En août 1939, en prévision de la guerre imminente avec l’Allemagne, des murs de sacs de sable sont érigés devant les portails et autour du pilier des anges et de la chaire. Les vitraux sont déposés et mis à l’abri dans un premier temps en Dordogne, avant d’être récupérés par les Allemands après la capitulation française et envoyés dans les mines de sel de Heilbronn. D’autres mesures de protection sont prises à mesure que la situation militaire de l’Allemagne se détériore et que la probabilité d’une attaque aérienne augmente. Le bombardement attendu survient le 11 août 1944, lorsque l’aviation américaine vise le centre-ville de Strasbourg : les bombes qui touchent la cathédrale entraînent notamment la destruction d’une partie de la coupole et de la voûte du bas-côté nord. Trois mois plus tard, le 23 novembre 1944 les spahis du général Leclerc, qui viennent de libérer la ville, hissent le drapeau tricolore au sommet de la flèche, accomplissant ainsi le serment de Koufra58.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathédrale_Notre-Dame_de_Stras...


Heilbronn (German pronunciation: [haɪlˈbʁɔn]) is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heilbronn


That summer of 1945, Rorimer assigned Ettlinger to work in the salt mines — literally — at the city of Heilbronn, a rail center less than 50 miles northeast of Ettlinger’s childhood home at Karlsrühe. During the final weeks of the European war, Allied troops had discovered a series of mines in Germany and Austria where the Nazis had secreted untold riches — looted art as well as treasures from German museums — for safekeeping.

Thus, in early September 1945, began Ettlinger’s life underground. Four or five days a week, he descended an elevator some 700 feet into the Heilbronn mine or down the shaft at the Kochendorf facility a couple of miles to the north. At the bottom of the Heilbronn mine were a dozen or so chambers, carved out by salt mining, up to a mile long and about 60 feet wide and 40 feet high. At one end of the mine, the original function carried on: Rocks containing salt were extracted and transported to a large furnace for refining. Ettlinger performed most of his duties in a series of smaller storage chambers above the large caverns.

Ettlinger’s first priority at Heilbronn involved some stained-glass windows from the Strasbourg Cathedral. According to captured documents, authorities in this French city had removed the intricately designed windows — some of them dating from the 13th century — at the war’s outbreak and stored them for safekeeping in southern France. Later, the Nazis, who had always maintained that Strasbourg was actually part of Germany, shipped the treasured windows in 73 cases to Heilbronn. When General Eisenhower got wind of this, he ordered the return of the windows to the cathedral. They were to be the first stolen works of art restored to their rightful owners.

https://www.historynet.com/the-monuments-men-rescuing-art-pl...