The Secret of Altamura: Nazi Crimes, Italian Treasure

by Dick Rosano

  Chapter 14

  Catching the Devil, September 1, 1943

  Marisa's hands gripped the wheel of the old truck determinedly, intent on narrowing the gap between her and Anselm Bernhard's convoy. She had left Venice several days before and caught up with the colonel's detachment in Rome, but she kept a careful distance until her plan was fully hatched.

  On this day, she was only a few miles behind Bernhard as she plotted her revenge. Attacking the Nazi officer broadside would be pointless; his troops would defend him and she would be outnumbered. If she got close enough to poison him, she would, but she wasn't familiar with the science behind such murder scenarios and she couldn't risk failing at her one opportunity.

  Marisa had seen Bernhard in the company of his men the day before on the road. She watched him from the approach to the villa near Rome and was able to get quite close by taking advantage of the wine they had imbibed during their bacchanal.

  She even allowed herself to slip into the villa, posing as one of the several Roman women conscripted to serve at the evening's dinner. Marisa moved among the drunken men and slid past the group to see the colonel's own quarters. They were all still on the terrazzo and so her snooping around escaped their attention.

  Bernhard was a neat and organized man, she concluded. The bedroom was very orderly, the topmost comforter in place as if a maid had arranged them, and his uniform jacket was hung on the wooden rack by the window next to a pair of highly polished boots. Soft electric light streamed from the single lamp that he had next to the bed, and a finely stitched robe was draped elegantly at the foot of the bed.

  A sound behind her brought Marisa's attention back to the present danger. She slipped behind a dressing curtain, but then relaxed, realizing that the laughter had passed by the door on the way down the hall.

  “This is not the time to be discovered,” she thought, “although I would like to stare the bastard in the eye as he draws his last painful breath.” A smile crept across her face as she imagined the Nazi's last day on earth, but she had to bring her attention back to her plan to smooth out the details.

  As her truck approached a way station along the road, Marisa could see the five vehicles that were part of Bernhard's convoy. She parked a short distance from the only man left to guard them, a long rifle slung over his shoulder. The soldier was smoking a cigarette and drawing sips from a canteen as Marisa walked resolutely by him. His stare made her nervous even though she was used to the men's attentions. She ignored him as she strode past and pushed the door open to the inn and entered the coolness within.

  Enough light came through open windows and Marisa's eyes were not initially blinded. She turned her head, scanning one end of the dining room to the other, careful not to linger on the group of German soldiers loudly enjoying their meal at tables in the center of the room.

  Marisa noticed that the old man who served them wore a faint, weak smile as he tried to distract the Germans from leering at his young daughter. She was barely sixteen but Bernhard's behavior towards women had apparently infected his troops, leaving them to assume the right to take whatever they wanted.

  After a moment, the old man approached and asked Marisa if she wanted a table.

  “Sì, lì,” she said, “over there.” With her right hand, Marisa indicated the table right next to the Germans. The old man screwed up his wrinkled forehead, and asked if she was sure she wanted to sit so close to the men.

  “Sì, lì,” she said again. The man shrugged, offered a sheepish grin, and directed Marisa to the table she was pointing at.

  She settled into the chair that faced Bernhard and, when he looked over at her, smiled. It was a simple gesture, but she minimized the smile enough to suggest a mixture of interest and caution. It was a coquettish move that a vain man like Bernhard couldn't resist, and his next action proved her to be correct.

  The colonel lifted his napkin from his lap and gently stroked the linen across his lips, never letting his eyes leave Marisa. She had looked away, but she knew that he had not.

  Rising slowly, Bernhard walked around his own table and towards her. He thrust his shoulders back and snapped his heels together.

  “Che piacere,” he said in Italian. “I am pleased to meet someone so beautiful on this lonely road.”

  Marisa smiled, but didn't try to stop Bernhard from pulling out a chair and sitting at her table.

  “Come ti chiami?” he asked, “What is your name?” Marisa noted that he used the familiar form for 'you,' a choice that would be considered inappropriate among polite Italians but which this man – even with his command of the language – used to establish immediate intimacy.

  “Marisa,” was her one-word rely. She knew where the conversation was going but she wasn't going to help him along. The role of the coquette required restraint and, until the time was right, resistance.

  “I am Colonel Anselm Bernhard, at your service,” he stated with the formality that could hardly be avoided by a man trained as a German officer.

  He carried on a light conversation with Marisa, although her contributions were few and carefully terse. Bernhard fell for her ploy, unable to resist her charms, and he invited her to join his convoy on the journey to the south.

  “But no, sir, I could not attach myself to a military convoy. It would most certainly be wrong and inappropriate for an Italian woman to act in that way.”

  Bernhard parsed her words, noticing that she specifically stressed propriety for Italian women, as if suggesting that others – Germans? – would have looser morals. But he waved the thought away.

  He was considering how to convince her to join him, when Marisa offered a solution.

  “Where are you going, my dear Colonel?”

  The question was a simple one, but Bernhard couldn't suppress his excitement at being called “dear.”

  “To Matera. No, actually, to Altamura,” he said. Shrugging to his left he added, “We have important business in Matera, but I'm actually staying in Altamura.”

