francs. They tell the lady the purchaser wants to see the tapestry
... So she has to come too, and finds out she’s coming to the
Reichsmarschall. By the time she arrives, the price has rocketed
to three million.” (Göring sued the vendor in the French courts
to enforce the original price.)
“Göring,” reported the OSS in , “fought shy of crude,
undisguised looting; but he wanted the works of art and so he
took them, always managing to find a way of giving at least the
appearance of honesty.” Questioned on how Göring bought the
magnificent Emil Renders collection of Flemish primitives for
twelve million Belgian francs, Miedl insisted that the vendor had
sold willingly (and Hofer’s files bear him out). One advantage
was that Göring often paid well over the going price, as Hitler’s
art agent Karl Haberstock told one Reichsminister with a know-
ing smirk.
Though they usually conformed to the laws of an other-
wise lawless age, Göring’s methods were often unbecoming. Vis-
iting Paris late in he called at the Quai d’Orléans home of
an Englishman, Don Wilkinson, whose wife had been interned.
“My dear Marshal Göring,” this Englishman wrote him a year
later, enclosing a snapshot of a painting:
Do you recall this, our favorite portrait? It is that
of one of Germany’s noblest women, Juliana von Stol-
berg [–, mother of William of Orange],
which hangs in our small living room and has become
one of our family circle.
When here, you turned this portrait towards the
light admiringly. Noting your interest, someone be-
hind you asked rather too eagerly, “Is it for sale?”
Do you remember how you let the picture swing
softly back against the wall and, going to the window,
gazed out over the Seine? Then, your impatience
passed, you quietly turned back to me and, referring