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Budapest Times
01-06-2025
- Politics
- Budapest Times
Scrabbling for spoils amid a terrible lot of death
Germany's National Socialists, call them Nazis, wanted to expand the country's lebensraum, its living space, by crushing other nations and murdering Jews, Slavs and Bolsheviks supposedly inferior to their "superior' Aryan selves. And, of course, there were lots of nice paintings and other objets d'art to be picked up along the way, so those were fair game too. Biographer Jonathan Petropoulos writes of a prominent offender, Bruno Lohse, and doesn't directly raise the incongruity that while many milllions of soldiers and civilians were being slaughtered in the combat zones, there was a parallel murky world of greed and corruption where the prevailing environment was simply profiteering from persecution and theft. Readers will surely pause to see the parallel themselves. And there was a pecking order for the spoils. Naturally, the Führer, Adolf Hitler, had first choice, for his planned monumental Führermuseum in Linz, his boyhood town in annexed Austria. Second dibs went to Hermann Wilhelm Göring, Hitler's most loyal supporter, then to ideological schools and museums. It was shocking criminality, and Nazi art agents sometimes competed with each other, while some 'filthy' Jewish families were less 'filthy' than others if they had collections and wealth enough to allow them to bargain their way out of the cattle trucks and Zyklon B. And German agents were not above trading 'degenerate' modernist art, for more-prized Old Masters. Göring (1893-1946) was an all-powerful figure in the Nazi Party, having established the Gestapo secret political police and concentration camps for the 'corrective treatment' of undesirables. He headed the Luftwaffe, the air force, and was Reichsmarschall, highest rank in the Wehrmacht armed forces. Göring often dressed in hunting costume, to link himself to landed society in particular and country life in general. And he was especially keen to project himself as a kind of Renaissance man, a collector not only of hunting trophies but also of art. He began collecting in a modest way in the 1920s and more ambitiously in the mid-1930s, but the outbreak of World War Two in 1939 and the conquest of much of Europe and a large swathe of the Soviet Union, offered the possibility of almost limitless acquisition. Insatiable, he used his impregnable position to enrich himself and build what he boasted after his capture in 1945 was the finest private collection in Europe (a disputed claim). He had a vast forest estate in the Schorfheide, north of Berlin, where from 1933 he developed a baronial set-up named Carinhall, and it was here that he kept the bulk of his hoard. Göring could not tell a good painting from a bad one, but he employed professional experts to scour Europe for paintings, sculptures, tapestries, jewellery, carpets, fragments of Roman buidings; all he could lay his hands on. Much enrichment came from Jewish collections in the occupied countries, and many gifts from those who sought his favour. By the end of the war he had, besides some 1700 paintings, 250 sculptures, 108 tapestries, 200 pieces of antique furniture, 75 stained-glass windows, 60 Persian or French rugs and 175 other various pieces. The pictures included many by Brueghel, Cranach, Rembrandt, Rubens, Ruysdael, Tintoretto, Titian and Van Dyck. He went to great lengths to avoid being considered a looter. But behind the scenes he used currency manipulation and pressure of various kinds to effect gifts and purchases at the lowest prices. He carried devalued Reichsmarks. Göring's bloodhound in occupied Paris was Dr. Bruno Lohse (1911-2007), the deputy director of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the ERR, a new and secretive Nazi organ tasked with looting Jewish-owned cultural property. Lohse initially was conscripted into the German Army to fight in Poland, but he had a PhD in art history was approached by the ERR. Its sole purpose was to plunder Europe, though it had tentacles, basically following the German Army. When Lohse arrived at the ERR headquarters in Paris he found art looting on an industrial scale. The organisation stole whatever it could lay its hands on, whether a painting of really no value except to the family, furniture, tables, plates, cutlery, candlesticks. And France was the place for art — or more valuable art – more so than any other part of Europe. One estimate is that the ERR stole one-third of all the art in private collections in the country; the Rothschilds, Alphonse Kann, David-Weills and other great Jewish families. The machinations to grab the Schloss family artworks make particularly eye-opening reading. The Göring connection made Lohse among the most promient individuals in the ERR. He felt he was king of Paris, armed with a pass from the Reischmarschall that allowed