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Art Looting Investigation Unit
The Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU) was a special intelligence unit during World War II whose mission was to gather information and write reports about Nazi art looting networks. Composed of only a few handpicked men, the small unit conducted interrogations and investigations in Europe starting in 1944 and focusing mainly on Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Their mission was different from but related to that of the Monuments Men. After the war, the reports the ALIU wrote were marked secret and forgotten for many years until the late 1990s when they began to be declassified . The reports remain an important source for research into the history of the origin of works of art (provenance research) and for the restitution of looted art from the Nazi era. Creation of the ALIU Justice Owen J. Roberts, who was chairman of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas-( The Roberts Commi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Owen Roberts
Owen Josephus Roberts (May 2, 1875 – May 17, 1955) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1930 to 1945. He also led two Roberts Commissions, the first of which investigated the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the second of which focused on works of cultural value during World War II. Born in Philadelphia, Roberts graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and pursued a legal career. After working as a district attorney in Philadelphia, he was appointed by President Calvin Coolidge to investigate the Teapot Dome scandal. After the death of Associate Justice Edward Terry Sanford in March 1930, President Herbert Hoover nominated John J. Parker to fill the vacancy on the court. The Senate rejected Parker and Hoover quickly nominated Roberts as his second choice for the vacancy. Roberts was easily confirmed and took his position on the court in May 1930. On the Hughes Court, Roberts was a swing vote positioned between the conservative Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Hofer
Walter Andreas Hofer (1893 – c. 1971) was a German art dealer who was Hermann Göring's principal art agent, director of the Göring Collection and a key player in Nazi looted art markets during the Second World War. Hofer is referenced 162 times in the OSS Art Looting Investigation Units Reports of 1945-1946. He was not a member of the Nazi party. After the war he continued to work as an art dealer in Munich. Early life Hofer was born in Berlin in 1893. He began his career at the gallery of his brother-in-law Kurt Walter Bachstitz in The Hague. In 1928, Hofer went to Berlin to study art where he met the Lausanne art collector Gottlieb Reber. Between 1930 and 1934, Hofer worked for Reber in Switzerland. From 1934 Hofer was an independent dealer working in Berlin near the Kurfürstendamm.Walter Andreas Hofer (1893–1971?). [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intelligence Corps Officers
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context. Intelligence is most often studied in humans but has also been observed in both non-human animals and in plants despite controversy as to whether some of these forms of life exhibit intelligence. Intelligence in computers or other machines is called artificial intelligence. Etymology The word ''intelligence'' derives from the Latin nouns '' intelligentia'' or '' intellēctus'', which in turn stem from the verb '' intelligere'', to comprehend or perceive. In the Middle Ages, the word ''intellectus'' became the scholarly technical term for understanding, and a translation for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art And Cultural Repatriation
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of what constitutes art, and its interpretation has varied greatly throughout history and across cultures. In the Western tradition, the three classical branches of visual art are painting, sculpture, and architecture. Theatre, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, music, film and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of the arts. Until the 17th century, ''art'' referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic considerations are paramount, the fine arts are separated and distinguished from acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts. The nature of art and related concepts, such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Safehaven (1944–1948)
Operation Safehaven (1944–48) was an intelligence program developed by the United States during the Second World War to prevent Nazi Germany and Axis partners of the Third Reich from hiding assets, in particular in neutral countries, for use after the war The program was designed and carried out by the US partnered with Great Britain and France. The program began in 1944 with Nazi defeat looming and evidence that Germany was covertly transferring sources of capital to neutral countries to escape war reparations and potentially aid a resurgence of the regime in the post-war period. The central goal of Operation Safehaven was to ensure Germany would not be able to start another war, with the specific aims of the program articulated in the Spring of 1944. The short-term aims focused on identifying and locating German assets and blocking the transfer of German assets to neutral countries, and the long-term aims involved persuading neutral countries to turn over German assets as wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aryanization
Aryanization (german: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. It entailed the transfer of Jewish property into " Aryan" or non-Jewish, hands. "Aryanization" is , according to Kreutzmüller and Zaltin in ''Dispossession:Plundering German Jewry, 1933-1953'', "a Nazi slogan that was used to camouflage theft and its political consequences." The process started in 1933 in Nazi Germany with transfers of Jewish property and ended with the Holocaust. Two phases have generally been identified: a first phase in which the theft from Jewish victims was concealed under a veneer of legality, and a second phase, in which property was more openly confiscated. In both cases, Aryanization corresponded to Nazi policy and was defined, supported, and enforced by Germany's legal and financial bureaucracy. Michael Bazyler ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi Looting Of Artworks By Vincent Van Gogh
Many priceless artworks by the Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh were looted by Nazis during 1933–1945, mostly from Jewish collectors forced into exile or murdered. Some of these works have disappeared into private collections, others have resurfaced in museums, at auction, or have been reclaimed, often in high profile lawsuits taken by their former owners. However, the German Lost Art Foundation still lists dozens of missing van Goghs. As of 2021, the ''Nazi Era Provenance Internet Portal'' published by the American Alliance of Museums, lists 73 van Gogh paintings acquired by American museums after 1933 with questionable provenance. Background Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), the famous Dutch post-impressionist painter, was one of many artists whose artworks were looted by Nazis, either by direct seizure or by forced or duress sales. From 1933–1945, an estimated 20% of all artwork in Europe was plundered by Nazis. All property owned by Jews, including artwork ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
