22x05 - Plunderer: The Life and Times of a n*zi Art Thief (Part One)

[bunniefuu]

[ Bells tolling ]

♪♪

-I first met Dr. Bruno Lohse
in June 1998.

♪♪

And I remember
every single detail.

♪♪

You know, after all, it's not
every day you meet an old n*zi.

♪♪

We arranged to have
lunch together,

and he said he would pick me up

from the Central Institute
for Art History

in the heart of Munich.

[ Bells tolling ]

♪♪

It had been
an old n*zi building.

And I remember thinking
this was actually appropriate.

And as the moment drew nearer,

I think my heart started to beat
even more and more quickly.

♪♪

And then I do recall
this extraordinary moment

when a massive Mercedes
pulled up.

[ Engine rumbling ]

In front, there was a driver.

He appeared
to be a kind of chauffeur.

The back door swung open,
and there he was.

♪♪

The last n*zi art plunderer
still alive.

♪♪

He motioned for me to get in
the car, and off we went.

♪♪

He had a presence.

He had an aura, if you will.

♪♪

I knew that Lohse
was a member of the SS.

I also knew
that he was a real player

in the post-w*r art world.

Especially in America.

But I didn't realize
that our relationship

would continue
for years and years

and that, you know, it
would take me to another world.

♪♪

To his apartment filled
with valuable artworks.

♪♪

To a Swiss bank...

...that concealed
stolen pictures...

...and even to the
contemporary art world,

where n*zi-looted art is still
traded and is still concealed.

It's the greatest art scandal
of the 20th century.

But one doesn't trifle
with Lohse without consequences.

I had no idea
what I was getting into.

♪♪

♪♪

I have been studying
n*zi-looted art

for over 35 years,

and I've been investigating
Bruno Lohse for over 20 years.

When he died in 2007,
I was given his private papers.

I was told Lohse wanted me to
have them and to preserve them.

♪♪

And they include many, many
letters, photos, and documents,

many of them
from Hermann Goering himself.

But, you know,
Lohse was very concerned

about his image in history.

And these documents
were clearly sanitized by him

to present a certain image.

♪♪

Lohse played a game with me.

When we met in person
and we did interviews,

he would tell me
some of what happened,

he would give me partial truths,
he would mix in lies.

I knew that I was becoming
closer to an old n*zi

and that there was criticism
amongst peers, other scholars.

And I would respond,

"You have to get to know
these people

before they're really going
to tell you their secrets."

And so,
that was his challenge to me --

could I separate the truth
from the lies?

Could I put
this whole story together?

You know,
"Try to make sense of this.

Try to catch me if you can."

♪♪

-A mad dog
is on the march again.

Once more, he breaks every bond
of international decency.

-Belgium, France, and Norway.

The n*zi tide
sweeps over Europe.

-The French government
has capitulated.

Now France signs
abject terms of surrender.

-When the w*r breaks out
in September 1939,

Lohse is conscripted
into the German Army,

into an anti-tank unit preparing
to go into the Soviet Union.

♪♪

Before the w*r, he was trying to
find his way as an art dealer.

He has a PhD in art history,

which he was very proud of,
right?

So, he was always "Dr. Lohse."

But, you know,
when the w*r breaks out,

he's really kind of a nobody
in the art world.

But then something
extraordinary happens.

He receives a call from Paris,

and he is asked
whether he wants to join

a new and secret initiative.

And he's not told
very much about it,

except that they need
his skills as an art historian

and that he will be
working for a n*zi Party agency

in Paris called the ERR.

-So that's where the Lohse story
basically officially starts.

♪♪

The ERR is one of the rarest
forms of state organizations,

whose sole purpose
was to plunder Europe.

Its reach extended all the way
from the far western parts

of France, all the way up
to the Baltic states,

and as far southeast as Crimea.

And it basically went
where the German army went.

So, we're talking
about a massive organization

with tentacles everywhere.

-It was probably
the largest looting

that has ever happened
in history.

♪♪

-They actually stole everything

that they could
lay their hands on.