him to travel freely and buy what he wanted. Lohse helped his patron commandeer some 700 pictures from ERR in Paris, with Göring never parting with a pfennig. Petropoulos, who is a European history professor at Claremont McKenna College in California, US, ranks Lohse in the top five of history's all-time art looters. The author met him for the first time in Munich in 1998 after writing to seek an interview for a book he was writing about the complicity of art experts in Nazi plundering ('The Faustian Bargain. The Art World in Nazi Germany' published in 2000). By the late 1990s, most of the Nazi art experts who helped loot European Jews were either dead or living quiet lives under the radar, but not so Lohse. Over the next nine years, he and Petropoulos met more than two dozen times, and the author was invited to Lohse's Munich flat, where he saw on the walls Expressionist works and Dutch Old Masters worth millions. Lohse would often pull out a box of old photographs and mementos, allowing Petropoulos to peer over his shoulder and to pepper him with questions. Lohse died in 2007 and bequeathed the box to Petropoulos, who used it as source material for the new 'Göring's Man in Paris: The Story of a Nazi Art Plunderer and His World'. Lohse's large walk-in bank vault in Zurich was found to hold works by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Corot and Wouwerman, confirming suspicions that at the ERR he slyly siphoned off pieces to sell or keep for himself. Petropoloulos tackles the questions of how Lohse amassed such works, what do we learn about the nexus of culture and barbarism, and what of the post-war networks that grew and the fate of much Nazi-stolen art? There were challenges in writing about Lohse, such as separating his stories from the truth, the dearth of archival sources, the culture of silence among the participants and their general desire to conceal this history. The author determines that the physically imposing Lohse was personally involved in emptying Jewish homes and boasted to a German officer that he had beaten Jewish owners to death 'with his own hands'. The biographer learned that the wartime networks of Nazi dealers did indeed persist into peacetime, individuals such as Lohse growing prosperous selling to museums and collectors, often cashing in on goods with complicated wartime pasts. Lohse was jailed at the end of the war and investigated. He was tried and acquitted in France in 1950 then returned to the art trade from his new base in Munich, where other former Nazi art experts had also gone back to work, trading mostly within a 'circle of trust' in Germany and Switzerland. Göring avoided being hanged as a war criminal by taking poison. Lohse was imprisoned in France for about two and a half years and faced charges of pillaging but was unexpectedly acquitted in 1950, perhaps due to poor prosecuiton, good defence and other vague factors. Some 20 percent of items stolen in France remain out there somewhere. It's all quite a story.
Buzz Feed
07-05-2025
- General
- Buzz Feed
A Non-American Asked Why The "American Lean" Is A Thing, And The Responses From Americans Are Hilarious And Sad
You may have heard that one of the ways non-Americans pick out American tourists is by the "American lean." That is to say, we tend to lean against objects or shift our weight to one foot when we're waiting around. Apparently, there's some truth to this: According to former CIA chief of disguise Jonna Mendez, Europeans think Americans are "a little slouchy" and the CIA would train spies to stand up straighter in order to better blend in overseas. But why do Americans do this? Redditor Raski_Devora asked the people of Reddit that very question, and honestly, the responses from Americans were a little TOO real. A lot of explanations basically boiled down to "we feel awkward." "I didn't know it was an American thing, but I often feel awkward just standing there. Leaning against something makes me feel less awkward, I guess? I donno. It's kinda like asking why Slavs squat. It's just what we do, I guess." — Santos_L_Halper Because frankly, standing completely squarely would make you look suspicious, don't you think? "Who the f**k stands with both feet firmly planted? What are you bracing yourself for, the emotional impact of finding out you're a dork?" — bipocni I mean, you're just cooler when you lean. "Cuz we posted up straight chillin at all times" — Embarrassed-Buy-8634 Maybe we're just too cool, ever thought of THAT? "Americans are less formal in most situations, good posture is less emphasized. It's cool. Think James Dean or fashion models." — No-Oil-1669 However, most comments landed on a specific issue: It feels like we're never allowed to sit. "American and I've gotta lean on everything because every job I worked was aggressively against us sitting in case the customers saw us comfortable, I guess? There's a weird notion that sitting