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Treasure Hunt: A New York Times Reporter Tracks the Quedlinburg Hoard
Nearly half a century after the end of World War II, the famous and priceless Quedlinburg treasures were still missing. The Nazis had commandeered this magnificent hoard of medieval artworks and had hidden it in a cave on the outskirts of Quedlinburg - a quaint, cobblestone-paved village in central Germany. But soon after victorious American troops occupied Germany in April 1945, twelve of the treasures - worth more than $200 million in today's market - were found to have suddenly disappeared. For years after, the Quedlinburg case was known as the greatest and longest unsolved art theft of the century. Then, in 1989, William H. Honan, a senior reporter at The New York Times hungry for a high profile case, and Willi Korte, a colorful, wise-cracking German researcher, set out to track down the thief. It began to look like a hopeless task. After so many years, the trail had grown cold, and it seemed as if, should they be lucky enough to discover him, the thief might be ready to kill in order to protect his priceless booty. As the investigators scrutinized the art world and delved into old U.S. Army records, they gathered clues and suspects - some of them more than a little frightening. Then, after a series of hair-raising adventures, Honan made headlines around the world by identifying the thief and leading law enforcement authorities to a desolate, tumble-down farm town in northeastern Texas where the treasures had been hidden. Subsequently, Honan was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in investigative journalism.
- GenresArtTrue CrimeHistory
289 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1997
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45 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 16, 2019
“He had come to depend upon these things, they were a part of him.”-William H. Honan
“Treasure Hunt: A New York Times Reporter Tracks the Quedlinburg Hoard” written by the late New York Times reporter, William H. Honan, tells how he and his partner cracked the biggest and longest unsolved art theft of the century. This exciting book covers how the author was contacted by a German lawyer, Wilhelm A. Korte, who specialized in the research, identification and restitution of works of art during the Nazi regime and of how they finally broke the case after seven years of research and many dead ends. The author was nominated for a Pulitzer for his investigative journalism.
It starts in Quedlinburg, Germany, one of the best-preserved medieval and Renaissance towns in Europe and the famous Quedlinburg Abbey which was founded as a proprietary church of the Ottoman Imperial family by Emperor Otto the Great in 936, as a memorial to his father. Over the following centuries, it accumulated a rich collection of treasures donated by the Imperial family. At the Protestant Reformation, it was converted into the Lutheran Church of St. Servatius. During World War Two, the Church, decides they need to hide their treasures that were preserved for more than 1,000 years (illuminated manuscripts with covers of hammered gold and encrusted jewels and other superb items of gold, ivory and cut-rock crystal) to prevent looting by the Nazis. They hid them in a old mineshaft at the edge of town.
On the 19th of April 1945 the US Army (87th Armored Field Artillery Battalion) occupied the village and identified the treasures and place a guard upon them. They were there as one of three units that organized teams to search the town for weapons, radio transmitters and other contraband. Soon Church officials reported that eight extremely valuable objects went missing, including a 9th-century illuminated manuscript gospel book and a printed evangeliary (book of gospel readings for services) dating to 1513 (the Evangelistar aus St. Wiperti) as well as reliquaries, an ivory liturgical comb and other objects. Some of the pieces date back a thousand years to the very beginnings of the German nation, when the first German kings ruled from Quedlinburg and were worth 200 million dollars. However, investigations proved futile and the matter was dropped in 1949 because, by then, Quedlinburg was part of East Germany.
One of the men that belonged to the 87th Armored Battalion was Lieutenant Joe Tom Meador and he was identified as the Quedlinburg thief by both William H. Honan and Wilhelm A. Korte after much research through Washington National Archives and a tip from a art dealer that in 1987, forty years later, a valuable medieval manuscript was on the market. In personal letters, that were found later, Lieutenant Meador wrote to his mother in June of 1945: “Don't ask me where I got it! But it is something that could be very very valuable.”