Whether it was a painting
of really no value

except to the family,
they would steal it.

They stole furniture,
they stole tables,

they stole the plates,

they stole the cutlery,
the candlesticks.

♪♪

-And so, when Lohse arrives
at the ERR in Paris,

he sees German art looting
on an industrial scale.

And France is special.

France has more art,

or more valuable art,
than any other part of Europe.

-France was really the place
where art was being shown,

the place where art
was being collected,

the place
where art was being sold.

It was really the capital.

-They start to go after
the French Jewish collections,

right?

And they're going after
the Rothschilds,

and they're going after
Alphonse Kann

and the David-Weills and these
great French Jewish families

that have
these great collections.

And they're going off
with these commandos

and bringing in masses of art.

♪♪

One estimate is
that they steal one-third

of all the art in
private collections in France.

-I mean, you see the trains from
Paris going back to Germany.

Carriage after carriage
stacked to the gills

with fabulous works of art.

♪♪

-The French authorities are
forced to relinquish a museum,

the Jeu de Paume --

it's part of
the Louvre complex --

and hand it over to the Germans,

and that becomes the
ERR Paris headquarters.

That's where
Lohse's going to operate,

there in the Jeu de Paume.

♪♪

-To pick up,
sort, catalogue this material,

the ERR needed specialists.

It was a new job market
for those academics.

You can imagine the excitement
in opening the boxes,

you know, what kind of treasures
would arrive.

♪♪

-You know, works by Rembrandt,
Canaletto, Titian.

There are Old Masters.

There's modern
Impressionist works.

♪♪

And Lohse comes in
as a cataloguer,

and he has to create an
inventory of

who it was stolen from
and what objects they have.

It's very, very well organized.

It's a strange mix between,

on the one hand,
barbarism and violence and,

you know, a kind of attack
on Jewish families

with this industrial efficiency.

♪♪

-And we are here at the heart
of the n*zi mindset, you know?

They were really applying
what they did to the Holocaust.

It was the same thing.

They were really
accounting for people.

They knew who this person was.

They knew
where they were coming from,

and they knew
when they disappeared.

So it's the same system.

♪♪

In early March 1941, something
very important happened to Lohse

that shapes
his future in a profound way.

♪♪

Hermann Goering, the second-most
powerful man in the Third Reich,

comes to the Jeu de Paume
for a review of the artworks

that have been seized
by the ERR.

♪♪

Lohse is tasked
with preparing an exhibition

that might impress
Hermann Goering.

-Lohse probably had the feeling

that that was the opportunity
of his life.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

-And so,
Goering and the entourage

arrive at the Jeu de Paume,

and Lohse starts the tour.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

♪♪

There is something
about Lohse's manner,

the confidence that he projects,

that Goering likes very much.

Goering happens to have
an art dealer with him,

someone called
Walter Andreas Hofer,

who is the official director
of his collection.

And there are moments
when Hofer challenges Lohse,

and he says something like,
"No, no, you're wrong!

That's not a Rembrandt."

And Lohse was prepared to say,
"Yes, it is."

Hofer is a well-established
dealer,

and here's this young upstart
who challenges him,

and Goering is impressed.

♪♪

The following day,
Goering says to Lohse,

"I need an agent here in Paris.

I will keep you involved
with the ERR,

but your primary mission
is to buy artworks for me."

[ Telephone rings ]

"You can call me day or night."

And he gives Lohse
his telephone number.

And so, he has direct access
to the second-most powerful man

in the Third Reich at that time.

♪♪

-Art was very important
to the n*zi leaders

because they envisioned
themselves

as the new monarchs of Europe.

So that required great museums
and great art collections.

Hitler particularly wanted to
build himself a museum in Linz.

That would be
the biggest museum in Europe,

with the finest collection.

-I don't know
if he was an art lover,

but Goering was
the only n*zi leader

who invested so much time
in building a collection

he wanted to be unique.

So, he had this obsession
with building an art collection.

