"The previously untold story of a little-known WWII Allied division whose mission was to track down European art and treasures that had been looted by the Nazis at Hitler's command"--Provided by the publisher. Traces the lesser-known effort by an Allied division to find and secure European art that had been looted by the Nazis, outlining how they risked their lives and raced against time with limited supplies and scraps of information.

When Hitler's armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind's greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire. In May 1944 two unlikely American heroes--artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt--embarked from Naples on the tresure hunt of a lifetime, tracking billions of dollars...

Imagine the world without our masterpieces. Interviews with eyewitnesses and historians and newsreel footage show how during World War II the Nazis systematically took or destroyed the art of Europe. It follows the heroic Europeans who first hid, and then set out to find and return what had been taken, with the help of the Allied forces "Monuments Men". It is work that continues to this day.

An unlikely World War II platoon has been tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners. With the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could they possibly succeed? But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time, they would risk their lives to protect...