Lieutenant Meador enlisted in the U.S. Army shortly after Pearl Harbor in 1942. He was the son of a hardware salesman and a art teacher mother who lived in “Whitewright” a small Texan ghost town. He had two brothers and a sister. When he was in Quedlinburg, Meador had stolen the items and simply mailed the items home to his mother. Later when he was stationed in France, he was court-marshaled for stealing silverware. The U.S. Army never made the connection that he was the Quedlinburg thief despite his reputation among his army buddies of being a kleptomanic. Meador had earned an Art Degree in 1938. His mother was also a art lover who had studied at the Art Institute in Chicago and in Whitewright, she taught classes in ceramics, oil and china painting. They both knew the value of his stolen goods.
After Joe Meador's discharge in 1946, he taught art at a school in New London, Texas. When his father became ill, he moved back into his family's home and joined his brother in running the hardware and farm equipment business founded by their father. Meador died of prostate cancer on Feb. 1, 1980, at the Whitewright Nursing Home. He only would show his secret hoard to family members and a few close friends (sometimes for male sexual favors.)
Lieutenant Meador's eight stolen works from the treasury began to surface when his greedy heirs (a brother and a sister) tried to sell a richly filigreed and jewel-encrusted manuscript gospel to a New York dealer in medieval art. The family had tried for years to sell the items but no reputable dealers would have had anything to do with them once they realized the manuscripts had been stolen.
After protracted negotiations and the payment of a reported $3 million by the German government, the heirs agreed to return Lieutenant Meador's loot in 1989. (Note: The U.S. Government decided to step in and on April 20, 2000, the IRS and the Meador family settled for a $135,000 tax fine.) When I was reading this book I kept thinking about why Meador never returned the items. He knew selling them in his life time would have exposed him for the deceitful thief he obviously was. He had never left Texas to pursue other dreams and most likely was both tormented and captivated by the treasures he stole. He didn't belong in his hometown and he knew it but he was trapped by his secret. Reading this book made me also angry at his family who tried to cash in later and profit from his crime, thus compounding injustice on injustice. In fact, Meador and his family had committed a crime in the hiding of sacred art treasures that the entire world could have enjoyed! This well-written book is eye opening in the behind the scenes dealings of stolen art works and I highly recommend it.
“Treasure Hunt: A New York Times Reporter Tracks the Quedlinburg Hoard” written by the late New York Times reporter, William H. Honan, tells how he and his partner cracked the biggest and longest unsolved art theft of the century. This exciting book covers how the author was contacted by a German lawyer, Wilhelm A. Korte, who specialized in the research, identification and restitution of works of art during the Nazi regime and of how they finally broke the case after seven years of research and many dead ends. The author was nominated for a Pulitzer for his investigative journalism.
It starts in Quedlinburg, Germany, one of the best-preserved medieval and Renaissance towns in Europe and the famous Quedlinburg Abbey which was founded as a proprietary church of the Ottoman Imperial family by Emperor Otto the Great in 936, as a memorial to his father. Over the following centuries, it accumulated a rich collection of treasures donated by the Imperial family. At the Protestant Reformation, it was converted into the Lutheran Church of St. Servatius. During World War Two, the Church, decides they need to hide their treasures that were preserved for more than 1,000 years (illuminated manuscripts with covers of hammered gold and encrusted jewels and other superb items of gold, ivory and cut-rock crystal) to prevent looting by the Nazis. They hid them in a old mineshaft at the edge of town.
On the 19th of April 1945 the US Army (87th Armored Field Artillery Battalion) occupied the village and identified the treasures and place a guard upon them. They were there as one of three units that organized teams to search the town for weapons, radio transmitters and other contraband. Soon Church officials reported that eight extremely valuable objects went missing, including a 9th-century illuminated manuscript gospel book and a printed evangeliary (book of gospel readings for services) dating to 1513 (the Evangelistar aus St. Wiperti) as well as reliquaries, an ivory liturgical comb and other objects. Some of the pieces date back a thousand years to the very beginnings of the German nation, when the first German kings ruled from Quedlinburg and were worth 200 million dollars. However, investigations proved futile and the matter was dropped in 1949 because, by then, Quedlinburg was part of East Germany.
