Transcripts For CSPAN2 Mary Lane Hitlers Last Hostages 20240713

On ten occasions disney sea and has the honor of hosting restitution ceremonies where painting or other artifacts stolen by the nazis and their collaborators have been returned to the rightful owner. [applause] thank you. Some of you were with us last year. With the u. S. Attorneys office for the Southern District of new york here and we presented with a red one of stolen from a grandfather by the nazis. It was very moving event and we are proud to build on that with this series. We hope youll join us for the next event in this series. That will be recovering nazis looted art. They will discuss several cases and provide an overview of the ethical and legal issues involved in recovering Nazi Looted Art. We hope youll join us for the programmer that will be october 17 at 7 p. M. Tonight we welcome mary lane from the author of hitlers last hostages a fascinating new study of art the trace the roots of hitlers obsession with art and how its your decision of the perfect nazis did the authors of former chief european art reporter for the wall street u. S. Now european art contributed for the new york times. We are pleased to have her in conversation with Erin Thompson who is the wonderful destination being americas only fulltime as art crime. Following the conversation will have an audience q a to save up your questions. And following that hitlers last hostages will be on sale at the museum shop and often will also be available for a book signing in the main lobby with a colored and of your choice. [laughing] so i would like to welcome our lifestyle ideas for joining us i want to welcome our cspan viewers. We are going to watch a brief video about auschwitz not long ago not far away. Thats exhibition now on 50 museum and then a program will begin. Thank you very much. [applause] the deliberate destruction of art has been a technique of war since the war began because if you destroy the foundations of a peoples culture, their places of worship, the beautiful things they decorate their homes with, their proudest creative achievements, then you zap their spirits and undermine their ability to fight or even to identify as the people. Weve seen this in the last few years in the news and iraq in syria with the Islamic State destroyed mosques, shrines and ancient sites, and hundreds of thousands of people in that region saw the things they cherished destroyed and assumed it would be the next victims. At a low Risk Strategy for the Islamic State, resulted in a huge wave of refugees, a problem we are dealing with steel. So hitlers last hostages explores the many ways in which for hitler also the deliberate distraction and looting apart is a key strategy. Hitler wanted to control not only what the germans pahpa with this author you wanted to limit creativity to aryans alone. This book tells these stores but she tells stories of artists who courageously fought against hitlers proclamation, risking their lives to create art church also tells the story of other more cowardly artists who sought as hard as they could to follow hitlers proclamations whether they were about hating jews or about the proper use of canvas and paint. She tells enthralling stories about the victims of nazi art obfuscation and also about the machinations of profiteers who sold the confiscated art outside of germany to profit the nazis and themselves. Were fortunate tonight to a few of these stories. Mary, the book concentrates around one in the news story the fighting of when did you first hear of this story . 4 a. M. In november of 2013 i was actually here in manhattan as a chief european art reporter for the wall street journal, and i got a phone call. I was used to keeping my phone can both my phones on windows in the u. S. And it was active german time. An editor told me about 1300 works have been found in the apartment of a recluse whose father had been a dealer for the nazis, and he needed to book a plane and come back immediately and i had about 48 hours to write a story for the front page about this person i had never heard of that was rather terrifying. I just turned 20 sixth and i was the chief european report but this is in the middle of the new york art week, auction week that was a massive economic event but i booked that link and it went back and wrote the first of six page stories for the general about this. To but a very wild adventure that i was very unexpected. A lot of people written about this case. What do you think they have missed that your book includes . When i was originally headhunted to write the book by my agent, there was talk of doing just a bureaucracy of gurlitt which wouldve been interesting but it wouldve missed the Bigger Picture that gurlitt, the dealer for the nazis whose son had the works the German Government found is emblematic of a larger problem in germany, and of this fallout from the war and raising questions about art restitution. I deliberately, journalism is very in the moment thing but in writing the book i wanted to make it a broader story about how this is indicative of a larger trend and also to dig into a lot of the y that you have to time to dig into articles and thats why we made the very calculated choice of starting the book with hitler as a child. Because that is a topic with which many people are naturally uncomfortable. Because theres a difference between humanizing what he did in recognizing that he was human, a of the homo sapiens, and we need to see how someone is born and becomes antisemitic and then the book shows artists who fought most against him and for him, and then have that created the gurlitt situation that is still a part of today. Theres a lot of emotional pieces of the book. Is it anything really struck you that it personal residence. Was yes. I want to see if we can get this slide to work. Here we go. Im good at this. Yes. I would say it was different from journalism in many ways, but one how attached you get to certain characters of people. One of whom was this artist here, george gross. I found him come in terms of the artist obviously, a holocaust