In his journal’s entries Someda de Marco showed a rightful bias towards the Nazi officials. However he was inevitably compelled to collaborate with the German officials who were in charge of managing the artistic heritage: in particular, Walter Frodl (director of the Klagenfurt Museum and Superintendent of the Monuments of Carinthia), and his collaborator Erika Hanfstaengl.
Frodl had been appointed by the German Commissioner Rainer, as “responsible for policy in respect of Monuments, Libraries and Archives” of the Adriatisches Littoral and Erika Hanfstaengl as “responsible for the practical operation in all its phases of the Abt. Denkmalschutz in Udine and Venezia Giulia”.

They were also assisted during their activity by Antonio Nicolussi, “formerly Assistente in the Italian Superintendency of Monuments and Galleries at Trento, but [who] in 1940 opted for Reich citizenship”.
Systematic photographic campaigns, apparently carried on for knowledge’s sake, as well as tangible measures for the protection of the monuments offered neutral grounds on which the two sides could collaborate: on more than one occasion, Frodl and Erika Hanfstaengl helped Someda de Marco in his attempts to defend Friulian works of art.
According to an Allied report, dated August 2nd, 1945, on “German Activities 1943-1945 in the Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland in the Field of Fine Arts, Libraries and Archives“, it was Doctor Hanfstaengl who supervised the photographic campaign, entrusted to local photographers like Brisighelli, Pignat and Sterle.

“A most thoroughgoing campaign of documentation was undertaken, notably in Friuli by Dr. Hanfstaengl. This was combined with photography on a lavish scale. In all nearly 8000 photographs were taken by the Superintendency photographer and by Brisighelli, a private firm in UDINE. At LAIBACH, by special arrangement two negatives were made of each subject, one to remain in LAIBACH, one to go to KLAGENFURT. There was, perhaps inevitably, a certain bias in the selection of subjects towards those fields which were of major interest to a German students [sic]. But superficially at any rate the whole campaign was very properly handled, even to the extent of leaving the negatives in the hands of the Italian photographer concerned” (London, Public Record Office, WO 204/2992).

Frodl took great care in declaring the Castle of Udine a buffer zone, and as such safe from possible air raids .
Together with Erika Hanfstaengl he helped Someda de Marco in the attempt to avoid the melt down of several antique bells.
But that it was a symbolical appropriation of the Friulan art heritage is proved by the case of the well-known wooden altar by Giovanni Martini in Mortegliano. In fact, it was Frodl himself who pressed for an adequate protection for the work of art, an event not remembered in the journal, but that can be reconstructed through documents of the Staatsarchiv in Vienna. These documents clearly attest that the Frodl’s peculiar interest in the Mortegliano altar was motivated by the fact that he considered it as an “important proof of the strong impact, well into the 16th Century, of the Norther influence on the Friulian province” (“einen deutlichen Beweis für den noch im 16. Jhdt. starken Einfluss des deutschen Nordens auf die Provinz Friaul”).
It is noteworthy that Someda de Marco and Walter Frodl continued to correspond after the war.