tion of Göring’s adjutant Erich Gritzbach, however, the pur-
chase price had somehow risen to . million. None of them
could lay their hands on the cash like that, so Miedl brought the
Goudstikker dossier in to the guileless Göring, cadging a loan of
two million guilders, as he said, “to make up the . million pur-
chase price.” Göring greedily agreed provided that he was
given the pick of the art collection.
A Mr. Aa ten Brock signed the sale contract on behalf of
Goudstikker’s widow on July , . The . million guilders
was paid in securities selected by her attorney. For his two mil-
lion, Göring got “all removable objects”; he kept the best, Hitler
took fifty-three of the rest for the Führer building in Munich,
and Miedl eventually bought back those that were left over for
. million guilders.
It is difficult to see even now who was cheating whom.
Goudstikker’s widow got the price she asked, the banks were re-
paid, the paintings and business legally changed hands. Only
later did Göring learn that Miedl had hornswoggled him that
he had advanced the whole purchase price himself with Miedl
contributing virtually nothing. “I [had] thereupon,” Göring
grieved later still, “twice paid out large sums of money to
Miedl.” Miedl had covered his tracks well. “I once tried,” re-
called Seyss-Inquart, then Nazi governor of Holland, “to probe
into it with police help. But the Reichsmarschall... blocked all
further investigations.” Originally Göring bragged of his “big art
killing” to his envious generals. Later, he admitted, he saw it in
an “altogether different light.”
After the war, the Dutch government claimed the restitu-
tion of the entire Goudstikker collection as “looted property.”
(Mrs. Goudstikker, of course, kept the purchase money in New
York.)
By the summer of , Nazi art experts were scouring oc-