:I've now read through all of this and I'm still somewhat less than convinced. We only say a picture is in the public domain when we know it is, not when an exception "may perhaps be made". You seem to have researched this a lot so I'm willing to go with what you say. But we clearly need much better templates to state the copyright status of these images. We need one that says something like this: 

 :*The copyright for this picture is known to have been held by the German government at the end of the Second World War. 
 :*The picture was seized by US occupation forces and placed in the care of the National Archives and Records Administration. 
 :*The picture is in the public domain in the United States but it probably is not in other countries. 

 :Am I reading this right?