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Salzkammergut under the Nazis
This article's discussion of history stops a little early. The salt mines of Salzkammergut were a major site for the storage of looted art works. See below for an excerpt from a web page on TripSavvy. The failure to discuss this prominent aspect of Salzkammergut's history is inexcusable and should be fixed. L. Montana (talk) 05:00, 19 January 2021 (UTC)LaL. Montana (talk) 05:00, 19 January 2021 (UTC) During the waning days of WWII, diehard Nazis discovered the Salzkammergut region; its Alpine remoteness was the perfect hideout. They built labor camps in nearby Ebensee to work on their secret missile program. Hope sprung eternal in the Salzkammergut.

The Nazis also funneled stolen art into this salt-heavy, pastoral region, including one of Europe's finest art works, Jan van Eyck’s 15th century Ghent Altarpiece, called The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, which puts focus on the central panel of the 12-panel work. (You can see the most minute details of this painting in The Ghent Altarpiece in 100 Billion Pixels.) The altarpiece had taken a very long journey; sent to the Pyrenees Chateau de Pau for wartime safekeeping, it was stolen by Dr. Ernst Buchner, director of the Bavarian state museums and transported to Paris, then to Castle Neuschwanstein, where it was treated by a conservator before eventually being sent on to Altaussee. There it was stored underground in the salt mine with other works by the likes of Michelangelo, Dürer, Rubens, and Vermeer.

With the war winding down and Germany on the wrong side of it all, eight airplane bombs were crammed into the mine shaft to destroy the cache of art. Miners and the Austrian resistance, with the help of a commando team lead by Albrecht Gaiswinkler, managed to thwart the destruction of the works until the Allied Third Army arrived at Altaussee to secure the mine. Monuments Men Robert K. Posey and Lincoln Kirstein began the process of excavating the art, including the Ghent Altarpiece, which Posey personally delivered to Ghent.

ref: https://www.tripsavvy.com/altaussee-salt-mines-guide-1507941 ref: Noah Charney Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece 2012

Larry Nordell