One of the men that belonged to the 87th Armored Battalion was Lieutenant Joe Tom Meador and he was identified as the Quedlinburg thief by both William H. Honan and Wilhelm A. Korte after much research through Washington National Archives and a tip from a art dealer that in 1987, forty years later, a valuable medieval manuscript was on the market. In personal letters, that were found later, Lieutenant Meador wrote to his mother in June of 1945: “Don't ask me where I got it! But it is something that could be very very valuable.”
Lieutenant Meador enlisted in the U.S. Army shortly after Pearl Harbor in 1942. He was the son of a hardware salesman and a art teacher mother who lived in “Whitewright” a small Texan ghost town. He had two brothers and a sister. When he was in Quedlinburg, Meador had stolen the items and simply mailed the items home to his mother. Later when he was stationed in France, he was court-marshaled for stealing silverware. The U.S. Army never made the connection that he was the Quedlinburg thief despite his reputation among his army buddies of being a kleptomanic. Meador had earned an Art Degree in 1938. His mother was also a art lover who had studied at the Art Institute in Chicago and in Whitewright, she taught classes in ceramics, oil and china painting. They both knew the value of his stolen goods.
After Joe Meador's discharge in 1946, he taught art at a school in New London, Texas. When his father became ill, he moved back into his family's home and joined his brother in running the hardware and farm equipment business founded by their father. Meador died of prostate cancer on Feb. 1, 1980, at the Whitewright Nursing Home. He only would show his secret hoard to family members and a few close friends (sometimes for male sexual favors.)
Lieutenant Meador's eight stolen works from the treasury began to surface when his greedy heirs (a brother and a sister) tried to sell a richly filigreed and jewel-encrusted manuscript gospel to a New York dealer in medieval art. The family had tried for years to sell the items but no reputable dealers would have had anything to do with them once they realized the manuscripts had been stolen.
After protracted negotiations and the payment of a reported $3 million by the German government, the heirs agreed to return Lieutenant Meador's loot in 1989. (Note: The U.S. Government decided to step in and on April 20, 2000, the IRS and the Meador family settled for a $135,000 tax fine.) When I was reading this book I kept thinking about why Meador never returned the items. He knew selling them in his life time would have exposed him for the deceitful thief he obviously was. He had never left Texas to pursue other dreams and most likely was both tormented and captivated by the treasures he stole. He didn't belong in his hometown and he knew it but he was trapped by his secret. Reading this book made me also angry at his family who tried to cash in later and profit from his crime, thus compounding injustice on injustice. In fact, Meador and his family had committed a crime in the hiding of sacred art treasures that the entire world could have enjoyed! This well-written book is eye opening in the behind the scenes dealings of stolen art works and I highly recommend it.
November 6, 2021
Reading for the second time this book about a soldier from a small town in Texas who stole ancient treasures from Quedlinburg in Germany at the end of World War II, it occurs to me that I might have a unique perspective. My ancestry traces back to Quedlinburg between the 14th through 17th centuries, and I grew up in a small town in Texas. Perhaps because of the age and history behind these stolen items, and the fact that they were missing for decades, the story and its resolution are interesting and intriguing. But this book itself, more of a personal memoir by the New York Times journalist who initially broke the story, could have been much better written as more of a truly historical account. As it is, the author's continual superior attitude toward people and things in Texas undermine his writing talents. For one example, the speech of most of the Texans to whom he speaks is written phonetically, suggesting a lower-class, uneducated population. But at the same time, his speech (the author's) is provided in perfect English, as if he had no East Coast or other accent. In addition, his characterizations and descriptions of the many people in the book are strongly one-sided; they are either entirely good in their looks and behaviors or entirely bad in those areas, depending on whether they are determined to be "good" people or "bad" people in his mind. So yeah, the author's prejudices -- even if this is a memoir -- become tiresome and detract from the story itself.
August 3, 2024
A story of World War II loot…
Treasure Hunt A New York Times Reporter Tracks the Quedlinburg Hoard by William Honan tells the investigation of a focused case of World War II art theft…one done by a US GI.
Quedlinburg was one of many storage sites for historical, cultural, and art works that the Nazi’s used. I love Mojuments Men and the various other books that cover the history of wwii art theft (I have several) but this was a rarer occasion.