victim is having in its own right. But in terms of the artist i found him to be someone i found incredibly moving because he was a household name in germany before hitler to power. He made a very specific decision to fight against hitler, to fight against injustice. He was not jewish. He was protestant but he had a lot of jewish friends and he solves this rise in antisemitism in tolerance for womens right, for the right for many minorities and he really put his career on the line and made himself into an artistic political activist. You see here he created a work that was criticizing wasnt criticizing all of christianity. It was criticizing the politicization of christian teachings, and then you also see, theres a judge in the back that is criticizing political corruption in the judicial system. Here in the front you seem criticizing the bellicose nature of generals that got the country involved into world war i. Here is another work that again the nazis tried to say that this is criticizing christianity which it wasnt. It was criticizing the use of jesus as a reason to go to war. It created so much popularity actually worldwide that even the quakers in america who, god bless them, are not known for being art savvy people. Defended him and really praised his bravery, and he immigrated to america. He dealt with ptsd and eventually died of Substance Abuse issues. He is someone that i felt really attached to because when a lot of, i live between germany and america and what a lot of germans say, soandso didnt want to stick up for what was right because it might hurt their career, i point him out because he really did what was right. This is your first book. How different was writing it in writing for the journal of the times . Well, it was a bit of a whirlwind. I started writing for the journal as as a fulbright fellw when i was 22. They hired me at 23. I got headhunted to write the book at about 27ish. And now im 31. And it was a lot more isolating. I mean, i think the growth thing kind of speaks to that. In the art world alone are journalists are not frankly very good because they get sort of sucked into the whole parties and capitals and you go to yachts and theres a lot of wealthy people. That is an interesting fun part but you still have to keep your head about you. It is a lot more entertaining than just having hitler as your roommate for five years. Especially when youre working at home and you wake up and have your coffee and theres a book on hitler just sitting on the table. And especially one of the reasons that there are thousands of books out there about hitler and the nazis in world war ii, and there should be, one of of e things want to do with this book was to narrative nonfiction which means that it reads like a story but every quote is true and that takes a lot of time in virtually had to into peoples heads, which its nicer getting into the head of george gross then hitler. Soldiers were living with your subjects a little bit more and you would for an article. Did you ever get stuck . I dont think youre about to get stuck. I think the only times you get stuck, at least for me, are when you are either not sure what you want to say or you are scared of what you want to say. So i guess one example of getting stuck was writing about the death of the children of Joseph Goebbels because i wanted to on one to about it because i want to write about it as a tragic because it is. These are children of a horrible, evil nazi dictator but there are still five, six year old kids. I was scared people would think that my sink the death of the small children and the brainwashing of the small children is somehow needing to be compared to the death of jewish german children and not to cut tatian camps. Nazi concentration camps. Children of both jewish and nonjewish heritage were used and treated horribly during this time. And that something we should confront. What didnt make it in the book . There were i would say we tried, think a lot of american audiences shy away from graphic depiction of sexuality and graphic depictions of violence. More sexuality in particular, sexuality in women. That being said we wanted to be really calculated in a good way, considerate i would say, with what we put in. I remember making a list of all the female artists from the Weimar Republic public which we overlooked and then decided which artist of what to put in because they are relevant to this topic in which artists would we put in just because we feel like we need to put in female artists. A lot of female artists didnt make the cut which and when it i felt bad about but on the other hand, its just as patronizing not putting them because shes a female as to put fema artist in because shes a female. Same thing with the sexuality. There are certain discussions of malefemale sexuality that we put into the book and others when we thought its fortuitous. To the content of the book who was Hildebrand Gurlitt . This is another great painting actually that is amazing, showing political chaos in the problems that can happen as a result. Hildebrand gurlitt who is pictured here with his sister, amelia, who committed suicide before world war ii, and this is his home in dresden. He was the son of a prestigious art dealer, art historian in germany, and he served in world war i. When he did so, hildebrand got the idea he wanted to become an art dealer and art historian and art director. For an industrial town. He wanted to show modern and contemporary art the normal people and explain how wonderful it was. So after world war i, he became the director of the museum in industrial town, and he did just that and he promoted jewish german artist, female artists. He took a lot on the chin in the name of promoting contemporary art. Once hitler came to power, he had a choice to what he would stick his neck out for the artist or whether he was going to lay low or work with the nazis. He decided to lay low but when one of his friends became director of the Museum Project which was the project to create a museum in austria to have the best area art and then concurrently destroy degenerate art