!! Was mona lisa stolen in WW2?

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Jun 18, 2003, 2:18:29 PM6/18/03

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BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR
LEONARDO DA VINCI'S Mona Lisa has always been something of a mystery
woman. There have been questions over the reason for her enigmatic
smile and her whereabouts during the Second World War. Now the story
of a secret agent working for Britain may have the answer to the
second puzzle. Albrecht Gaiswinkler,(ex Luftwaffe pilot ex french
resistance) an Austrian, rescued the painting from the Nazis,
according to the previously classified official history of the Special
Operations Executive published today. The Louvre in Paris, where the
Mona Lisa is exhibited, has always denied that it was taken by the
occupying Nazi forces, although last year the museum said for the
first time that a 16th or 17th century copy of the painting was taken
by the Germans and hidden in a salt mine in Austria. The SOE history,
which has been kept secret for 50 years, details the heroic story of
Herr Gaiswinkler, who is singled out for rescuing a number of Nazi
treasure hoards "including the Mona Lisa". The Secret History of SOE
1940-1945, published by St Ermin's Press, is based on secret files
from the war and interviews with members of the covert organisation.
It states unequivocally that the Mona Lisa was recovered from the
Nazis. The files were released four years ago to the Public Record
Office but their existence was known only to a few official
historians. Past Cabinet Secretaries had always refused to declassify
them. Now they has been published, although there are still passages
deleted "on grounds of national security". The story of Herr
Gaiswinkler who deserted from the German armed forces, and joined the
Maquis in France in June 1944 has survived the Government censor. It
is revealed that when the Austrian joined the French Resistance, he
brought with him four trucks of arms and ammunition and 500,000
francs. He reached the American lines with 17 German prisoners in
September 1944. The history, written by the late Professor William
Mackenzie, a Classics scholar who served in the Air Ministry and was
asked to produce the work, describes Herr Gaiswinkler as "the star
turn of the Austrian Resistance", which was sponsored by the SOE. The
Nazis pillaged European art treasures on a huge scale on the orders of
Adolf Hitler and many were stored in an Austrian salt mine near the
town of Bad Aussee. According to the SOE history, Gaiswinkler was
"dropped blind" back into his country, where he raised an active force
of 350 men and armed them with German weapons. In the last weeks of
the Nazi regime he was able to harass the Nazis "by a multitude of
bluffs". When the Americans arrived, they found that he had captured
several eminent Nazis and "had rescued a number of Nazi treasure
hoards, including the Mona Lisa and the Austrian Imperial Crown
Jewels". The Louvre said yesterday that it was aware of Herr
Gaiswinkler, but maintained its line that the painting by Leonardo da
Vinci had "never left France". It had been hidden in five different
chateaux, along with 4,000 other works of art. The Mona Lisa, the
gallery said, was removed from the Louvre on August 28, 1939, and the
Germans never succeeded in looting it. In a book published last year,
called The Lost Masters, the authors, Peter Harclerode and Brendan
Pittaway, raised the issue of whether the Mona Lisa was among $500
million-worth of art held by the Germans in the Austrian salt mine.
The authors discovered that Herr Gaiswinkler and three other SOE
agents had prevented the Germans from blowing up the mine which would
have destroyed the Mona Lisa and other priceless works of art.