equals lazy." — pickleruler67 I mean, how often do you see a cashier sitting? Rarely. "Every retail job I had acted like a customer seeing you sitting would be the most offensive, f***ed up thing you could do." — Neat-Client9305 I think you should be legally allowed to reverse-fire your boss if they speak this phrase to you: "Not allowed to sit at work, so we tend to lean against things. The phrase, 'Time to lean, time to clean,' is also very prevalent. We're not okay btw." — W3R3Hamster And then there's just our general work culture. "My back is sore from carrying the company." — stoolprimeminister The grind, the hustle. "We're exhausted all the time." — Jackanatic The lack of national work holidays. "Like four days off work a year. We tired." — redboe And then there's the whole health insurance (or lack thereof) thing. "We have a shit ton of injuries from never going to the doctor and OSHA violations." — Upstairs-Parsley3151 The '90s kids will relate to this one, too. We have a very specific source of back pain, especially since we had roughly one minute to get to our next class and therefore no time to get to our lockers. "My back hurts from going to school between 1990–2004 and wearing dual shoulder strap bookbags that hung low and destroyed an entire generation's spine." — EndersScroll Now, some Americans in the thread refused to believe the validity of this "American lean" concept. And to be fair, it's not like every single American leans, and every single non-American stands like a dang statue. "I do not believe non americans don't lean.... what if they've been standing in a line for an hour?" — Always_Worry But people mentioned the prevalence of squatting in some countries and cultures. "Drive down the street in South Korea and you see folks squatting instead of leaning." — Artistic_Potato_1840 And the Brits in the thread were being very British. "Englishman here. We don't lean during queueing. We just suffer, it's what we're good at." — kennypeace My personal theory relates to this observation: "I've noticed this since the 1970s. It's because there is a lack of good public infrastructure for seating, plus the idea that sitting down is frowned upon in work culture at the working-class level." — FreeNumber49 There's a war on seating in this country, because god forbid people spend time somewhere without spending money. "There is literally nowhere to sit in public. No chairs in stores, no benches on the street, no tables near gas stations. America can't stomach the idea of a homeless person resting anywhere, so there are NO comfortable places to sit at all." — BuddhistNudist987 @nyctsubway / Via But I would also buy an argument like this: "I don't know if it's just an American thing, but it's body language. It's saying, 'I'm comfortable talking to you, I'm here to listen, I take you seriously, but this isn't a professional meeting, and you're not my boss.'" — paco64 Or, maybe this person is right, and it's all just confirmation bias. "My assumption is that it's mostly false pattern recognition. They notice Americans for a lot of real reasons: clothes, travel guides, looking around unfamiliar with the surroundings, accents, and then since they are paying more attention to them they notice smaller things like when they lean on things. They probably aren't paying nearly as much attention to their fellow locals who may also be leaning to a comparable degree."
National Geographic
08-03-2025
- Entertainment
- National Geographic
The ultimate guide to Šibenik, Croatia's oldest coastal town
On the central coastline of Dalmatia, where the River Krka winds its way to the Adriatic Sea, lies Šibenik. For those in the know, the city provides a relaxed blend of history and natural beauty. It's home to two UNESCO Heritage sites — more than anywhere else in Croatia — and has long attracted TV and film producers who have made use of its honeyed stone streets, grand old buildings and dramatic natural setting. Journey through Šibenik's history, explore dramatic fortresses and sample traditional Dalmatian cuisine on a city break here in 2025. What to know While many other settlements on this stretch of coastline were founded by Romans, Greeks or other invading forces, Šibenik was founded by Slavs at least as early as 1066 AD and, as such, is considered the oldest Croatian town on the Adriatic Coast. In the intervening centuries, Venetians, Byzantines, Hungarians and Habsburgs came and went, but Šibenik has remained resolutely itself: laid-back, good-looking and seemingly unbothered by the winds of political strife. Nowadays, it's a relaxed harbour town of a little over 40,000 people, known for its architecture, restaurants and cafe culture. The town also attracts crowds for its annual events such as September's Medieval Fair and SHIP Music Festival, as well as The Croatian Travel Festival (also in September), where passionate explorers and travel writers can come