throughout europe, he decided to use his knowledge of modern art and his connections to help the nazis. Andy did so, working throughout the netherlands, germany, france. And on the side in addition to helping hitler, he amassed a trove of hundreds of artworks that were either ones that didnt quite fit into hitlers museum that were approved, or that were degenerate. He destroyed the promenades records which are the records that show with artwork has been into is owned it from the midand left the studio to the current moment. He managed to deceive the emoluments then when investigating. He even went so far as to ask jewish friends of his who had friends, who would move to america to send his family fresh socks and clothing. Just a lot of vulnerable jewish people, and people were not jewish but would also help the nazis so that a stake in the matter to write letters vouching for his credibility to the emoluments men, and he got awy with it. He died in 1956 and a car crash, and his son cornelius took over hiding the family collection, and essentially lived as a hermit for a long time until the German Government discovered this find in 2012. And how did they figure it out . Cornelius was on, the son of hildebrand, was on a train coming back from switzerland to munich where he lived that is now, even i am its just hard to know, is a kind of people quickly go on, you know, smuggling things. As one does. He was asked by the German Customs office when you cross the border if you have anything to declare. He said no. He acted somewhat suspicious, and they searched him and they found 9000 euros, so about 10,200ish in cash on him, which is below the legal limit of 10,000 to declare but it was increased 500 euro banknotes which are used typically to launder money. They made a note of it, and later Customs Officials searched his name and saw light, he doesnt seem to bureaucratically exist in the system and his dad was at this nazi art dealer. That ended up getting an award to to his house, and they found about 1300 1300 works of art ie house by matisse, gross, while different artists and the was a matisse owned by the Rosenberg Family which is and was taken off its stretcher and rolled up in a crate of canned tomatoes which is always another work by Max Lieberman was on the wall, and they took these works and they did not disclose them to the international community, which is what they had signed on to doing in 1998 as part of an agreement called the washington principles bayside in d. C. They kept in secret, and they did so until it leaked that love them when i wrote my first story. They maintain even after it leaked that this was purely a tax investigation which didnt have to do with art history or the fact that his dad was a nazi art dealer, you know, another important thing. Thats how it came into the public. So its cool to sell Nazi Looted Art as long as you pay taxes . I think thats the general just there. This is cornelius, and heres some of the works that are in the collection. These are two works by max beckman. The one on the right is very unmax so it is, just sort of a fun work. This one obviously a big nono for hitler, a black person and a white person interacting like normal humans. These two, this is called leonie which portrays one of the interesting things about this is the fortress of female sexuality more positive and other ones showing negative consequences of sex work such as district she looks tired, exhausted. This one is an antiwar peace, her son peter was killed in world war i and she felt as a mother torn over that. As any mother would. These two, this is very haunting portrait of katie after son died. This is petitioner which shows two women having sex, again, big nono. Would you do that in a second but yeah, there where a lot of degenerate works and Hildebrand Gurlitt clanking clinking manys private letters that he kept them to protect them within the glaring question is why would he not work to get them back to people after the war . I find i shouldnt use of the nazi strategy was to want to destroy all the that you are the first facility people outside of germany, make the cash and then will take over that country and destroy it later. Yeah. Alfred barr who is the head of, in new york trying to caution a lot of people in our world about that because the most famous example is the gallery fisher auction in switzerland where a lot of people, including the pulitzers, like this is great, a lot of weight artwork at bargain prices that barr said be careful because the money think it will fall down on you. That was a big, hitler always considered himself an artist first and the politician second. Thats sort of what he prioritized the taking of a culture before the actual taking over the territory. He followed the careers of artist quite closely including this guy. What happened to this . Dont get me started. So as you can see here, he was an older artist significantly older than hitler, when hitler took power. He was sort of considered, when we think of iconic american rock music and we think of bruce springsteen, for example. He was sort of like that but for german art. So what the time hitler took power in long before that he thought of just the iconic german artist, it would be him. When hitler came to power, nolan was in a very interesting position because he only had an established career. It was impossible to ignore who he was. The pros in the minds of the nazis was established artist, arian, married to an arian. If you cant i put a lot of things in quotes. He was very known for using these strong colors. He was from many germans considered the cradle of german culture. And loved portraying a strong Natural World of germany. The downside was that he was now four piece like this one in the gurlitt drove for portraying ethnic minorities in nonpandering ways. Yet some jewish friends and he loves using, to evoke feeling were as hitler was very much into photorealism, you need to paint it exact the way it looks. Hitler laid on actually was serious when he went to a hitler youth center and saw a kid drawing a dog with the green crayon. Because