Jonathan Petropoulos

I think the author is too concerned with establishing whether or not the princes, and other European royals, were "guilty", and whether we should regard them as good people. He repeatedly acknowledges that the available evidence is inadequate to the task of establishing either guilt or character, and yet he returns again and again to those questions. The result is what feels like wave after wave of speculation and qualification. I think it would have been a better book if he had focused on what he could prove actually happened, and if he had allowed readers to draw their own conclusions. It is overall a sympathetic portrayal of Europe's royal families.… (mais)

This is dated. Very much so. New revelations and the deaths of the people that got away with stealing, plundering and so much more has moved this tale of deceit, theft and politics beyond this very basic and sometimes grating essay on how in Nazi Germany the art world people collaborated, participated and ran the art trade for over a decade, got away with it and went back to it after the war.

I didn't learn much. Petropoulos' writing seems at times to take the words of the people he interviewed as truth and gospel. Which is disturbing because since then huge caches of stolen artworks by the same people were found in Swiss banks (in Lohse's case) or in old Munich apartment.

The people that stole from, the people that were despoiled have all but disappear now and there are thousand of works that will never be given back.

You can give this essay a pass it's unfortunately not up to date anymore.… (mais)