♪♪

He needed someone he could trust
within the Jeu de Paume

to channel towards
his collection the best pieces.

♪♪

The rise to power
for Lohse was very quick.

In a matter of two months, he
became Goering's man in Paris.

-And so, once someone became

a special agent
of the n*zi leaders,

they were given
special privileges.

♪♪

They could travel more freely.

He had a car, which was highly
unusual, to have your own car.

And they were given
large stipends and,

probably most important,
they had unlimited funds.

♪♪

-This is one of Lohse's
power documents, if you will.

It's the telegram
that Goering sent to Lohse

at the end of December 1941.

And it says,

"Lieber Herr Lohse" --
Dear Lohse --

"I thank you with all my heart

for all of your diligence
concerning my art collection."

You can see it would fold
in two different places,

so he could place it
in his breast pocket there,

and pull it out
if ever he was challenged.

And I think anyone seeing
"Lieber Lohse,"

signed by Goering,

would click their heels
and salute

and give Lohse what he wanted.

♪♪

It's an extraordinary moment.

Lohse had been a small,
you know, cog in the machine.

But now he joined the exclusive
ranks of those German dealers

who served the n*zi leaders.

They were the dealers
working for Hitler.

And then there was
the Goering dealers.

There were dealers active
in Brussels and in Amsterdam.

And then,
there were a few others

operating on
the open art market.

And the competition was tough.

♪♪

And I don't mean to give the
impression that Lohse comes in

and he spends his days
strolling down the boulevard,

popping into galleries and
buying -- and buying artworks.

No, I mean, he has a network
of subagents, of informants,

people he'll work with.

He's utterly ruthless
as he goes after artworks.

He gets a tip -- there's
an artwork belonging

to a Jewish person there,

or there's someone
who's vulnerable here --

and he's going to seize
upon any opportunity,

exploit any weakness
that he can.

And the n*zi leaders didn't care
how their agents obtained works.

And so, the agents were
encouraged to be aggressive.

-You have to be a good hunter

because there are objects
that have to be hunted.

You have this Darwinian
competition to get to the object

and have, let's say,

to be faster than all your

fellow National Socialist
competitors.

♪♪

-The commandos would come
into a residence.

They would oftentimes
break down the door.

They were real th*gs.

They would grab everything
in the apartment or the home.

There was chaos.

So, Lohse's actually riding
along on these raids

so that he could make sense
of what they were stealing.

♪♪

[ Tape player clicks ]

There was a kind of blind spot
there for Lohse.

But he didn't think
too much about the families

and their fate.

-The reality was,
there was so much art.

I mean, all of Europe was --
pretty much all of Europe --

was there for the picking.

♪♪

They were insatiable.

♪♪

-The Netherlands were invaded
in May 1940.

And within a month,

literally, Goering's agents
arrived at the doorstep here.

Karl Haberstock was
the next n*zi dealer to show up.

He talked Fritz, my grandfather,

into selling 10
of the best paintings.

So, our Cranach, our Botticelli,
our Baldung Grien.

So, he pays on paper
my grandfather a song

for these wonderful pieces,

and then he bargains
with the upper echelons

of the n*zi government
as to who will get which piece,

upping the price each time.

And, of course,
usually Hitler wins out

because he's the top dog.

So, Goering gets
the next three best pieces,

and so on and so on down,

until half our furniture
goes to a man called Glassmeyer,

who ran the n*zi radio system
in Europe.

The Franz von Stuck, that was in
one of the guest bedrooms here,

goes to Hitler's
personal physician, Karl Brandt,

who's not an ordinary doctor.

He's actually the man

who initiates the first
medical experiments

and euthanasia program,

so he was personally accused of
the m*rder of 60,000 people.

[ Voice breaking ]
So, this is where...

[ Breathes deeply ]

♪♪

This is where our beautiful
things are going, yes.

And they stripped the house down
to the last pot in the kitchen.

♪♪

-As well as going on
these raids with the ERR,

Goering has tasked Lohse
with finding artworks

on the French art market.