there are no green dogs. Idiot kids. And so he was in a very opposition and he actively decided to try to ingratiate himself with hitler. So Joseph Goebbels was a huge fan of his and a fight him to the 1933 november 10 anniversary where hitler was there and wrote about how wonderful was to hugh hefner without the filter of a radio. He immediately wrote the book called which is a clear risk on mein kampf, so it means years of struggle. In it he model the whole book, i own a First Edition in june, modeled the whole thing after mein kampf so we talks about german culture and how he met a jewish person when he was 17 and the jewish person said he had sort of an instinctual need to bed everywoman including a child. This is so obviously characteristic of jewish people and this whole screed. And he really tried to be part of hitlers group. Even denounced an artist name max who is not jewish but his income he told the nazi its his rival, okay, its jewish. Max was like im not jewish. I also dont like jews. It ruined his career. It backfired. Hitler decided he didnt like him and he became the most featured artists with 27 works in the 1927 sorry, 1937 degenerate art exhibit in munich. He fashioned himself as, he st of went off into the countryside and sort of disappeared for the rest of the war. Afterwards, he fashioned himself as a victim of the regime, which is true but not until he tried to join the regime. Thats something ive an article today out coincidentally, i promise, in art news and sort of how his estate only now is coming come to terms with the fact that he was very antisomatic and the estate covered it up antisomatic. I remember researching this book and buying can i do look and if you guys guy but theres a part in family guy where brian and stewie arno butts in munich and doing a tour and brian points out everything is missing in te tour guide between 19331945, the tour guide is like we were on vacation. [laughing] it was very when the first things i did writing this book was i bought the definitive biography, like carbon pages in german and there would like to pages in 19321945. I was like it literally said things were stressful so i decided to take a break and go on vacation. I was like that is him in a nutshell. Especially when you compare him to gross who raced his whole career, to stand up for what was right, i found those two artists very, very striking in their differences on how they would help defend freedom and the jewish people. Speaking of vacation and to show, i first began to learn about the importance of culture to the nazi regime when i was in graduate school for archaeology and went to greece in january. They wouldnt send me during the summer because my skull said you would have too much fun during the summer so we will send you during the winter. I went to this tiny archaeological site with an old hotel, and i signed in, hate for my room and the owner said heres the key to group and heres the key to the hotel because the hotel does not eat at my house does and ongoing home. Spent the night by myself and this hotel. The next when woke up he came back and was cooking breakfast and said heres the register, let me show you the guestbook. Heres where gullible side and caring and the high ranking nazis had been sent on vacation to see the archaeological sites. That was quite the experience. I survived. Very glad. You wrote in the book hitler believed hiding the war on degenerate culture was equally as important as fighting to expand their territory. Why was that . Why did he believe that . Well, i think he was very shrewd in noting that if he had just gone to the german people who had jewish neighbors, gay neighbors, my naughty neighbors and said, hey, all these people are horrible, and the culture you living in now is bad, lets go in rate poland, they would not necessarily gone along with it. He came along a time when there was a new social media, if you will, radio, and to a limited extent tv. Certainly newsreels in the cinema. He realized that he needed to control the culture and control people daytoday interactions with art, with music, with radio, basically the social media of the time, before and he would get them acclimated in that way and alienated from Cultural Diversity in that way, and then move into actual violence. And people think of the start of the war, particularly this year with the anniversary, they think of september of 1939 when he invaded poland, that he really came to power in 1933, became pure in 1934. He started in 1933 october is when he laid the cornerstone of the house of german art in munich which is now called the house of art. Still amusing. And featured here. As you can see part of my book cover. He realized he needed to capture the culture before he could move on to actual physical violence and that was a way that i think he was able to do the censorship of a culture and a lot of people said its just art, music, it doesnt really matter. That was the gateway into the actual Eugenics Program of full somebody do the math for me six years before ever doing an actual engagement. Again what was striking to me was how alone the repercussions of hitlers artistic policy has been. So the gurlitt horde discovered should be publicized. No, its kept secret, only becomes public once the noose is leaked. The owners, descendents of owners come forward immediately. I remember this on the wall of our family home, art is not returned to them. The german sake the statute of limitations has expired and he never charge Cornelius Gurlitt with a cry for they met and donate the artwork to a museum in switzerland and this is still Ongoing Investigation with seemingly no end as if in art will be returned. What do you think shouldve happened to this art . I think what shouldve happened shouldve happened in 1998. In 1998 Stuart Eisenstadt who is american side of the why and saying his name with a german accent, he is the special envoy for holocaust issues. He was appointed like clinton. Every administration has kept them on since. In 1998 he organized the washington principals conference in d. C. And germany along with several