Leslie Irlyn Poste (1918–1996) was a librarian in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program at the end of World War II, and was active in the preservation, conservation and restitution of books, scrolls, manuscripts and reports accumulated by the German government from the occupied countries.
His librarian's training had finally been spotted and he became the first enlisted man to join the Library Branch of Special Services in London.
Jim never failed to be impressive on first meeting and Poste was awed by his stories of MFA&A's preservation missions on behalf of looted art.
The original collecting point in 1945 was the Rothschild Library in Frankfurt, but the overwhelming numbers required them to find a new location in the I. G. Farben building in Offenbach.
General Eisenhower issued an order in September 1945 that all trained librarians who were officers in the Western Theatre of Operations were to report to him for possible duty in the MFA&A.
By establishing the Offenbach Archival Depot, all of the collections found in repositories were restituted through a single, large, and secure facility.
"[3] "In late February 1946, my colleague First Lieutenant Leslie I. Poste, a Library and Archives specialist, drove me through a blinding snowstorm to Offenbach.
The ERR, backed by German military forces, had traced Jewish, Masonic, Socialist, and other anti-Nazi cultural objects throughout Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe and had deposited them in many places, especially in Frankfurt am Main in the Rothschild Library, Hungen and Hirzenhain in Hesse, and all over Bavaria.
He and other Museums Fine Arts and Archives personnel felt the collections at the Rothschild Library and other places should be moved to a single large, secure facility.