♪♪

-Why was it booming?
Because you had a lot of people

who made a lot of money
working with the Germans,

and they needed to invest.

What can you buy
in a time of w*r but art?

♪♪

And the number
of non-Jewish dealers

who did business as usual,

but working directly
with the Germans

or dealt with looted art,
it's amazing.

It's really mind-blowing.

In this network of art dealer,

Lohse developed his network
of spies,

of middlemen
that could feed him, you know?

♪♪

-After the Jewish collections

that came into the ERR
in Paris were --

you know,
began to be sorted out,

it became clear
that a huge number of the works

were unacceptable to the Nazis.

-The ERR is taking in
a great deal of modern art.

According to Hitler
and the other theorists,

modern art
was "degenerate art" --

Entartete Kunst.

The rationale behind it

was that modern art
was a Jewish conspiracy.

♪♪

-My grandfather's
gallery was taken over as soon

as Germans arrived in Paris.

Everything there was pillaged.

Matisses, Picassos, Degas,
and Corots and Braques,

and so forth.

And all of this
was brought to the Jeu de Paume.

-So, they're looting so much
work that is worthless to them.

But they realize
that it has market value.

♪♪

-You know, Lohse,
who's a good problem-solver,

realizes that, with some
of the collaborationist dealers,

that if he could exchange
the modern degenerate art,

he could obtain
other works from them

that are desired by Goering
and other n*zi leaders.

♪♪

-When you look closely
at the exchanges,

they are very lopsided.

You might have, you know,
an Old Master painting,

and it's being exchanged for,
say,

a dozen looted
Impressionist paintings,

which apparently are
of much lesser value.

But, actually,
that's not the case.

They then go on to be sold
for much higher values,

whether it's in France
or it's in Norway

or it's in Switzerland,

and the dealers do
extremely well out of that.

-We don't know
precisely how many

of these official exchanges
there were,

but I think
we're talking about 35

in the next 2 1/2 years.

And it's almost certain
that Lohse has a cut

on these exchanges.

So, Lohse goes from being
a cataloguer two months earlier

in the ERR to a Paris dealer
and Goering's man in Paris,

to, really,
an international dealer.

I mean,
you can see his career take off

in the most extraordinary way.

But when I asked Lohse
about this, he was very evasive.

Lohse told me that he had
wanted to go back to his unit

and become a soldier again.

But if you look at his behavior

once he arrives in Paris
in February,

you know, this is not someone

who wants to go back
to the front.

-Any German military person
of any kind

was dying to be stationed
in Paris

because it was a
really nice place to live.

-He enjoyed the Paris nightlife,
and they would go to nightclubs.

You can see in the photos
that Lohse left

that he had a number
of girlfriends.

When he was in his old age,

he'd pull out these photos
of his time in Paris

and, you know,
they would evoke these memories.

♪♪

-When you see these pictures
of n*zi perpetrators

with champagne and women,

this is the world they want to
remember in their photo albums

as the good old days.

And it allowed them
to legitimate, explain away,

the fact that this
life of luxury,

of debauchery, was
on the corpses of these victims.

They were the beneficiaries
of the genocide.

♪♪

-Lohse liked, you know, going to
the Alps, you know, skiing.

He liked going to
the Cote d'Azur.

He was living very close
to the Champs-Elysées

in a beautiful flat
that was a Jewish-owned flat.

-It's furnished with furniture
stolen from Jews, too,

so he's living
in this world of luxury,

but stolen luxury.

And we can only imagine
what it was like

to be Goering's man in Paris
with all these resources,

all these connections.

And this is why he thought of
himself as the "King of Paris."

It was the best time
of his life.

♪♪

♪♪

-We can imagine
the tense excitement in Paris

when the Hun was being beaten
in the Battle of Normandy.

The Bosch and his weapons
were being beaten

and destroyed in Paris,
by the people of Paris.

And the first liberation
notices...

-Towards the end of the w*r,

Lohse is commandeered
to the Bavarian Alps.

♪♪

The ERR had about
10 different repositories.

