Gerald Reitlinger

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Gerald Roberts Reitlinger (born London, United Kingdom 1900, died St. Leonards, United Kingdom 1978) was a scholar of the economics of art and of history, particularly the Holocaust. Reitlinger became prominent because of works such as The Economics of Taste and The SS: Alibi of a Nation.

After service in World War I, Reitlinger studied at Oxford and thereafter at the Slade School and Westminster School of Art. His art was on display in London during the 1930s.

Reitlinger traveled extensively and wrote non-fiction works on his trips to China and the Middle East. During World War II, he served again as a British soldier. Postwar, he wrote articles on art for newspapers and art journals.

During the 1950s he wrote two works on the Holocaust, The Final Solution and The SS: Alibi of a Nation. In 1960, he wrote The Economics of Taste, a work on the art market in eighteenth century France.

Reitlinger died from a cerebral hemorrhage in Sussex. His collection of porcelain was willed to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.

[edit] Works

A Tower of Skulls: a Journey through Persia and Turkish Armenia, London: Duckworth, 1932.
South of the Clouds: a Winter Ride through Yün-nan, London: Faber & Faber, 1939.
The Final Solution, New York: Beechhurst Press, 1953.
The SS: Alibi of a Nation, London: Heinemann, 1956.
The House built on Sand, the conflicts of German policy in Russia, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1960.
The Economics of Taste, (three volumes) London: Barrie and Rockliffe, 1961-1970.