Ibid.
94 In his letter to Kühn of 18 June (a Saturday!), he said that he had flown back on Saturday evening, which must have been the week before. Götting to Kühn, 18 June 1949.
95 Götting, ‘Memorandum’, 8 December 1949.
96 Götting to Kühn, 18 June 1949.
97 ‘Die Eibinger sind natürlich sehr glücklich, dass Tante Hilde noch in der Heimat ist.’ Ibid.
98 Heinrich Götting to Franz Götting, 11 March 1950, 1.
99 Weber to the Germany Academy in Berlin, 6 February 1950, 2. Handwritten letter.
100 Ibid., 2. Translation by Horst Bussiek.
101 Franz Götting to Heinrich Götting, 6 March 1950.
102 Heinrich Götting to Franz Götting, 11 March 1950, 1. Kühn's Monumenta Germaniae Historica obituary mentions as well that Kühn had only one good eye (Krause, ‘Nachruf: Margarete Kühn’, 747).
103 Kühn to Götting, 12 March 1950.
104 Ibid.
105 Götting to Rörig, 15 March 1950.
106 Ibid.
107 Rörig to Götting, 19 March 1950; Rörig to Götting, 26 March 1950. Götting explained to Rörig that he did not have an appropriate manuscript in hand, but expected to secure something from the West German library in Marburg (Götting to Rörig, 28 March 1950, 1). The Speculum historiale is now back in the Wiesbaden collection, and seems to have come in after Götting died; as Martin Mayer at the Wiesbaden library communicated to me: ‘he made a handwritten note in the incunabula catalogue [about the Speculum]: “befindet sich in der Landesbibliothek Dresden, wurde gegen Hs. 2 ausgetauscht”’ (‘this is located at the Landesbibliothek Dresden, exchanged for MS 2’). Martin Mayer, personal correspondence, Wednesday, 14 June 2017.
108 Rörig to Götting, 19 March 1950.
109 Rörig to Götting, 4 April 1950.
110 Götting to Kühn, 11 April 1950; Kühn to Götting, 14 April 1950, 3 (handwritten letter).
111 Götting to Baethgen, 13 April 1950.
112 ‘Sicher hat Fräulein Dr. Kühn als Beamtin der Monumenta inkorrekt gehandelt’. Ibid., 2.
113 Baethgen to Götting, 18 April 1950.
114 The three western zones of occupation (American, British and French) merged to create the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) in May 1949, while the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic in October 1949.
115 Kühn to Götting, 27 August 1950.
116 ‘Ihm habe ich es zu danken, wenn sie aufmerksam geworden ist auf mich.’ Ibid.
117 Götting, unfortunately, was on holiday when her letter arrived (Office of the director to Kühn, August 30, 1950).
118 Kühn to Götting, 18 October 1950, 1 (handwritten letter).
119 Ibid, 2.
120 Margarete Kühn, ‘Schicksale und Gestalten aus Zwei Jahrtausenden Deutscher Vergangenheit, Hildegard von Bingen’, Illustrirte Zeitung 4962 (14 November 1940), 342–5. Krause, ‘Nachruf: Margarete Kühn’, 747; Müller-Mertens, ‘Grenzüberschreitende Monumenta-Arbeit’; Horst Fuhrmann, ‘“Überstehn ist alles”: Ein Erinnerungsbrief an Eckhard Müller-Mertens’, in Turbata per aequora mundi: Dankesgabe an Eckhard Müller-Mertens, with the cooperation of Mathias Lawo, ed, Olaf B. Rader (Hannover, 2001), 3–12.
121 Müller-Mertens, ‘Grenzüberschreitende Monumenta-Arbeit’, 263.
122 Fuhrmann, ‘“Überstehn ist alles”’, 6. Completed in 1929, Kühn's dissertation was later published as Studien zum Politik Genuas um 1300 (Engelsdorf-Leipzig, 1931).
123 ‘Chronik’, Katholische Pfarrei Sankt Laurentius Mittweida, www.kath-kirche-mittweida.de (accessed 15 July 2018).
124 Müller-Mertens, ‘Grenzüberschreitende Monumenta-Arbeit’, 250.
125 Kühn to Götting, 14 April 1950, 2 (handwritten letter).
126 See, for example, Ildefons Herwegen, ‘Geleitswort’, in Hildegard von Bingen, Wisse die Wege: Scivias, ed. Maura Böckeler (Berlin, 1928), idem, ‘Zum Geleit’, in Hildegard von Bingen, Reigen der Tugenden Ordo Virtutum: Ein Singspiel, ed. Abtei Sankt Hildegard, Eibingen im Rheingau (Berlin, 1927), 7–9.
127 Kühn to Götting, 10 September 1952, 4 (handwritten letter). Translation by Horst Bussiek.
128 Krause, ‘Nachruf: Margarete Kühn’, 747.
129 Müller-Mertens, ‘Grenzüberschreitende Monumenta-Arbeit’, 262.
130 Müller-Mertens describes the cross-border issues in great detail throughout his article. In addition to the financial difficulties, for decades Kühn travelled daily from West Berlin to East Berlin for work, and then once she could no longer do that because of poor health, Müller-Mertens made the trip in the opposite direction, having to deal with intensive Visa issues for weeks, each of the 150 times he made the trip. Müller-Mertens, ‘Grenzüberschreitende Monumenta-Arbeit’, in particular 250, 253–9, 262–3.
131 Krause, ‘Nachruf: Margarete Kühn’, 747.
132 See the 1970 entries in the Appendix.
133 See, for example, ‘Umfrage der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Bestandsaufnahme der Verluste kriegsbedingt verlagerten Kulturguts in Osteuropa’, 17 July 1992.