But the French plunder,
the cream of the crop,

was in Neuschwanstein.

It's a very precarious situation
as the Allies,

you know, move steadily
closer to the castle.

As the Americans are advancing,

behind them was a unit
called the Monuments Men,

and actually there are
Monuments Women, as well,

and they were created
to locate the looted artworks

and the plunder
that the Nazis had stolen.

-From all over Europe,

Goering looted
these masterpieces,

by conservative estimates,
worth $200 million.

-What's so fascinating
is the way that

Lohse prepares to surrender,

and he's strategic about it.

♪♪

He and a colleague
come down from Neuschwanstein

to a convent at
the base of the castle.

He purposely wears
civilian clothes.

He is not a combatant.

No, he is a civilian
art historian.

The Americans rolled
in on the 4th of May 1945

and found Lohse sitting
right on the ledge here,

and he was holding a book.

It was a book in French
about Joan of Arc.

That was the image
that he wanted to project --

a civilian, a gentleman,
an intellectual,

an art historian,
a lover of French culture.

You know, he was already
acting in a certain role.

And, of course, in this case,
the stakes were very high.

Looting was a w*r crime

for which Lohse could be
sentenced to death and ex*cuted.

♪♪

-General Eisenhower informs me
that the forces of Germany

have surrendered
to the United Nations.

The flags of freedom
fly all over Europe.

We have rid the world of Hitler
and his evil band.

-Well, after he was captured,

Lohse was taken
to a place called Haus 71...

-Ah, there it is!

-...which was
an interrogation center set up

by the American OSS
Art Looting Investigation Unit

to interrogate
the major art looters.

-There's, you know,

about 15 of these n*zi
art plunderers who were there.

-It must have been kind of
a reunion party

for n*zi art dealership
there after the w*r.

-Art Looting Investigation
Officers interrogate them

on a daily basis.

There were three of them --

James Plaut, S. Lane Faison,
and then Theodore Rousseau.

And their aim was to track down
and recover missing artworks.

And also to determine
whether these people

should be prosecuted
as w*r criminals.

The three OSS officers
produced a series of reports

of each individual.

But the n*zi plunderers
were formidable.

-The general plea
on behalf of the interrogated

German art dealers
and art historians

is that they were buying
on the free market

things that were being offered
and so on.

-"We are not stealing,
of course, we are not seizing,

we are not robbing art.
We are saving it.

It's 'besitzlos.'

There are no more owners
of this art,

and we are taking care
that nothing happens to it."

♪♪

-So, all elements of force,

of violence, were negated
as if they had never existed.

And this is, I think,
the general line.

-In the interrogation report,

Lohse characterizes himself,
of course,

as a cultivated man
who acted correctly.

-He was merely doing an
inventory or doing a catalogue.

-He saved the lives
of many Jews.

-If you listen to Lohse,

it sounded like he was
a member of the Resistance.

These reports tend
to be very harsh,

and they call
most of the subjects

all sorts of terrible things.

And Lohse's is striking
because it's more neutral.

And so,
he found the balancing act,

where he appeared
to be honest and cooperative.

And they don't recommend that
he be tried as a w*r criminal,

as they do with a number
of the others held at Haus 71.

♪♪

-After the American
investigation,

suddenly, the French started
to become interested in Lohse.

They have read
the American report,

and they are not convinced.

They realize, no, he is
"falsely amiable."

"We don't trust him," you know?
"He's crooked," you know?

He's --
"Don't believe him."

And, finally, in January 1948,

he's transferred to France,
awaiting his trial.

♪♪

-One of the first things
they bring up

is that Lohse was a member
of the SS.

You know, they point to his
relationship with the Gestapo

and the SD,
the security service of the SS.

-The SD basically provide
liquidation skills.

They're used
in anti-partisan warfare.

They're used to hunt down
political dissidents.

-So this paints a pretty
dark portrait of Lohse --

that he's working
with the SD to pursue artworks.

And the French focused
in on one particular case --

the case
of the Schloss collection.

