off by abusing Hanesse loudly as they toured the little gallery.
Archival documents dated that day number among them valua-
tions by Göring’s tame assessor, Professor Beltrand, on fifty-
eight items, including Van Goghs, a Corot, and (at ten thousand
francs) Utrillo’s “Suburban Street,” which latter the Reichsmar-
schall proposed to exchange for Jodocus de Momper’s “The
Rock Chapel.” Further documents surviving from this jaunt in-
cluded a bill of lading typed by the Rosenberg task force and
headed: “The following items were loaded aboard the
Reichsmarschall’s special train today” listing seventy-seven
crates of confiscated, bartered, or privately purchased paintings,
tapestries, floor- and wall-coverings, and other bric-à-brac, in-
cluding a carved oak-and-pewter washstand, seven fragments of
an ancient sarcophagus, bronze and marble statuary, and silver
plate. A further Rosenberg list dated this same November ,
, described thirteen priceless carpets and silk rugs that he
had bought. Among the other items loaded aboard Asia on the
twenty-fifth were five Scipio tapestries, purchased for . mil-
lion francs, a Salomon Koninck portrait of an old man in a red
beret, and a Cranach for which he had forked out fifty thou-
sand Swiss francs. Stalingrad, it seems, had been forgotten.
The Utrillo purchase illuminated the unsavory demi-
monde into which his passion for art dealings had propelled
him. Seeking high protectors, the Paris dealer Allan Löbl, an
Austro-Hungarian Jew, offered Göring the priceless art library
of the Kleinberger Gallery as a gift. Not wanting to obligate
himself to a Jew by accepting a gift, Göring instructed Bruno
Lohse to give Löbl the Utrillo in exchange. Suspecting that his
charmed existence might not last forever, Löbl then suggested
that he and his brother Manon Löbl should act as stool pigeons
for Göring in Paris. On June , , Lohse would suggest to
the Reichsmarschall that he formally request the Gestapo to