German WWII Art Cache May Be in Texas Bank : Crime: The search focuses on a soldier, now dead, whose unit guarded the works. One object was returned for a $3-million ‘finder’s fee’ in April.

In the tiny Texas town of Whitewright, hard on the Oklahoma border, a scandal is brewing in which a man who raised prize orchids and ran a hardware store before his death 10 years ago may have been the perpetrator of one of the largest art thefts ever recorded.

His name was Joe T. Meador, by all accounts a quiet, unassuming man who served honorably in World War II and ended his service stationed in what is now East Germany in 1945. His unit was in charge of guarding a mine shaft that contained some of the world’s most valuable art objects, hidden there at the time for safekeeping.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and a West German investigator are now looking to a bank vault in Meador’s hometown of Whitewright, population 1,800, as the place where the treasures might at last be recovered. The investigation was disclosed Thursday by the New York Times.

“I am going to Texas to try to put some more nails in some coffins,” said Willi Korte, the German investigator, in a telephone interview. “I have been to Whitewright before, and it wasn’t because Triple-A recommended it.”

The first break in the case occurred last April, when, for a $3-million “finder’s fee,” one of the missing works was returned to a West German foundation, with the stipulation that the names of the sellers, as well as the name of the lawyer who negotiated the deal, would never be disclosed.

At the time the deal was cut for the artwork--a 9th-Century jewel-encrusted, illustrated manuscript of the Four Gospels--a spokesman for the foundation said the manuscript was taken to Texas by an American GI at the end of the war. That and other treasures were hidden in the mine shaft near Quedlinburg, a medieval castle town in Saxony-Anhault Province.

The arrangement for the manuscript was carried out in Switzerland, where such sales are protected by law.

The lengthy report in the New York Times pointed to Meador as the thief and his heirs as the people who arranged for the sale of the manuscript. Numerous calls to the relatives elicited a string of “no comments.” The lawyer named as the intermediary in the transaction, John S. Torigian, left word that he would be taking depositions for the rest of the week.

The president of the bank where the remainder of the treasures are purportedly being kept would not discuss the matter.

FBI agent Mike Satimauro of the Dallas office said the matter is under investigation.

“We’re intent on getting a better handle on what’s supposed to be missing,” he said. “We’re trying to see if we do, in fact, have stolen articles and, if we do, we will do our best to get them back.”

While the FBI is investigating, the town of Whitewright went into an absolute swoon Thursday. Television crews in helicopters flashed overhead and the telephones never seemed to stop ringing.

“This has thrown us into an uproar,” said Mayor Clarence Tillett. “The whole town will be talking about this for some time to come. There’s 1,800 people here and people usually know what’s going on with everyone else in town. But I can tell you, all of us were surprised about this news about Joe Meador.”

Larry Kennealy, the chief of police, said: “Nobody knows anything about this.”

Korte, the investigator, said these kinds of thefts usually follow a similar pattern, in which art was taken, the thief dies and the heirs try to cash in on the treasure. In this case, the family members allegedly consulted with a number of experts about two manuscripts. Most of the experts told the family that the manuscripts probably were stolen.

“There was not a whole lot of sophistication, or they wouldn’t have exposed themselves by having so many appraisals,” Korte said. “I hope the family has some valuable information and some additional items.”

Korte said his first nibble came early this year, when word went out through the art world that one of the manuscripts could be had for the $3-million finder’s fee. That was two years after the first word that the Quedlinburg treasures might be for sale, for the right price.

“The offer clearly smelled like it was coming out of the U.S.,” he said.

Although Korte was somewhat circumspect about how the field was narrowed to Whitewright, he said documents at the National Archives had been extremely beneficial. He said he had been looking for an officer to be the thief. Meador was a lieutenant when the war ended.

He said experience had shown that most such postwar thefts were “under the eyes of an American officer or with the participation of an American officer.”

After the war, Meador, who had studied art in college, came back to Whitewright after his father became ill. By all accounts, he led a very normal life, waiting on people at the hardware store and raising orchids in the three greenhouses behind the family home. He never married. At graduation time, Meador provided free orchids to the seniors.

Marshall Hasty, one of the pallbearers at Meador’s funeral, said Thursday: “I heard from several people that Joe used to bring those manuscripts in the hardware store once in a while and left them laying right out there on the counter.

“The consensus in town is he didn’t know the value of them. If he did, I don’t think he would have laid them out on a counter in a hardware store downtown.”

Times researcher Lianne Hart contributed to this story.