♪♪

-So, Schloss was a French
Jewish art collector.

And it was a legendary private
collection of 333 paintings,

you know?
So, it was quite significant.

♪♪

-In 1939,
the children of Adolphe Schloss

hid the whole collection
in a castle in southern France,

Chateau Chambon.

And it was one
of the very last collections

which had not been found yet.

-So, many people were hunting
for this collection.

So, Lohse, you know,
for Goering.

-Two of the three heirs
of Adolphe Schloss

are arrested -- right? --
and they're interrogated.

And, you know, they reveal
the location of the collection.

♪♪

Lohse, it turns out,

decides he's gonna order
the seizure of the collection.

A huge truck shows up
at the chateau,

and the collection
is loaded onto the truck.

♪♪

But for Lohse,
things turn even worse

when the French
prosecutors realize

that the individuals
who had manned the truck

come from a notorious criminal
g*ng, the Bonny-Lafont g*ng.

-They were the auxiliary
of the Gestapo.

Hunting for the Jews,
torturing, raiding, looting,

helping the Germans
to despoil occupied France.

Being associated
with those people,

we can imagine that Lohse is
getting a bit anxious, you know?

Nine members have been arrested
and condemned to death.

-So, it's potentially
a life-and-death matter

for Lohse,
as he is accused of working

with the French underworld
to steal artworks.

The French prosecution
had a secret weapon,

and that was Rose Valland.

She was the force
behind the interrogations.

After the Germans demanded

that the French hand over
the Jeu de Paume facilities,

the French made one condition.

They wanted a curator
to be on site at the museum.

-She was supposed to make sure
the potted palms were watered,

and she was supposed
to make sure that, you know,

the janitors were cleaning
the building.

And what nobody knew at the time
was that she spoke German.

-She was a spy, and she was a
member of the French Resistance.

-You know,
she was really the main witness.

♪♪

-Lohse's trial before
the military tribunal begins

on August 1, 1950.

There's considerable
anticipation

because there had never been
a trial of art plunderers

in history, that I'm aware of.

There are four ERR staffers
who were placed in the dock,

with Lohse as a key figure.

And no one knows
quite what to expect.

For Lohse,
there was acute terror

when he's put before
this military tribunal.

You know, military
tribunals line people up

and they sh**t them.

♪♪

-But very quickly,
it became obvious

that the prosecution
was not very solid.

♪♪

And Lohse became
very rapidly self-assured.

So, there is this moment,
you know,

in which the prosecutors ask,
you know,

"Why is your name
on the list of the ERR?"

And Lohse said, you know,

"I was doing just, like,
the mail," you know?

Everybody laughed.

-And Rose Valland was searching
all over for any evidence

that would help
incriminate Lohse.

-And she tried very hard,
you know.

But she had no evidence.
This is the problem.

-They didn't have
all of the documents.

They didn't have the
documents we have today.

-And, you know, Lohse,
again, has been very good at,

you know, erasing the traces.

-After 2 1/2 days, the judges
handed down their verdict.

Lohse himself was acquitted.

And it was shocking.

But for Lohse,
this was a tremendous victory.

-So that's what happens.

The whole thing got swept
under the carpet.

-The chief prosecutor
is trying to find his way

through this looting,

and, obviously,
it's very difficult for him.

He doesn't understand.

He doesn't understand

the ideological dimension
of the looting.

You know, the general knowledge,
you know,

of the Holocaust and the looting
was not available, you know?

It was before the publication of
the first books on the Holocaust

and the importance
of the looting.

That came later.

-I think the art looters
escaped serious sanction

because the Allies
really didn't have time

or the heart or the inclination

to pursue what they thought
was a white-collar crime.

-At that time, as well,

there was a fatigue as far
as this kind of prosecution

and the pursuit of justice.

So, for the lower-level
perpetrators

like high-profile plunderers,

if they weren't
kind of considered the most,

like, sadistic,
the worst of the worst,

then people would just -- well,
they were not going to bother.

So, really, by 1950,
people just wanted to move on.