other countries signed on to the washington principles which is a multibullet point thing, one of which says if looted art is facility will bee public to the International Immunity and anyone who has evidence will be held to the full extent by several countries. Germany to doctor germany still has not. Even in this case. I think that that shouldve been codified before the gurlitt case concern after. Also, yes, i think its understandable countries have statute of limitation on theft that many countries has an exception for works looted between or stolen between 193345 people the one good reason to assume were victims of the holocaust. So jews would be a good example there. The German Government does not have that exception, those were not in place when this happened so i think it was very frustrating one, i have loved living in germany so this is not some sort of an bashing of german culture, but people in germany are very particular about partitioning. This is my job, this is not my job. And this is legal, it doesnt necessarily matter whether it is law because it is legal. That is something very much came into play with the gurlitt case is you would have Officials Say you can legally owned this work and they wouldnt necessarily put soft pressure on him to give the work back. You can contrast this as the family wanted back this matisse painting which will see in the second called woman with a fan, and gurlitt was legally entitled to own it. At the same time they were trying to get back a matisse painting out of norway from a museum. That use them, Hildebrand Gurlitt definitely knew where this work came from, but that use and had bought in good faith. Because they bought it in good faith they legally could own under norwegian law. The norwegian government came out and said we cant make you give this back but it would be nice if you did and maybe we can work on a solution to get you a different painting. The museum ended up returning to work to the rosenbergs. I remember going to the german cup and say iq can legally make him give this back unless you change the law, but now you cant. But perhaps you could come out with a statement this is it would be nice if you did. And they just were like, no. I think there needs to be its always a tricky question of differences between what is moral and what is legal. I dont think its moral to go around criticizing someones appearance but its legal. There needs to be a reckoning of how much we need to align our morals with our laws in these types of situations in the german. Theres also the question of whats possible because so much of history and information has been lost. The rosenbergs were successful in claiming this piece because they could prove it. They had the ownership records. So why have other pieces not yet gone back to families . Heres a rosenberg, the matisse and this is a lieberman work that is two writers on the beach which is, belonged to a man who live in new york, peter tauran, whose parents were murdered in auschwitz. He survived not only an attempted deportation auschwitz but 9 11. Lightning strikes twice. I think in many cases yes, it is incredibly unfortunate that come for example, gurlitt purposely collected many works on paper, because theyre easy to transport, and then, and height, and because often easier to hide where they came from your so if an artist creates five different very similar sketches, how do you prove your sketch is this sketch, especially if someone has destroyed the documentation . That is definitely a problem in the rail is a lot of works, even if the German Government did absolutely everything that the good, a lot of the documentation is just gone. But its also true that in cases like these when these images leaked to the media, these families had proof that these were their works, the only ones created. They had all the documentation and it was still impossible to get them back because the statute of limitations had expired and the German Government was not helping as much as they could have. So you explain that those allies in charge of the denazification concluded those who committed Violent Crimes should take authority of disciplining nonviolent criminal such as those who collected and displayed art stolen, even though as you explain the goal is purifying culture was very important to the nazis. Do you agree with this prioritization of what you think its in packs have been . Well, its impacts. Its deathly true that human life is more valuable than objects and i dont think anything, theres a reason why if i steal your kid and destroy your kid, that as a longer prison sentence and if i steal your purse and rip it up. So i think its completely understandable and good that the initial priority was prosecuting people who actually destroy human life. Because that is sacrosanct. Thats paramount. That being said, actually not a lot of people got the Death Penalty for doing that. But i think now that we are 70 plus years on there has been plenty of time and certain, funny of resources to look at what we call hitlers last hostages which of these artworks that are still being held, physical item still being held and families do deserve to have those returned. That is something that again to circle back to hitlers destruction of culture, the preservation of that culture and the restitution of that culture is something that now that, now that so many people who could be prosecuted are dead, you know, the fight should very much be focused on the objects now. So whats changed in germany since the gurlitt case broke . Well, i think ordinary germans are much more aware of the case. I think, i mean, anecdotally, like my friends who are german are much more aware of this being an ongoing problem. But they still have that fixed a lot of the legislative protections for people who own these works. And i think one thing, one thing that struck me, and change, gradual change is hard, and is often one step forward, two steps back, but but there was an exhibition last year in both bond which is a former capital of west germany and baron where gurlitt artworks are now. It was in exhibition