HOWLAND, Ohio - The founder of the FBI's Art Theft Unit who is known in the art world as the FBI's real Indiana Jones talked with guests at a Museum in Howland.

 

His lecture series was on the 2013 critical recovery of a long-lost diary that was used to convict Nazis at the Nuremberg trials.

 

At the Medici Museum of Art Robert Wittman shared the history behind the stolen private diary of Alfred Rosenberg.

 

"It was a 400-page handwritten document written between 1935 and 1945 by Alfred Rosenberg. He chronicled his meetings with Hitler, talked about what they were talking about at lunch and meetings," said Wittman.

 

During the Nuremberg Trials in 1945 and 1946, the Diary provided written proof Hitler knew what was taking place during the Holocaust, the murders of over six million Jews. 

 

Information in that diary helped convict top Nazis who were still alive after World War two including Rosenberg.

 

Wittman told folks at the lecture series in Howland, that Alfred Rosenberg was a philosopher. He was the guy who had all the ideas. The idea of the destruction of the Jews in Europe, and the idea of taking the art in Europe and creating a museum. The idea of the Aryan race. 

 

After the trial, the private diary vanished for 60 years leaving so many unanswered questions. 

 

"The diary was never translated or never transcribed so no one knew what was actually in the entire diary," emphasized Wittman.

 

His book The Devil's Diary Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich, details what took place in the decade long search Wittman's company did to find the diary, more of what's in it, and how Whittman and his company recovered this important document for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

 

You can find the book by Robert K. Wittman and David Kinney on Amazon, Audible.com, Barnes & Noble, Kindle Store, and other locations.

 

Robert Wittman has recovered more than $300 million in lost and stolen artwork and cultural property in his career.