-By allowing the perpetrators
to basically run free,

they were sending really a
wrong message to the population.

It's, you know,
"The crime of plunder

pays for itself, and go for it."

♪♪

♪♪

-How do you feel being here?

-Um, a little strange.
Um...

But it, you know,
brings back memories of visits

that I found very exciting.

Little nerve-wracking.

I'd always get
a little bit nervous

before I went to visit Lohse.

♪♪

Lohse lived on the top floor,
and he had those two rooms

that looked out
over the street there.

I don't know exactly what
the thinking was,

but he invited me to come
to his home in the fall of 2000.

♪♪

There're the rumors

that he had extraordinary
artworks in the apartment.

And I'd also heard
that he would not let anyone

in that apartment.

And so, I felt there was
a challenge there, too.

♪♪

I do remember,
the first time I arrived,

walking up
the three flights of stairs,

and being led in
by a housekeeper.

And there was Lohse,
sitting at a dining-room table.

I was immediately struck
by all the art

that was surrounding us, right?

It was -- it was dazzling.

I always suspected him of
holding on to looted artworks,

and this whet my appetite.

And, of course, they were
worth millions of dollars.

I was told this was
just the small stuff,

the more modest works,

and that he had more
valuable pictures elsewhere.

That raised questions about

how he was able to obtain
these paintings,

and also to rehabilitate
his reputation

and revive his career.

♪♪

When Lohse was released
from a French prison in 1950,

he relocated
to the Bavarian capital.

♪♪

-Munich,
which people refer to even today

as the capital of the movement,

is where
the n*zi Party originated.

And so, for ex-Nazis,
it's a desirable place to live.

♪♪

-I couldn't think of any
seriously sort of prominent n*zi

who wouldn't end up in Bavaria
at the end of the w*r.

I mean, the ones -- besides the
ones who ended up being dead.

So, yeah, you would find
lots of old comrades.

[ Chuckles ]

-So, Munich re-emerged as the
center of the German art trade,

and all these n*zi dealers
went back to work.

Haberstock, Hofer, Lohse,

they're all back
to their old ways.

-His timing is impeccable.

When he comes back to Munich
in 1950,

this is just when the art
world is taking off again.

-In those very first years
of Germany after the w*r,

knowledge, and especially
that kind of knowledge

which Bruno Lohse had,
was pure money.

He knew who stole paintings,
who still had paintings.

And he knew where works
had gone to,

from Paris, from France.

-They continued dealing
in looted art

because they still owned
a great deal

or had access to a great deal.

So the fact that they went back
and resurrected their careers

and became --
continued to be art dealers

is galling enough in itself,

but the fact that they continued
to deal in looted art

with impunity
is just very hard to believe.

-With Lohse, we don't
really know what he had,

but there are myriad rumors

about how he allegedly
acquired stock,

both during the w*r
and right after the w*r.

And, of course,
we have the reports

of Rose Valland within the ERR.

Lohse also started
to claim from the Bavarian state

a number of artworks that
had been confiscated from him

by the Monuments Men
at w*r's end,

claiming that,
you know, these were artworks

that were previously part of
his collection before the w*r.

And, indeed, in something
that becomes a pattern,

they returned five pictures
to him.

Were all of the pictures looted?
We just don't know.

But probably the
most tantalizing clue I found

came from the restitution cards

that the Bavarian
authorities created

as they restituted
these artworks to Lohse.

On every one of the five cards
it says,

"confiscated by the ERR."

And one of them, in fact,

in the box about
identifying marks,

also has --
there's the lettering, "SD."

That's the SS's security service
that worked hand in hand

with the Gestapo.

It doesn't mean 100% that
these were looted in France or,

you know, looted by the SD.

I mean, there's clues there,
but, you know,

so often, it's difficult
to prove the case.

-Lohse, you know, was in
good company in the '50s,

making "restitution claims."

-Bavaria's idea of restitution
seems to have been

to return them
to the n*zi families

who had been instrumental
in looting them,

rather than returning them
to the families

from whom they'd been looted.

