A charged biography of a notorious Nazi art plunderer and his career in the postwar art world'Ć'Äπ"[Petropoulos] brings Lohse into sharper focus, as a personality and axis point from which to explore a network of art dealers, collectors and museum curators connected to Nazi looting. . . . What emerges from Petropoulos's research is a portrait of a charismatic and nefarious figure who tainted everyone he touched."—Nina Siegal, New York Times"Readers of art history and WWII bi...

"What are we to make of those cultural figures, many with significant international reputations, who tried to find accommodation with the Nazi regime?" Jonathan Petropoulos asks in this exploration of some of the most acute moral questions of the Third Reich. In his nuanced analysis of prominent German artists, architects, composers, film directors, painters, and writers who rejected exile, choosing instead to stay during Germany's darkest period, Petropoulos shows how individuals variousl...

The link between Hitler's Third Reich and European royalty has gone largely unexplored due to the secrecy surrounding royal families. Now, in Royals and the Reich, Jonathan Petropoulos uses unprecedented access to royal archives to tell the fascinating story of the Princes of Hesse and the important role they played in the Nazi regime. Princes Philipp and Christoph von Hessen-Kassel, great-grandsons of Queen Victoria of England, had been humiliated by defeat in WWI and, like much of the Ge...

Nazi art looting has been the subject of enormous international attention in recent years, and the topic of two history bestsellers, Hector Feliciano's The Lost Museum and Lynn Nicholas's The Rape of Europa. But such books leave us wondering: What made thoughtful, educated, artistic men and women decide to put their talents in the service of a brutal and inhuman regime? This question is the starting point for The Faustian Bargain, Jonathan Petropoulos's study of ...

Nazi art looting has been the subject of enormous international attention in recent years, and the topic of two history bestsellers, Hector Feliciano's The Lost Museum and Lynn Nicholas's The Rape of Europa. But such books leave us wondering: What made thoughtful, educated, artistic men and women decide to put their talents in the service of a brutal and inhuman regime? This question is the starting point for The Faustian Bargain, Jonathan Petropoulos's study of ...

A charged biography of a notorious Nazi art plunderer and his career in the postwar art worldBruno Lohse (1911–2007) was one of the most notorious art plunderers in history. Appointed by Hermann Göring to Hitler's special art looting agency, he went on to supervise the systematic theft and distribution of over 22,000 artworks, largely from French Jews; helped Göring develop an enormous private art collection; and staged twenty private exhibitions of stolen art in P...

The gripping story of the fall of Heinrich Himmler--the man who sought to perfect genocide and who ultimately became the most hunted war criminal in history—during the convulsive final days of the Third ReichHeinrich Himmler, head of the SS, Gestapo, and Waffen-SS, rose to all but supreme power as architect of the concentration camps and commander of the murderous deportations, the mass sterilizations, and the gas chambers. In Himmler’s Last Days, acclaime...

The gripping story of the fall of Heinrich Himmler--the man who sought to perfect genocide and who ultimately became the most hunted war criminal in history—during the convulsive final days of the Third ReichHeinrich Himmler, head of the SS, Gestapo, and Waffen-SS, rose to all but supreme power as architect of the concentration camps and commander of the murderous deportations, the mass sterilizations, and the gas chambers. In Himmler’s Last Days, acclaime...