to the possible liberation of my wife, said simply in
English, “I will see what I can do.”Unsurprisingly, Wilkinson’s wife was freed from custody, and
he told her of Göring’s visit. “We both agreed,” the Englishman
wrote to him, “that we wanted you to have ‘Juliana’ always, to
thank you for what you so modestly did for [us].”
The Reichsmarschall’s unsavory business tactics rubbed off
on his already streetwise agents. On September , , Hofer
would apologize in a letter that he had bought only one picture
for him at Hans Lange’s latest auction because of their runaway
prices, but bragged that he had snapped up for . million
francs some bargains from the Jeu de Paume depot, including
seven Camille Corots, three Honoré Daumiers, four Claude
Monets, five Renoirs, a Vincent van Gogh, an Henri de Tou-
louse-Lautrec, and assorted sketches and watercolors, all from
the collection of “the Jew Paul Rosenberg” and all “eminently
suitable for swapping.” Since Beltrand had valued them above
their original asking price, Hofer had insisted on paying the
latter. Currency agents, he further reported to Göring, had im-
pounded Georges Braque’s personal art collection at Bordeaux,
but here there was a snag: Braque was not a Jew, so they would
have to release his collection. “I have dealt with him in person
about his Cranach of a girl,” wrote Hofer, knowing of Göring’s
weakness for this painter. “And I have hinted that the collection
may be restituted to him more quickly if he agrees to part with
the Cranach to us!!!” Nazi agents had also discovered in Paris a
Rubens and an Anthony Van Dyck. “I am having inquiries made
whether the owner is a Jew,” Hofer notified Göring. “Meanwhile
the paintings remain in the bank’s safekeeping.”
By October , , no fewer than paintings, sculp-
tures, tapestries, and articles of furniture would have found