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more on the debate over Irving’s scholarship, see D. D. Guttenplan’s “Taking a Holocaust Skeptic Seriously,” New York Times, June 26, 1999. Deborah Lipstadt’s History on Trial tells of her courtroom victory over Irving. She called him a Holocaust denier; he sued for libel and lost. Gordon Craig reviewed Göring and several other books on the Nazis in The New York Review of Books, February 2, 1989.

In the “hunger winter”…Louis de Jong, The Netherlands and Nazi Germany, p. 47.

CHAPTER THREE: THE OUTBREAK OF WAR

On the evening of May 9…“Low Countries Attacked,” New York Times, May 12, 1940.

Elsewhere in Berlin…This account is based on Maass, pp. 28–29, Werner Warmbrunn, The Dutch Under German Occupation, pp. 6–7, and Peter Voute, Only a Free Man, pp. 21–22.

It was not to be…Maass, pp. 28–29, and Voute, p. 22.

In the months before…Voute, p. 21.

“They hoped,” in the words…Maass, p. 16.

“The planes are searching”…Ibid., p. 39.

“Let my air force darken”…David Irving, p. 289.

“Curator of the Reich”…Ibid., p. 300.

“Behind us,” Churchill told…Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939 to 1941 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983) p. 365.

“English fathers, sailing to rescue”…William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983), p. 3.

“List of Pictures Delivered”…David Irving, p. 291.

This time the lure…Lynn Nicholas tells Goudstikker’s story in her superlative The Rape of Europa. See pp. 83–85. For specifics on Goudstikker’s notebook, see Alan Riding’s “Dutch to Return Art Seized by Nazis,” in New York Times, Feb. 7, 2006, and his “Goering, Rembrandt, and the Little Black Book,” in New York Times, March 26, 2006.

Exactly what deals…Nicholas, p. 106.

“A few months after Goudstikker’s death”…Jacob Presser, Ashes in the Wind, p. 9.

CHAPTER FOUR: QUASIMODO

One of Van Meegeren’s paintings…Marijke van den Brandhof, Een vroege Vermeer uit 1937, p. 155. (The title means An Early Vermeer from 1937.) This admirable book, which was a doctoral thesis published in 1979, broke considerable new ground, especially on Van Meegeren’s own artistic career and on his Nazi sympathies.

“Here and there one finds”…Van den Brandhof.

“a unique, fluent way of painting”…Ibid.

“art Bolsheviks”…Jonathan Lopez, “De Meestervervalser en de fascistische droom,” De Groene Amsterdammer, Sept. 29, 2006. (The title means “The Master Forger and the Fascist Dream.”)

“Revenge keeps its colour”…John Russell, “Revenge Keeps Its Colour,” Sunday Times [of London], Oct. 23, 1955.

“heavy-lidded eyes”…M. Kirby Talley, Jr., “Van Meegeren’s Fake ‘Vermeers,’” in Mark Jones, ed., Fake? The Art of Deception, p. 240.

Van Meegeren was a genius…Endless examples could be supplied. P. B. Coremans, the scientist who led the government team appointed to investigate Van Meegeren’s forgeries, wrote that “Van Meegeren was indisputably the greatest forger of all times.” See Van Meegeren’s Faked Vermeers and De Hooghs, p. 26. The title of Kilbracken’s biography was Van Meegeren: Master Forger, that of Frederik Kreuger’s biography the virtually identical Han van Meegeren: Meestervervalser.

“especially beautiful”…M. M. van Dantzig, Vermeer: De Emmausgangers en de critici (Vermeer: “Christ at Emmaus,” and the Critics).

“serene”…Sandra Weerdenburg, De Emmausgangers: een omslag in waardering, Utrecht, 1988. (The title means Christ at Emmaus: A Reversal in Appreciation.) Chapter 2 of this exemplary Ph.D. thesis contains dozens of similar hymns of praise to Christ at Emmaus.

“exalted”…Abraham Bredius, “Nog een word over Vermeer’s Emmausgangers,” Oud Holland 55, 1938. (The title means “Another Word About Vermeer’s Christ at Emmaus.”)

“Why was there never again”…Ibid.

“After Van Meegeren’s exposure”…Jones, p. 15

CHAPTER FIVE: THE END OF FORGERY?

“If you gave one of them”…David Maurer, The Big Con, p. 258.

“With old master paintings”…Milton Esterow, “Fakes, Frauds, and Fake Fakers,” Art News, June 2005, p. 100.

“Nobody bothers to take”…Thomas Hoving, author interview, Nov. 16, 2005.

We turn to science…The same