Elder, van Dyck, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Tintoretto, Gerard ter Borch and Francesco Guardi, among others. These 182 pieces were also included in Posse's July 1940 list of 324 paintings he had chosen for the museum's collection. On 13 June 1940, Hitler authorized Posee to travel to the Netherlands, where he had to compete with Alfred Rosenberg's ERR organization (see below), Kajetan Mühlmann, Hermann Göring's art curator Walter Andres Hofer and Göring himself in claiming works by Dutch masters, many of which had been purloined, expropriated or confiscated by various Nazi agencies on a number of grounds. Posse went to Poland around November 1940 to examine expropriated artworks there, some of which had been looted by the German Army from museums, palaces and country homes. All of the country's artworks in the German-occupied areas were then cataloged by SS officer and art historian Kajetan Mühlmann, who had done the same previously in Vienna. Posse selected works by Leonardo, Raphael, and Rembrandt for the museum in Linz, although these pieces never actually left the control of the General Government, the Nazi-occupied rump of Poland left after Germany and the Soviet Union took the territory they wanted. On 10 June 1940, Posse wrote to Bormann: The special delegate for the safeguarding of art and cultural properties has just returned from Holland. He notified me today that there exists at the moment a particularly favorable opportunity to purchase valuable works of art from Dutch dealers and private owners in German currency. Even though a large number of important works have doubtless been removed recently from Holland, I believe that the trade still contains many objects which are desirable for the Führer's collection, and which may be acquired without foreign exchange. As a result of this, accounts of about 500,000 Reichsmarks were opened in Paris and Rome for Posse's personal use, and, around July 1940, he expanded the scope of the Sonderauftrag Linz into Belgium and the Netherlands when he established an office in The Hague as Referent für Sonderfragen (Adviser on "Special Questions"). Posse was able to report to Bormann that as of March 1941 he had spent 8,522,348 Reichsmarks on artworks for the Führermuseum. He later bought most of the Mannheimer Collection in 1944, including Rembrandt's Jewish Doctor – assisted by the threat of confiscation from the Nazi government of Arthur Seyss-Inquart – with the remainder of the collection being purchased in the