The hidden history of one of the greatest cultural crimes of the 20th century is brought to light in Plunderer: The Life and Times of a Nazi Art Thief. At its center is Bruno Lohse, the SS officer who became Hermann Göring’s personal art agent in Paris and orchestrated the theft of thousands of masterpieces from Jewish families during World War II. Though captured and interrogated by the Monuments Men, Lohse was acquitted and went on to live a double life—quietly dealing looted masterpieces to the world’s most prestigious galleries and collectors for decades.

Guiding us through this extraordinary investigation is historian Jonathan Petropoulos, author of Göring’s Man in Paris, who interviewed Lohse dozens of times before his death in 2007. What begins with Petropoulos’s startling first encounter—“It’s not every day that you meet an old Nazi”—unfolds into a gripping cat-and-mouse pursuit that reveals breathtaking discoveries: collusion among galleries and auction houses, paintings hidden away in European bank vaults, and a vast web of complicity that stretched far beyond the war years.

Filmed across seven countries over five years, Plunderer plays like a detective thriller, weaving together rare interviews, archival documents, personal letters, and hauntingly beautiful artworks. More than a historical exposé, it confronts the moral reckoning of a world that allowed stolen treasures to circulate largely unchallenged, asking urgent questions about the responsibilities of historians, collectors, and institutions in the face of injustice.

Accompanying the film premiere is a discussion with producer John Friedman and film subjects Jonathan Petropoulos & Simon Goodman. To view the conversation, please click here.

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Sponsored by Yan & Polina Erlikh