Walter Farmer (1911–1997) was a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

in the

United States Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wo ...

. He drafted the Wiesbaden manifesto, which resulted in the return of much of the artworks the US Army collected during World War II to their countries of origin.

Biography

Walter Farmer was born in

Alliance, Ohio Alliance is a city in Stark County, Ohio, United States. The population was 21,672 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It was established in 1854 by the merger of three smaller communities and was a manufacturing and railroad hub in t ...

, and received a bachelor's degrees in mathematics and architecture from

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public university, public research university in Oxford, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1809, it is the second-oldest List of colleges and universities in Ohio, university in Ohi ...

in Oxford, Ohio. He went on to be active as a genealogist and was prominent in the museum field in Ohio and Texas. His marriages to both Josselyn Liszniewska and to Renate Hobirk ended in divorce. Farmer died of cancer on 11 August 1997 at the age of 86 at Christ Hospital in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

. He had a daughter, Margaret Farmer Planton; two grandsons; and a sister, Evelyn Krickbaum.

Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program

As part of the

Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section Unit (MFAA) was a program established by the Allies of World War II, Allies in 1943 to help protect cultural property in war areas during and after World War II. The group of about 400 service membe ...

, Farmer was put in charge of the

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...

art collection point at the end of World War II. The collection points were Allied locations where artwork and cultural artifacts that the Nazi regime had confiscated and hidden throughout Germany and Austria were processed, photographed, and redistributed. In 1996, the German government honored Farmer with the crimson Commander's Cross of the Federal Order of Merit.

References

External links

The Monuments MenWalter I. Farmer Papers
at the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

Archives 1911 births 1997 deaths Monuments men People from Alliance, Ohio Deaths from cancer in Ohio Miami University alumni American genealogists Art and cultural repatriation after World War II 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Historians from Ohio 20th-century American male writers {{US-army-World-War-II-bio-stub