The Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU) was an American special intelligence unit during World War II whose mission was to gather information and write reports about Nazi art looting networks.
Composed of only a few handpicked men, the small unit conducted interrogations and investigations in Europe starting in 1944 and focusing mainly on Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
After the war, the reports the ALIU wrote were marked secret and forgotten for many years until the late 1990s when they began to be declassified .
Administratively the ALIU belonged to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was headed by Brig.
[3] Its official mission was described as follows:It will be the primary mission of the Art Looting Investigation Unit to collect and disseminate such information bearing on the looting, confiscation and transfer by the enemy of art properties in Europe, and on individuals or organizations involved in such operations or transactions, as will be of direct aid to the United States agencies empowered to effect restitution of such properties and prosecution of war criminals.The mission of the ALIU intersected with that of other intelligence and military organisations that tracked Nazi assets and money and asset laundering networks of the Third Reich and its client states.
Taylor recruited Theodore Rousseau,[5][6] S. Lane Faison, James Plaut, Charles Sawyer, and John Phillips.
Faison was in charge of investigating Hitler's planned Fuhremuseum at Linz, Austria and Plaut investigated the Nazi looting organisation known as the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), the Nazi looting organization.
From June 10, 1945, until the spring of 1946, the ALIU conducted interrogations at Alt Aussee, Austria.