The Streichers, Emmy Goering,

who was the widow
of Hermann Goering,

Hans Frank, who was the governor
of Poland, his family.

They were all recovering
these artworks,

many of which were looted.

-But the Bavarians
go a step further,

and they auction off many
of these works, as well.

-And there is correspondence
saying, "Let's do this quietly,

because otherwise we might --
it might be a political issue,

and we don't want people to come
and ask too many questions."

-Lohse did tell me, he said,

"I was among the dealers
that went to these auctions."

And so, he has,
if you will, a second crack

at Goering's paintings
and Hitler's paintings, too.

-If you were Bruno Lohse

and were making
the restitution claims,

your chances were much better,
you know,

in terms of getting back,
you know,

a painting, than if you happen
to be, you know,

a Jewish claimant.

It sounds sickening,

but it clearly was
the reality in the 1950s.

♪♪

-My father,
who survives the w*r in Britain,

gets to the house, and, um...

the first thing he notices
is the walls of everything

is stripped bare.

There's nothing anywhere.

My father travels
all over Western Europe

trying to track what might
remain of the family collection,

without much success.

The West Germans came up
with an extraordinary thing,

talking about the things that
Goering got from our family,

that they said, "Well, that's
not government responsibility.

You'll have to find
Goering's wife and daughter

and sue their family
as private individuals."

So, therefore, they wash
their hands of everything

that Goering
had ever gotten from us.

-At that time, they thought,
"It's over. The Nazis are gone."

You know,
"Now I'm dealing with people

who are trying
to help me recover my property."

Fat chance.

-By 1950, this is a new world.

So why care about
what happened five years ago?

Nobody does. Look forward.
Don't look back.

-It was clear
that the new powers that be,

who were really much the same
as the old powers that be,

didn't particularly care about
what people like Lohse had done.

I mean, my father
was even told by some official,

"You're lucky you're alive.
Count your blessings."

♪♪

[ Upbeat jazz music plays ]

♪♪

-♪ Hey, everybody ♪

♪ Let's have some fun ♪

♪ You only live but once ♪

♪ And when you're dead,
you're done ♪

♪ So let the good times roll ♪

♪ I said,
let the good times roll ♪

-In 1950s, Munich was just
the starting place for Lohse.

It was kind of
the minor leagues, but he knew

that the major leagues
were going to be in America.

-♪ And let
the good times roll now ♪

-The U.S. was now
going to be number one.

When you have a lot of money,

you want to show the importance
that you have

also by buying art.

-Auction record disappear
under the hammer

before an overflow crowd
in New York.

-If you want it to have
an international business,

if you want it to sell
for good money,

you want it to be, you know,
on the U.S. art market.

-Sold for $2,300,000.

-This is going to be
a very important moment

for the U.S. cultural world.

-New York's
Museum of Modern Art,

like museums all over
the country,

is today crowded with visitors.

-And if you look at
the museum landscape,

there is a statistic
that 94% of American museums

were founded after World w*r II.

-The most controversial building
in the history of New York City,

the Guggenheim Museum,
is open to the public.

-The museum world just explodes
in America,

as these new institutions
are created.

-The most fabulous collections
of jewels and art objects

comes to light after 50 years...

-And, of course,
they need works to exhibit.

Lohse has a glimpse of America
in its potential

and the resources there, right?
And, you know,

he knows that America's
going to offer him

the greatest opportunities.

♪♪

Next time...

At w*r's end, Bruno
Lohse is a former n*zi.

He's an art plunderer.

He was acquitted, and he was
free to do what he wanted.

He knows that to
revive his career,

he needs to go to America.

The museum world just explodes.

They need works to exhibit.

There was too much
money to be made,

and there were no consequences.

If Lohse's life is
indicative of anything,

it's that the crime of
plunder pays for itself.

♪ ♪

Next time on
"Secrets of the Dead"...

♪♪

-"Plunderer" is available

with PBS Passport

and on Amazon Prime Video.

♪♪