Albrecht Gaiswinkler

Who was Albrecht Gaiswinkler?

Albrecht Gaiswinkler was an Austrian civil servant, social democrat politician and resistance fighter, who, some believe, saved the Mona Lisa from destruction in an Austrian salt mine towards the end of World War II.

Gaiswinkler was born in Bad Aussee, Austria in 1905. In 1934, he was a political prisoner for some months. In 1944, while serving with the German Wehrmacht in France, he deserted and joined the Maquis, bringing with him four trucks of arms and ammunition and 500,000 francs. When the U.S. Third Army liberated Alsace in September 1944, he gave himself up to them. He then went to work for the British Special Operations Executive and, in 1945, he was parachuted back into the Aussee area with three colleagues: Valentin Tarra, Johann Moser and Hans Renner.

The Germans had pillaged a huge number of European art treasures during the Nazi period and many had been stored in the Altaussee salt mine near Gaiswinkler's home town of Bad Aussee. After being dropped into the local area, Gaiswinkler raised a force of around 300 men and armed them with captured German weapons. He spent the last weeks and months of the war harassing local German forces.