Gerard Aalders is Senior Researcher at the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) in Amsterdam. Along with Cees Wiebes, he wrote The Art of Cloaking Ownership (Amsterdam University Press, 1996), a study of the secret collaboration of neutrals with German war industries, which has been translated into six languages. Aalders has also written extensively on looting and postwar restitution.
Since the World Jewish Congress laid claim to Jewish assets in Switzerland in 1995, attention has focused on the Nazi plundering of the property of European Jews. After years of research, Gerard Aalders has now written a clear overview of the plundering perpetrated by the Germans in the European countries they occupied.
In 1925, Leonie Pütz, 24 years old, settled in the Amsterdam of the roaring twenties. Thanks to her acting talents, this stunning beauty from the German city of Aachen quickly managed to work her way to the top of the Dutch theatrical world, where she performed alongside the major celebrities of the times. But no one knew of her background as a spy for Germany, and only a few were aware of the fact that she was also active for the Dutch, British, and French intelligence services.
