File talk:Signing ceremony for the Axis Powers Tripartite Pact;.jpg

Public Domain

A. The status of the Hoffman photographic archives is summarized in the Wikipedia article on this subject, e.g.,

• See Price v. United States#Photographic archive — On June 25, 1951, the Attorney General, acting pursuant to the Trading with the Enemy Act, 50 U.S.C.App. § 1–33, vested in himself all rights in the photographs and photographic images "to be held, used, administered, liquidated, sold, or otherwise dealt with in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States." The archive was later transferred to the United States National Archives.

B. The US Appellate Court opinion clarifies the status of the Hoffman photographic archive, e.g.,

Text of the Court of Appeal judgment

• Page 3/ "The photographic archives that were compiled by the Hoffmans consist of several hundred thousand prints and glass-plate negatives that depict images of political, historical, and cultural significance in Europe from the 1860s through the rise and fall of Hitler's regime. The archives are in two parts. The larger of the two parts has been in the possession of the United States since it was found in Germany by the United States Army. It is stored at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and thus will be referred to as the 'Washington archive.' The smaller of the two parts came into the possession of the United States in the early 1980s, when Time-Life Inc. gave it to the U.S. Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania—hence, we will refer to it as the 'Carlisle archive.' Employees of Time had removed it from Germany in the 1940s."
• Pages 13-14/ "We turn next to the Washington archive. The record reflects that the archive was used at the Nuremberg war trials with the assistance of Hoffman and his son, and that the United States engaged Heinrich Hoffman, Jr. thereafter to complete a pictorial history of Germany. The project was cut short, however, and the archives were shipped to the United States about the time of the Berlin airlift. On June 25, 1951, the Attorney General, acting pursuant to the Trading with the Enemy Act, 50 U.S.C.App. § 1-33, vested in himself all rights in the photographs and photographic images 'to be held, used, administered, liquidated, sold, or otherwise dealt with in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States.' See Vesting Order 17952, 16 Fed.Reg. 6162."
• Page 19/ "The United States may dispose of items that were seized during the allied occupation of Germany as it sees fit; indeed, it has done so. See Act of March 17, 1982, Pub.L. No. 97-155, 96 Stat. 14 (authorizing the Secretary of the Army to transfer title and custody of certain works of art seized from the German government during World War II)."

This informs a licensing tag that this image and other Hoffman photographs from the Nazi era of German history are in the public domain in the US. --Tenmei (talk) 05:52, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

You have proven that under US law, these belong to "the United States". You have not proven that they are public domain. According to this research, "the United States may dispose of items that were seized during the allied occupation of Germany as it sees fit", but I am yet to see where they have "seen fit" to release them into the public domain. Also, which archive, if either of them, is this image found in? This file was originally taken from the Imperial War Museum website, suggesting the photograph may well be in neither, but in fact in the UK. This has to be considered non-free until more conclusive proof is found. J Milburn (talk) 12:39, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Public Domain#German World War II images --Tenmei (talk) 19:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)