same manner in France later on. The collecting of the Sonderauftrag Linz includes many such cases of forced sale, using funds from sales of Hitler's book Mein Kampf and stamps showing his portrait. Members of the Sonderauftrag Linz made a considerable number of purchasing trips throughout Europe, acquiring a significant number of artworks, and also arranged purchases through art dealers. Hitler was pleased with Posse's work, and in 1940 awarded him the honorific of "Professor", something the Führer did for many of his favorites in the arts, such as Leni Riefenstahl, the actress and film director; architects Albert Speer and Hermann Giesler; sculptors Arno Breker and Josef Thorak; Wilhelm Furtwängler, conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic; actor Emil Jannings; and photographer Heinrich Hoffmann; among others. In October 1939, Hitler and Benito Mussolini had made an agreement that any Germanic artworks in public museums in the South Tyrol – a traditionally German-speaking area which had been given to Italy after the First World War in return for entering the war on the side of the Triple Entente – could be removed and returned to Germany, but when Posse attempted to do so, with the assistance of Heinrich Himmler's Ahnenerbe, the Italians managed to keep putting things off, and no repatriations ever took place. Posse died in December 1942 of cancer. His funeral was a high state event to which Hitler invited the directors of all art museums in the Reich; Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels delivered the eulogy, although there was no mention made of the Linz Museum project, since it was a state secret Posse had gathered more than 2500 artworks for the Linz museum in the three years he was head of the Sonderauftrag Linz. Under Hermann Voss In March 1943, Hermann Voss, an art historian, director of the Wiesbaden Gallery and former deputy director of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin took over the Special Commission. His appointment was considered odd by some, since he was known to be an anti-Nazi with a considerable number of Jewish friends and colleagues, but Hitler was known to overlook political factors when dealing with matters of art, and Voss's knowledge of southern German artwork, as well as French and Italian painting, may have decided the matter for him. Voss was not nearly as active or energetic as Posse had been, but was still "caught squarely in the flow of loot." He was prone