Christ and the Adulteress, the fraudulent Vermeer, for which Göring exchanged 137 paintings of unquestioned authenticity.
Portrait of the Artist’s Sister by Rembrandt. One of the five Rembrandts in the Göring Collection.
The Eagle’s Nest was still four hundred feet above. From the turnaround there were two means of access: an elevator and a footpath. The elevator shaft, hewn out of the mountain itself, was another feat of engineering skill. A broad archway of carved stone marked the entrance. Beside the elevator stood a sign which read, “For Field Grade Officers Only”—that is, majors and above.
“A sentiment worthy of the builder,” Lamont observed as we took to the footpath.
On our steep climb we wondered what Steve would say to such discrimination. We hadn’t long to wait. He made a trip to the Eagle’s Nest a few days later. When stopped by the guard, he looked at him defiantly and asked, “What do you take me for, a Nazi?” Steve rode up in the elevator.
The Eagle’s Nest was devoid of architectural distinction. Built of cut stone, it resembled a small fort, two stories high. From the huge, octagonal room on the second floor—a room forty feet across, with windows on five sides—one could look eastward into Austria, southward to Italy. A mile below lay the green valleys and blue lakes of Bavaria. They used to say that every time Hitler opened a window a cloud blew in. The severity of the furnishings matched the bleakness of the exterior. An enormous conference table occupied the center of the room. Before the stone fireplace stood a mammoth sofa and two chairs. A smaller room adjoined the main octagon at a lower level. The heavy carpet was frayed along one side. The caretaker, pointing to the damage, said that in his frequent frenzies Hitler used to gnaw the carpet, a habit which had earned him the nickname of “Der Teppich-Beisser,” the rug-biter. Considering the labor expended on this mountain eyrie, the place had been little used. The same caretaker told us that Hitler had never stayed there overnight. Daytime conferences had been held there occasionally, but that was all.
It was late when we got back to the rest house, so our guests postponed their inspection of the Göring collection until the following morning. That evening Lamont and I made a second and more thorough survey of the rooms in which the paintings were stacked. We began with a room which contained works of the Dutch, Flemish, German and French schools. The inventory listed five Rembrandt portraits. One was the Artist’s Sister; another was his son Titus; the third was his wife, Saskia; the fourth was the portrait of a Bearded Old Man; and the fifth was the likeness of a Man with a Turban.
We examined the backs of the pictures for markings which might give us clues to previous ownership. Two of the portraits—those of Saskia and of the artist’s sister—had belonged to Katz, one of the best known Dutch dealers. I had been surprised to learn in Paris that Katz, a Jew, had done business with the Nazis. But I was also told that only through acceding to their demands for pictures had he been able to obtain permits for his relatives to leave Holland. According to the information I received, he had succeeded thereby in smuggling twenty-seven members of his family into Switzerland. A revealing commentary on the extent and quality of his paintings.
The portrait of Titus had been in the Van Pannwitz collection. Mme. Catalina van Pannwitz, South American born, but a resident of the Netherlands, I believe, had sold a large part of her collection to Göring. Whether it had been a bona fide or a forced sale was said to be a moot question.