The Art Forger Who Tricked a Top Nazi With a Fake Vermeer

Han van Meegeren was the art forger who sold Hermann Göring, Hitler's second in command, a fake Vermeer. In 1945 he was arrested for collaborating with the enemy, and to prove the painting was a fake, he had to paint another "Vermeer" in front of witnesses. This is the true story of the forger who fooled the Nazis, the greatest Vermeer expert alive and the Dutch state, and why his country ended up loving him for it. Real 1945 photographs, the 1947 trial newsreel, and the chemistry that finally caught him. Clip your own long videos into Shorts with ClipLab. It finds the best moments and cuts them for you, captions and all. First clip free: https://cliplab.nyptid.com/?ref=empire Chapters 0:00 Amsterdam, 1945 1:31 The Recipe 5:05 The Masterpiece 7:32 The War Money 10:28 I Painted It 13:55 The Trial 16:45 The Man Who Swindled Göring Reconstruction scenes are marked on screen. Every real photo and film clip is credited on screen. Archive Nationaal Archief / Anefo and Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst photographs (CC0), including Koos Raucamp's October 1945 photographs of van Meegeren painting under supervision. Polygoon newsreel of the 1947 trial (Open Images, public domain). Rijksmuseum (CC0). Stadsarchief and public domain photographs via Wikimedia Commons. Photograph of Joseph Piller by Micky Piller / Kristoffel Lieten, CC BY-SA 4.0. Paintings by Vermeer, Caravaggio and van Meegeren are in the public domain. Sources Jonathan Lopez, The Man Who Made Vermeers (2008). Edward Dolnick, The Forger's Spell (2008). Errol Morris, Bamboozling Ourselves, New York Times (2009), with the 1945 interrogation records and the Associated Press report of 21 May 1945. TIME (1946, 1947, 1950). Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. The Art Newspaper (2010). Keisch et al., Science (1967). Huygens ING, Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland. Andere Tijden (NTR/VPRO). NOS. #documentary #ww2 #history