together and be inspired through workshops, talks and networking opportunities. Positioned upon the estuary of the Krka River, Šibenik's waterfront promenade is lined with docked sailboats and laid-back cafes. Photograph by Decode, Šibenik Tourist Board Perhaps unsurprisingly for such a historic city, Šibenik has been used as a filming location, most notably in the fantasy series Game of Thrones, in which it doubled for the fictional city of Braavos. The Cathedral of St James featured as a prominent backdrop in several episodes of the series, as did St John's Fortress, which appeared as a fighting pit. What to do Begin your historical tour at the Cathedral of St James, one of the city's two UNESCO World Heritage Sites and the only cathedral in Europe built entirely from stone. The mighty basilica was completed in 1535 and features a simple altar, unadorned marble walls and carved icons and friezes. Next to the Cathedral is the Šibenik City Museum — an excellent place to learn about the city's history from the Middle Ages through to the modern era. Built over a time period of more than 100 years in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Cathedral of St James is one of Croatia's most significant architectural sites, built entirely out of stone. Photograph by ALAN GRUBELIĆ / CNTB Another of the city's major historical sights is the imposing St Nicholas Fortress, built on the islet of Ljuljevac, in Šibenik's harbour, by the Venetians in the 16th century. To visit, join a boat tour from the waterfront — after a 30-minute journey on the Adriatic Sea, you'll disembark to explore the fort on foot, with an interactive audiovisual tablet helping to bring the ruins to life. The fortress did its job: Šibenik was never again invaded from the sea. There remains a cloistered feel about the city, thanks in no small part to its position in the natural harbour — and historically, it was the fjord-like switchbacks of the Krka estuary, along with the ironclad fortifications, that protected the city from seafaring invaders. This sheltered atmosphere can be experienced throughout the city, in quiet spots like the Medieval Monastery Mediterranean Garden, on the grounds of the former St Lawrence Monastery. Grab an ice cream from the garden cafe and watch the world go by after an afternoon spent pounding the streets. Where to eat Perhaps more than any other nearby city, Šibenik encapsulates the Dalmatian ethos of fjaka (the art of relaxing and living in the now). This enigmatic quality is best experienced in the city's relaxed cafe culture and restaurant scene, which allows visitors to experience some of the very best Dalmatian cuisine. One of Šibenik's best high-end restaurants is Pelegrini, a Michelin-starred spot in the Old Town. Chef Rudolf Štefan draws on the finest produce from the surrounding countryside and nearby coast to produce dishes that remain true to the earthy roots of traditional local cuisine. The signature plate is confit duck breast with pasta in a pecorino sauce, and dishes are accompanied by a selection of the best Dalmatian wines. From casual taverns to Michelin-starred establishments, visitors to Šibenik can expect a culinary scene based on freshly caught seafood and excellent Dalmatian wines. Photograph by VALERIO BARANOVIĆ, Šibenik Tourist Board Of course, even for the most well-heeled traveller, a Michelin-starred restaurant tends to only be an occasional treat, and the city's day-to-day culinary life plays out in its cafes and restaurants. Stroll along the waterfront, and the warren of streets behind it, and take your pick from the traditional konobas (taverns) serving local wine, fresh seafood and hearty country dishes. Konoba Marenda is justifiably popular for its fried sea bass and rich goulash — be sure to arrive early to beat the crowds. Where to stay The terracotta roofs of the Old Town shelter some truly fantastic boutique hotels, such as Armerun Heritage Hotel & Residence, which sits within the historic city ramparts and overlooks the harbour and the Krka estuary. If you prefer a modern resort-style experience, try D-Resort Šibenik, located on the Mandalina Peninsula, that juts out into the bay opposite the waterfront. If you're after extra seclusion, the hills above Šibenik are home to some beautiful villas, including Villa Sunset Lady, which overlooks the vineyards and city below. There are daily flights to Split from many UK airports, including Heathrow, Manchester and Glasgow. Once there, frequent buses are available from Split Airport to Šibenik (approx 1hr 30). There is a good public bus network in Šibenik provided by Autotransport (ATP). For more information, visit This paid content article was created for Šibenik Knin County Tourist Board. It does not necessarily reflect the views of National Geographic, National Geographic Traveller (UK) or their editorial staffs. To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
