Walter Farmer (1911–1997) was a

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

in the

United States Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

. He drafted the Wiesbaden manifesto, which led much of the artwork the US Army had collected during World War II to be returned to their countries of origin.

Biography

Walter Farmer was born in

Alliance, Ohio Alliance is a city in eastern Stark County, Ohio, United States. With a small district lying in adjacent Mahoning County, the city is approximately northeast of Canton, southwest of Youngstown and southeast of Cleveland. The population was 21 ...

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

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the 10 ...

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 Josselyn Liszniewska and to Renate Hobirk ended in divorce. Farmer died of cancer 11 August 1997 at the age of 86 at Christ Hospital in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. 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, Farmer was put in charge of the

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

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.Germany Honors G.I. Who Fought Art Looting - New York Times
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References

External links

The Monuments MenWalter I. Farmer Papers
at the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national 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 char ...

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