called status report gurlitt. I went to both exhibitions, and one thing that struck me, and a talk about this in the book in the epilogue, because the book had to end somewhere, so the last chapter is for sale at south a beast of two writers but the epilogue talks last year. I went to the exhibitions and i noticed on a wall they had the promenades of, as is standard that the name of the work, the year and a and discuss what went on the beginning of the works of creation to now. There were a mysterious number of works that had it listed as private collection, southern germany. I called the organizer and i said these are clearly in the collection of the brother and he was like, yeah and so what happens if any of these works are related . And he was like, is that relevant . And i was like im thinking yes. And he just said i said, its not like any of these works are related, anytime or is in anexhibition its value is up. And i was like okay, this is upping the value of the work and this is a taxpayerfunded exhibition upping the value of the work and if any of these works are looted, there is no way to get them back to theiroriginal owners. So she says im an art historian and that would be for politicians to deal with and i called politicians, politicians are like were just not art historians. Thats not really our role and you feel like you are in some sort of nazi themed version of that book are you my mommy . Are you the person who deals with this . So a lot of it is very much tapping around the football which is not great. Or their passing around the soccer ball. Tough joke so i think people are becoming more transparent about it. When you look at the recent research to expose the past a lot of that isdriven by the internet and the fact that you cant keep that quiet anymore. But there was a Justice Minister who was a Justice Minister where all this played out as is essentially the attorney general and i remember his calling me and he was very confused with why so many people, this was when i was at the journal. He was confused with why so many people in america and so many in the Jewish Community worldwide were upset with how this was being played out the customer after all this was a tax investigation, this wasnt an investigation about art and i remember telling him if you knew something had been stolen, this picture or whatever you want, the mona lisa , imagine if a traffic cop pulled over a car for having a busted taillight and they see the mona lisa in the back and theyre like its the mona lisa im just a traffic cop. I dont deal with stolen art. People would be very angry if they found out that this traffic cop done didnt also say you know what . I smell a rat, you might need to deal with this to and to his credit he went and did this very rousing harassment goes to berlin. He did this speech in the upper house of parliament and he did it on valentines day a few years ago and he just said he went to school with falconer, this is always also in my book and he said lets just write this wrong and if you look at the german protocol which is the minutes theres an explanation plan which is having lived there for 10 years i can count the numberof times. And it was very rousing. And he was like, lets make things right and then the next discussion was about regulatory procedures for altering the codification of real estate in cities so youre like okay, that didnt go quite as well as jimmy stewart. But the point is that some people have tried yes , theres a lot of progress to be made. It seems to me the current topic for debate in germany about Cultural Heritage isnot about this at all. Its about colonial era collection. Earlier this year german cultural authorities got together and signed an agreement that they would start to return objects collected from german colonies under forests or really from unwilling populations. And i have to say before reading your book i was more optimistic about this but now it might be the next washington principal in terms of this is a stoploss agreement, its not legally binding and no progress has been made. Issues like this continue to remind me that we are in an era of asking questions about art, about who deserves access to art. Who should own it, who should be allowed to see it, who can make art, who can log art and hitler had a definite set of answers to these questions and whence we drag our feet and we refuseto ask the hard questions we unwittingly perpetrate his answer. That is not acceptable. We need to ask these hard questions and hitlers, your book is helping us do so. [applause] and mary has agreed to take a few questions and i think theres a microphone coming around. The microphone is coming so if you have a question you can raise your hand and we will come down with the microphone. We have 2 over here. I have a question regarding the process for writing this. Excuse me. Obviously there is a lot of research. Was that research yours and what about the outline of doing this. How long did it take you to your out what the art of this story or the art of this or was it just print journalism, you began here and youre going to end here. And you know, damn the torpedoes. With regard to this first question, the research is mine. Often i worked on the advice of certain holocaust experts like Richard Evans and and kershaw everything is footnoted. I did not have an assistant. Sometimes i wish i had. My husband is kind of my assistant. God love him. So i think and refer to your second question i had hunted to write a book in 2014. Signed the contract in 2015, and then from 2015 until about 10 months ago was writing the book. Because its narrative nonfiction for quite a while because for example, everybody knowshitler did not like jews. But you know, i wanted to make it come alive for you so if i say in the book it was hitler gave a speech in this letter and said this quote and the crowd was the size and reacted this way, i put all of that. I dontjust make it up. And so i would say yes, thats how long it took for the research, about four years and then in terms of the art, there were a few unexpected people that sort