After Quedlinburg was liberated by the US Army, one of the soldiers engaged in a criminal scheme to steal some rare antiquities from the storage site. They were likely chosen because they were easier to transport (being jewel encrusted manuscripts), and he was implicated in other looting around that same time.
Its notable as these pieces were those that Germans has stolen from other countries but in fact those from Quedlinburg itself. Specifically the Samuhel Gospels of Quedlinburg and one other just as prestigious piece.
The mystery of these items and how they eventually made their way back to Germany half a century later is the focus of this work.
It’s a hard story to deal with, especially the late 20th century methods of communication as a reporter is trying to get to the bottom of the controversy…along with as much historical insight as he can provide on the GI, his family/heirs, and other individuals involved.
It may only cover a small amount of looted art, but it casts a pall over many other yet to be unearthed World War II era theft. What if other pieces are still stored in the homes of soldier thieves? Or depressed the hell out of me to think soldiers would look at priceless religious or cultural relics and think “this is mine now”…and never tell anyone for a few decades…
Treasure Hunt A New York Times Reporter Tracks the Quedlinburg Hoard by William Honan tells the investigation of a focused case of World War II art theft…one done by a US GI.
Quedlinburg was one of many storage sites for historical, cultural, and art works that the Nazi’s used. I love Mojuments Men and the various other books that cover the history of wwii art theft (I have several) but this was a rarer occasion.
After Quedlinburg was liberated by the US Army, one of the soldiers engaged in a criminal scheme to steal some rare antiquities from the storage site. They were likely chosen because they were easier to transport (being jewel encrusted manuscripts), and he was implicated in other looting around that same time.
Its notable as these pieces were those that Germans has stolen from other countries but in fact those from Quedlinburg itself. Specifically the Samuhel Gospels of Quedlinburg and one other just as prestigious piece.
The mystery of these items and how they eventually made their way back to Germany half a century later is the focus of this work.
It’s a hard story to deal with, especially the late 20th century methods of communication as a reporter is trying to get to the bottom of the controversy…along with as much historical insight as he can provide on the GI, his family/heirs, and other individuals involved.
It may only cover a small amount of looted art, but it casts a pall over many other yet to be unearthed World War II era theft. What if other pieces are still stored in the homes of soldier thieves? Or depressed the hell out of me to think soldiers would look at priceless religious or cultural relics and think “this is mine now”…and never tell anyone for a few decades…
May 21, 2023
Fascinating, though sometimes uncomfortable to read (the author unfortunately has problematic attitudes toward Texans, women, and most of all, gay men) account by the New York Times reporter who investigated and broke the story of the priceless medieval German art treasures stolen by a North Texan army lieutenant at the end of WWII and kept secretly by him in Whitesboro, TX (just a few miles from the town where I live). It's quite a story of detective work and skulduggery, and it's all true and an exciting read - I do wish the author hadn't imbued it with so many of his personal prejudices, though.
July 28, 2018
Fascinating! And well written. To think about our deceitfulness & bent toward greed.
February 11, 2021
The subject was so worthy of a book, and had every element of a thriller. Just didn’t turn out that way.
February 21, 2011
This is a true detective story about the theft, just after World War II, of priceless art treasures from a cave in Quedlinburg, Germany. Honan is an arts reporter for the New York Times, and in 1989, he was sent a packet of documents by a West German museum official, saying that they might shed light on the long lost Quedlinburg treasures. Reluctantly, Honan took up the trail, and eventually, with several others from the art world, solved the case. I don't want to say too much about the plot, because I want you to read the book and enjoy the suspense. The psychological aspects of the thief's life were very interesting, and you will be surprised at some of the loose ends of this story for instance, the unfinished case in the courts.
April 6, 2009
This was an interesting true story about how a reporter tracked down the American thief of German artwork that the Nazis tried to hide. My complaint is that the author ended it before all the lawsuits and everything were finished.
June 25, 2008
This book was OK, the author of this true story tries a little hard and sounds like he is exaggerating.
August 4, 2010
Fun mix of history, art, and mystery.
March 25, 2011
I wasn't sure how I was going to like this and it was slow in the beginning but I was hooked by the end.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews