I used to like this saying of Shakespeare, from Hamlet:
“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!”
Until one day I heard or read the next few lines Shakespeare had written:
“And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
At which all the ladies present probably said,
“Amen!”
This brings me to the point of asking: How do we recognise a good person? The following story, I suggest, is an example:
The elderly gentleman looking on in the background nodded his approval. As Curator of the Wiesbaden Museum he’d met Walter Farmer, a Captain in the US Army, fifty years earlier. It was at the time the Western Allies were advancing into Europe in the closing months of the Second World War. As they moved, collecting points for works of art were set up, cataloguing and storing them in one place for safe keeping.
Soon after the war ended in June, 1945, Captain Farmer, the man Germany was honouring that day, was appointed the first director of the Wiesbaden Collecting Point. There the two men met and came to know each other. During that time, Captain Farmer supervised the collection, identification, sorting and storage of some 28,000 cases of paintings, sculptures, historical documents and archives. These included artefacts that had been looted from Poland and Hungary.
In November of that year, Captain Farmer was ordered to arrange for the transport of 202 German paintings to the United States for exhibition in Washington, DC and 13 other American cities. Whether this was in part a kind of reparation for American losses during the war, or whether it was to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy, but Walter Farmer was horrified. “We are no better than the Germans,” he wrote to his wife. In protest, he called the officers under him from other collecting points and initiated the Weisbaden Manifesto, which he and 25 of the officers signed. It was the only protest by officers in World War Two. Any who have served in the armed forces, especially in war-time, will have some idea what such an act could cost each one of them.
The Manifesto came to the attention of the US Army authorities a few days later. Their first thought was to discredit the document but since some considered it morally correct, they appeared to simply discount it. The paintings did reach America and were exhibited there. Two years later, President Truman, having learned of the Weisbaden Manifesto, ensured all the paintings were returned to Germany.
Walter Farmer took up civilian life again back home, his time in Germany gradually fading from his thoughts. However, in 1954, he was pleased to learn that his work influenced the passage of the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Cultural Possessions in Armed Conflicts. The Wiesbaden Manifesto was still effective.
He returned to Germany on 9 February 1996, where Klaus Kinkel, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany, awarded him the ‘Grobes Verdienstkreuz’, which I understand is the Service Cross Medal. In his words of thanks, Walter Farmer said the following:
“It is with humility that I accept this great honour on behalf of our tiny group, the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives specialist officers, whose sole mission was the preservation of significant works of art.” He added, “I would also like to recognise the contribution made by German scholars and all the collecting points staffed by Germans.”
On 10 May of the following year he returned to Germany to receive the Humanitarian Prize of German Freemasonry for his service during World War Two.
Wiesbaden Museum
Dennis Crompton © 1998
The writings of a Lancashire lad 
What a wonderful blog. So interesting.