  “You are staying in Altamura? Where are your men staying?”

  “They will be there, somewhere, but…” he began, and leaned forward toward Marisa to say softly, “but who cares where they are. Right?”

  Marisa timed her smile for just the right moment. She knew Bernhard was enticed by her lure. So she promised to drive her truck to Altamura.

  “I will see you there, non é vero?” she said, fetchingly. It was more a statement than a question.

  Sporting a lascivious smile that nearly cleaved his face in two, the colonel returned to his troops and ordered them to rise and resume the trip. At the door, he turned toward Marisa, saluted her and left followed by his men.

  Chapter 15

  Hidden

  Martin Bernhard pulled his car out of the garage at their home in the outskirts of Berlin. His wife was leaving for work at the same time, so he dropped her off at the bus stop, blew her a kiss and reminded her that he would be back from Italy in about a week.

  As he swung the car away from the curb, Martin felt pangs of guilt for leaving her again but took solace in knowing that his wife was now fully aware of his activities. He worried that Margrit would be unable to purge notions of his grandfather's activities and think less of the Bernhard family.

  Martin and Margrit were members in good standing of the new Germany. They were repelled by the policies of the Third Reich and its massacre of European Jews. And they firmly believed that such a government was not possible in their country today. Hitler and his soulless hatchetmen had put a permanent stain on German history, but Martin was certain that he and his countrymen were born of different stock. He also believed that the guilt that weighed on their collective shoulders would be a constant reminder of the evil that can spread if good people are not vigilant.

  Guilt also impelled him to find and return the art stolen from the Italians. By his dedication to the project, the young art collector would show the world that new Germans like himself were not like their ancestors
, and that the world could trust them again.

  Martin's crusade had successfully returned dozens of paintings and sculptures to their rightful owners. Some he had discovered in Germany were returned thanks to Martin.

  Some of the works he found in Italian cities and remote towns, all clearly identified and logged in his grandfather's journal as “confiscated.” The journal referred to the works themselves, but unfortunately not the places they ended up in. For that, Martin had to employ greater investigative techniques, starting with references in the journal to women Anselm might have given stolen booty to and the towns these women lived in. Frequently, he had to question locals about artworks in the town, and he made hundreds of fruitless visits to abbeys, churches, bars, markets, and restaurants searching for any piece on Anselm's list.

  Then his mind wandered back to his last trip to Italy – years ago, when he had tracked down a painting by a minor 19th century artist, Roberto Melini. He had recognized the stylized brush strokes immediately. This particular work focused on the cityscapes that Melini preferred, another clue that convinced Martin that he had correctly identified the artist.

  The painting was one of those listed in his grandfather's journal, along with a note that the Melini had hung in the Museo Civico Filangieri in Naples until Anselm had “liberated” it. Martin found it hanging behind the counter in a dimly lit, hole-in-wall bar in a tiny, forgotten town in central Italy. In war, secondary artworks such as this one could become lost, so even the bar owner would not be able to retrace how the little Melini had come into his possession.

  Martin contemplated his options, including bargaining with the bar owner for possession of this rare piece, but knew that this might make the man even more possessive of it. Martin then considered acting like a simple customer, enamored of the painting, and try to offer just enough money to buy it from the unsuspecting owner. In the end, Martin simply told the proprietor that the painting had once hung in the museum in Naples, alluding to Nazi thefts without acknowledging his own family's involvement in the affair.

  Sensing the bartender's disbelief, Martin retreated to the box of books that he kept in the boot of his car, withdrew one book well-worn from study, and returned to the establishment. He slapped it on the bar and thumbed to a page, then pointed with his right hand to a photograph of the Melini in a chapter describing art lost during the war.

  At this point, Martin spun into his usual strategy. He didn't want to have to buy the painting back, only to give it to the museum, but he could try to convince the bar owner that he was in possession of art stolen by the Nazis. After haggling for hours, and together drinking two full bottles of wine, Martin was able to shame the man into giving up the painting.

  Martin's memory of the event brought a smile to his lips, which soon turned into a frown. Instead of driving to Naples to return the painting, he arrived home in Germany with it still in the trunk of his car.

  When Margrit asked where he had gotten the piece of art – of a type that she wouldn't recognize – Martin shrugged his shoulders and simply said that he found it, liked it, and bought it.

  As his thoughts drifted back to the driving at hand, Martin scouted the surroundings for a place to stop and eat a meal. He pulled off the highway, filled the car's gas tank, then settled in for a cup of coffee and a light lunch.

  While he chewed his sandwich and sipped the coffee, he flipped through the worn pages of his grandfather's journal. Nearly the entire first half was filled with dated entries describing the art and the women Anselm had admired. Only infrequent entries described the military objectives of the war, and fewer still about the Third Reich's plan for the future world domination. Anselm Bernhard committed the pages of his journal to his own conquests.

  There was the marble statue of Venus and three Renaissance-era oil paintings from the museum in Milan; an exquisite sculpture of a winged creature from Greek lore “liberated” from Verona; and oils and a number of sculptures that once graced the walls of private homes in Venice that formed part of Anselm's private collection.