of became bigger part of the story than i thought. I made matisse less a part of the story. And i originally had. But ultimately my goal both what the book was not as by accent and the final product was i think a lot of researchers dont really stop and think okay, why is it important and think x is important and a lot of what i was trying to do is show the people who are smart but not necessarily in this world why something is important so that was part of the overarching narrative here. Why did hitler become antithat . What is this still a problem, why did this artist cooperate and discard theartist didnt so does that answer your question . For the research in the midst she confidentialsources and she totally wouldnt tell me who they were. Yes maam. When he was on the train with the b,9000, what was he doing . Was he selling paintings on the black market to private collectors who could never say what it was or washe selling to museums or what was going on . He had several, he had to swiss bank accounts. Possibly more. One of which was managed by ubs. And he was in switzerland with withdrawing cash so what hewould do is when he needed money , for himself or his sister he would sell a work through one of a few different option houses in smaller ones. In germany and switzerland, he would sell the work then he would take cash for it read and then he was withdrawing cash from his bank account there. To slip up so he would make a trip back to switzerland every several months to get cash and thats whathe was doing in that case. A few people here. Thank you. At the trial of eichmann in israel in 1961, there was an indication that he had a collection of art. It was that ever located, did he have any knowledgeof that . I have to say obviously i have followed the trial but i think doering was more of a prominent collector so eichmann might have had some pieces. But maybe thatwill be my next book. I actually dont know. I think if he had some, it would most certainly be more of a minor thing and boring but i dont know i will look into that. Thank you for your time today, both of you. Do you think really bow when were talking about that hitler started with culture, music, the arts. Isnt that simply a way of controlling people and sending them a to accept what you want to do next . The invasions and things of that nature meeting your controlling what theyre hearing. On radio, music theyre listening to. The artwork they can see and youre setting them up to be the women giving birth was the most important thing and having more aryan children and setting up a culture so that when you next want to take what could otherwise have been unthinkable steps, people are no longer thinking for themselves. Their thinking the way you want them to think thats why he would start a culture before violence. Is absolutely right read a lot of the art at thetime , as you can see these images is more in my book, a lot of the art was depicted, yeah. One of the things, theres a misconception that degenerate art was art created by jewish germans. Certainly some of the artist were jewish german but the majority were not. It was the content of the art or than the people creatingit. So if youre depicting a woman being happy with her sexuality or depicting a jewish person just doing a normal thing and being a human like the rest of us, that was what was considered objectionable content. So the more you can censor people seeing other types of people as normal, the more you can censor criticism of the war through works that showed the trauma of world war i, the more you can print people to accept a certainway and change. Maybe one more question. As many questions as you have. Ill sit here forever. Any other questions . Yes maam. [inaudible] yes, he would go throughout europe and get works, part of why he liked getting works on paper is because they are pretty easy to transfer. Even now if people buy a work on paper its said to be in christies but i know collectors that will buy something worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars as oil on paper and put it in a briefcase and if there carry on. So he deliberately picked work from paper or off stretchers because you can roll them up and set them in your suitcase fairly easy. Yes maam. [inaudible] you mean heart that the nazis approved of . And by legitimizing you mean . Going to bring the mic down so if you wouldnt mind asking it into the mic. Hes asking with my going back and forth to germany if theres any movement to legitimize or show artthat the nazis approved up and created. Thats a great question. I think germans are a little too shy on this. There was an exhibition a few years ago at the house of art in munich which is what is called now and it was pretty easily the heart house of german art. It has a really good bar. Hitler would notbe proved pleased with that if youre ever in munich. They have an exhibition that showed some of art that hitler approved the and commissioned and a lot of germans were critical of that. I think it should be shown. I think its important to show what he wanted to do and what you wanted to accomplish area a lot of it is quite boring because surprised, when you strip all creativity , art, youre kind of not going to have much to go on. So theres been limited showing of it. There is a lot of that work does exist and unless its distorted meaning but much to my personal chagrin, it isnt shown as much as it should be i think it should be its a lot like mine,. People are scared to read it but if you read it its so boring. I owned several copies and its so boring. Theres this idea of it being this people have this idea that its this sort of mythical magical work with like different powers but theres an entire section just aboutarranging chairs. Like really . Yes and. Theres a disturbingly large market for hitlers own artwork. So large that theres not a lot of face so dont like it was artwork because its probably not about hitler. Theres a difference between buying and looking at it from anacademic perspective. Did she get the fear, this woman disappeared, she still there. Shes alive. My only memory was