This is a re-post of a blog from earlier days. There never seems to be a wane in the interest of missing WWII art and even today, art and artifacts are being returned to their rightful owners. The blog:
The most amazing thing just happened. My latest book, Deadly Provenance, recently went online. It’s a fictional story of the Nazi looting of art during WWII, set against the backdrop of an authentic historical drama that is still unfolding today. That’s not the amazing part.
Alfred Rosenberg in Berlin
A central “character” in the book is the ERR or Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the Third Reich’s bureau, if you will, tasked with confiscating the precious art of Europe from “undesirables.” It was led by Alfred Rosenberg, fanatical henchman and confidante of Hitler, who also played a major role in the extermination of millions of Jews. So why is this amazing?
The long lost diary of Rosenberg has just been recovered. 400 pages that are now at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The diary is hand-written (that in itself is amazing!) and spans events from spring 1936 to winter 1944. It could offer insight into many occurrences that remain unclear today. For instance, there might be details about the Nazi occupation of the Soviet Union, or such incidences as the flight of Rudolf Hess to Britain in 1941.
My personal hope is that the pages shed light on the missing art pieces. Is it possible that in addition to formal ERR records of confiscated works, that perhaps Rosenberg mentioned some of these in the diary?
Still Life: Vase with Oleanders by Vincent van Gogh is one of those missing paintings and the one I focus on in my book. Did Rosenberg happen to make note of it in his diary? When he tried to steal it from a gallery in Paris but it had already been removed for safekeeping by the owners – the Bernheim Jeune family. Did he mention that it was found again, or not, when the place of safekeeping, the Château de Rastignac near Bordeaux, was burned to the ground?
Where is the missing van Gogh?
According to Haaretz, a Jewish world newspaper, Rosenberg “. . . elicits a rare consensus among many World War II historians: the man, they say, was a pretentious fool.” Besides being a monster of the highest order. But now his diary may shed light on history, assuming words of a pretentious fool are to be believed, and that he said anything worthwhile, and did not blather on about inconsequential personal events in his life.
Which brings me back to the original premise. Does history ever stop unfolding or are there always new discoveries and uncoveries that deny or confirm the facts as we know them? Think about how your writing can reflect all the many possibilities. Alternative histories or histories true to the last detail . . . until we find out otherwise.
For now, I’m hoping to read the text of Rosenberg’s diary when it becomes public. Maybe there are clues within it to help me hunt down that van Gogh. (See link: https://lynnekennedymysteries.com/the-hunt-for-the-missing-van-gogh/)
Oh. Did I mention I was going to do that?