  Sandwiched among these entries were graphic descriptions of the women he had slept with. Some of the descriptions were so lurid that Martin became uncomfortable learning the intimate details of his grandfather's relations with these women, details that included what the old man liked to do, and why.

  Nearly every description of these sexual encounters included the names of the women. Anselm seemed to take pleasure in revealing their identities as if inscribing them in his book made the conquest more complete.

  As Martin finished his meal, he flipped to the back of the journal.

  Curiously, those pages held no descriptions of great art or voluptuous women. The notes in the back of the journal were cryptic references to a treasure with phrases like “under the ground,” “in the earth,” and “hidden from view” that puzzled him. His grandfather seemed to be writing down everything he came across that related to that one undiscovered trove, even snippets of conversation as if he had been trying to piece together enough information to solve a mystery.

  Martin studied the notes again. It was clear that whatever Anselm was searching for when he took his detachment of German soldiers south was a great cache of art or wealth, hidden somewhere – probably under the ground – in southern Italy. The notes included occasional references to small towns in the region, with Matera mentioned most often. The journal revealed that his grandfather had settled in Altamura, a town near Matera, but had focused his search on Matera itself.

  Then, on the last page, a familiar passage suddenly become clearer to Martin. It referred to the Sassi as caves where scores of Italians lived. From the personality that came to life in the pages of the journal, Martin imagined Anselm's self-important grunt when he read the words, “damn animals.”

  The young art collector had seen the word Sassi before and researched it for any assistance in his quest. The Sassi were indeed caves carved into the hillside of the mountain called the Murge, neighboring both Altamura and Matera. The caves had been there for thousands of years and, over the centuries, had become more complex and artistic, and where entire families could live in comfort. Some of the people of the Sassi even carved out elaborate chapels in the hillside, and leveled roads above one row of caves as byways for the caves cut on the level above.

  Italians had lived in these caves for many generations and still occupied them during World War II. The religious structures in the Sassi, known as sante grotte or “holy caves,” completed the impression of a civilization surviving on the edge of the Murge with everything that ancient and modern Italians would want.

  Martin thought of the caves merely as odd artifacts of a primitive society, although he couldn't dismiss the ingenuity that had gone into creating them. Then he returned to the German words he had seen scrawled in his grandfather's journal.

  “Verstect” – hidden.

  “Im erdreich” – in the ground.

  “Wie der Sassi” – like the Sassi.

  One last word jumped out at him that morning.

  “Kirche” – church.

  “Did grandfather suspect that the artworks were hidden in a church?” he murmured to himself. “Under the ground?

  “No, not 'under the ground'… In the ground, like the Sassi.”

  Martin knew there was a church in the caves of the Sassi. Could it be that his grandfather had discovered, or at least suspected, that the fortune he was seeking was hidden in the church of the Sassi?

  Chapter 16

  Retracing the Steps

  After hours on the road, Martin headed south through Italy, still lost in thought about his grandfather's journal. Even by the quickest route, the journey took an entire day, south on the A9 then A14 along Italy's eastern coast. He had spent most of his trips to Italy searching the cities along the route taken by Anselm in 1943. This trip drove him farther south than he had ever been, but was consistent with the course that the colonel had taken so many years before toward Altamura.


  Traffic along the Adriatic coastal highway was not the problem, but the frequent construction sites were, and these slowed Martin's trip to Altamura. The itinerary took him past towns that he would have liked to explore, like the Republic of San Marino, an independent sovereign nation within Italy. He assumed that gaining entry to it would slow him down and he still had many miles to cover before arriving in the towns in southern Italy where he would resume his quest.

  At Ancona, Martin left the highway to have a quick dinner. His upbringing ensured his commitment to German cuisine, but he nevertheless enjoyed the supper he was served at La Taverna Adriatica. Drawing from the nearby Adriatic Sea, this highway trattoria offered frutti di mare, or fried catch of the day including arrosto segreto, stuffed roasted sardines. The main course was crocette in porchetta, sea snails roasted with fennel, rosemary, garlic, and olive oil – as one would roast a pig – in porchetta. All accompanied by freshly baked crusty bread infused with olives and rosemary. Martin passed up the proffered red wine so he could stay awake for the remaining five hours on the road, but he marveled at the display of food on his plate.

  “How can a people thought to be so poor eat so well?” he thought. “Even at a simple highway restaurant!”

  He finished the crocette, mopping the juices with the bread from the basket on the table, wiped his mouth, checked his shirt for accidental drippings and, seeing none, stood up from the table. The small white piece of paper next to his plate described the meal, which he took to the cashier's desk at the door. A middle-aged woman with smiling eyes under wisps of gray hair looked up from reading La Stampa and took his money, a meager twelve euros for the repast.

  “Grazie. Arrivederla,” she said, sending Martin off into the cool air of the evening and back to his car for the drive south.

  “Arrivederci,” he replied. Martin's mastery of Italian had improved over the many trips to the country, but he was not fluent and so he entered into only brief exchanges with the people there. Like many Europeans, he easily spoke three languages, German, English, and Spanish, and had developed a passing familiarity with Italian.