two or three years ago because i go every year there was an exhibit of those pictures in the museum of jewish art. And maybe you can look into it. It was a very interesting exhibit with a lot of the paintings portrayed at the time. The movements, the colors and all these workers been to be shown. Good point. We will take one more question. I think we haveone in the back. You had mentioned that you had lived in germany for quite a few years and you acted with culture, the majority of americans who go there dont obviously the way youhave. You think that there is an attitude among the german or at least the politicians and people in power that weve paid the jews back enough . Stop bothering us about this. Its not worth our time. You get a sense of that . I think certainly a lot of jewish people out of germany definitely feel that way. There is peter tour and whos a son of david torrin who was given back, i guess its not there anymore but to writers on the beach, he had a quote in the book, hes a writer in his 50s. America and he says that the sort of general sense that he gets from certain politicians is that hes 50 so he wasnt even alive at the time, we should just shut up and be happy living in america so a lot of people feel thatway. I think that you do have some politicians who want to try to make things right but i think the dirty little secret of politics in a Representative Government is that if there is not a lot of movement from the people elected you to say you this for we wont reelect you, then what is the incentiveto do that. So i think from my perspective its you could very much say that a lot of these areprioritized. But the real question is should putting these politicians in power and its the people and they are not prioritizing it cause i think you would be hardpressed to find a politician had a case in a constituency that said you need to do somethingabout this or where not going to reelect you. Im breaking the rule. Ive been here before. These two then yes. I think its more than politicians. I think the fact that antisemitism unfortunately does exist and from a personal point of view i think thats whats driving the politicians not to give back. To the jews have lost the art pieces. We have one more comment orquestion and we will wrap it up. I want to know about hitlers childhood, was there anything in his childhood that you saw that foreshadowed what you might become . Im interested in parts. The question, i would direct you to chapter 1 in the book. Portrait of a dictator as a young man. I think people, thats something that people sort of shy away i mentioned this, people shy away from writing about his childhood because its is uncomfortable to think about how baby hitler, oneyearold hitler was not a genocidal evil person. He was just a oneyearold who couldnt talk and needed his diapers changed so then the question is i think people like to think he was just born this way. Certainly he may have been born with certain psychological traits that predated is becoming a genocidal dictator actually, one interesting thing that we cover in chapter 1 is how he was born in town that didnt did not particularly have an antisomatic problem. They gave out a citizen of the year award every year and when he was a kid the rabbi got. There was one and consummate attack against some jewish people in a house and the whole town rallied behind they were able to suefor damages. He had jewish kids in his class, and his family was pretty just not really antisemitic. I mean, his dad was a little crazy but not anticement. But what made him antisemitic and i guess thats what were grasping for is what made him anticement. Really it was actually at the end of world war i. He went and fought in world war i area he was convinced germany was going to win and this was going to beeasy, it was going to be over in peace. And thats not what happened. And then you get hit with reparations. You get hit with an economic crisis and the rest of the world hating you and he needed someone to blame area couldnt believe this was a failed war. And that this was an economic downturn due to german financial policy. And so he needed someone to blame and thats when he became, he was a bout very a choice and he picked jewish citizens so in his childhood, he was a bit of a rowdy student. He didnt really like going to class or listening to his teachers what many people are and that doesnt make them hitler. Yes, it wasnt until his National Identity came into crisis that he became virulently anticement. That sounds disturbingly familiar. Were going to close it up here but mary and erin, thank you so much for joining us. [applause] and theres going to be abook signing in the lobby. Coming up, Investigative Reporter ben westhoff discusses book fentanyl inc. , how rogue tennis are creating the deadliest way of the opioid epidemic. Historian Richard Brooke kaiser provides a look at how the us developed 13 documents including theconstitution and declaration of independence. Clyde ford, author of think black recall the challenges his father John Stanley Ford face as the first africanamerican Software Engineer at ibm. Youre watching a special edition of book tv erin during the week while members of congress are in their districts due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tonight the Supreme Court, First Supreme Court associate justice neil dorset reflect on his 30 year career and offers his thoughts on the judiciary and u. S. Constitution. And Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader didnt for counter life and time on the high court. She spoke at thenational book festival in washington dc. Later, legal analyst and Supreme Court biography showed this to be profile chief justice john roberts. Enjoy book tv now and over the weekend. Cspan has roundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the pandemic. And its all available on demand cspan. Org coronavirus what white house briefings, update from governors and state officials, track spread throughout the us and the world with interactive maps. Watch on demand any time, unfiltered at cspan. Org coronavirus