Huchthausen Walter Johan / O-910847

 Adopted by Marlie Schouteten since May 2009.

Head Quarters Ninth Army

First buried at Plot BB, Row 10, Grave 236 Margraten.

Plot L, Row 1, Grave 15
Margraten

Born: 19 December 1904,  Perry, Noble County, Oklahoma, U.S.A
Address: 2429 3rd Avenue SE, Willmar, Minnesota 56201
Died: 2 April 1945, East of Aachen, Germany (40)
    
Julius A. Huchthausen (father) 17 July 1876 - 9 March 1932  (55)
Ida A. (Kinter) Huchthausen (mother) 27 November 1883 - 21 September 1954  (70)
Martha M. Huchthausen (sister) 1904 - ? 
Paul A. Huchthausen (brother) 13 February 1907 - 26 July 1993  (86)
Edgar M. Huchthausen (brother) 1910 - ?
Ester Huchthausen (sister) 18 April 1912 - 29 October 1979  (67)

Monuments, Fine arts and archives officer
Captain
Killing In Action

In memory of those who gave their lives in Word War II
List of the Harvard men who died in Word War II, carved in stone on the wall at the right of the church when facing the altar. There are then colums.
 
Yearbook photo
University of Minnesota 1928

Captain U.S. Army Air Force, Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Officer (MFAA)
Born in Perry, Oklahoma, Huchthausen attended the University of Minnesota and Harvard University, where he earned a Master of Architecture degree in 1930. He was an instructor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York and then director of the Department of Design at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts from 1935-1939. He then joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota where he taught untill his enlistment in 1942. Huchthausen served bravely and skillfully with the US 9th Army in France and Germany. He was tragically killed in April of 1945, while working to salvage an altarpiece in a German town. He and his partner, Sheldon Keck, accidentally found themselves in a battlefield and Huchthausen was hit by gunfire. Keck survived and was later found in a foxhole. Huchthausen's service was perfectly summarized in a letter to his family from David Finley, a Roberts Commission Chairman and future director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington: The American Commission, one of the outstanding Monuments Officers in the filed, and is work in the Valley of the Loire and at Aachen will remain as a signal contribution to the Cultural preservation of Europe. His knowledge of Germany made him uniquely fitted for the work there and his loss is an irreparable one.

Source: TogetherWeServed
Prior to his assignment to the 9th Army, Captain Huchthausen served with the 3rd European Civil Affairs Regiment. On 9 December, he was in France with the 9th Army as an Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section (MFA&A) officer. He served in Germany with the Ninth Army during the winter of 1945-46. On 2 April 1945, he was killed by German small arms fire while serving north of Essen (Ruhr Pocket). He had been wounded earlier in London, England during a German bombing attack. He was the only American MFAA soldier killed in World War Two. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
 

Biography from the Archives of askART
Walter Johan Huchthausen was a Captain of the U.S. Army Air Force, Monuments Man and a Fine Arts and Archives Officer (MFAA) Born in Perry Oklahoma,  December 19,1904. Huchthausen attended the University of Minnesota, where he won many awards including the AIA (American Institute of Architects), awards to the  student with the highest academic standing for four years in 1928. He earned a Masters of Architecture Degree in 1930 from Harvard University. Then he  studied in Europe for two years on a Harvard fellowship. He was an  instructor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York and then the director of the department of Design at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts from 1935-1939. He then joined the faculty as Professor of Art and Design and architecture at the University of Minnesota. He taught there until 1942 and then enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force where he served bravely and skillfully with the US 9th Army in France and Germany. He was a Captain and the officer in control of Aachen, Germany. On April 2 1945, he received information of an altar piece so he and Sheldon Keck were on their way when he was shot and killed. Keck survived and was found in a fox hole.