Nazi plunder
Nazi plunder (German: Raubkunst) was organized stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Germany.
Jewish property was looted beginning in 1933 in Germany and was a key part of the Holocaust.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Nazis also plundered occupied countries, sometimes with direct seizures, and sometimes under the guise of protecting art through Kunstschutz units. In addition to gold, silver, and currency, cultural items of great significance were stolen, including paintings, ceramics, books, and religious treasures.
Many of the artworks looted by the Nazis were recovered by the Allies' Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (MFAA, also known as the Monuments Men), following the war; however many of them are still missing or were returned to countries but not to their original owners. An international effort to identify Nazi plunder which still remains unaccounted for is underway, with the ultimate aim of returning the items to their rightful owners, their families, or their respective countries.
Plunder of Jews[edit]
The systematic dispossession of Jewish people and the transfer of their homes, businesses, artworks, financial assets, musical instruments,[8] books, and even home furnishings to the Reich was an integral component of the Holocaust.[9][10] In every country controlled by Nazis, Jews were stripped of their assets through a wide array of mechanisms[1][2][3] and Nazi looting organizations.[4][5][6][11]
Public auctions and private sales in Switzerland[edit]
The most notorious auction of Nazi looted art was the "degenerate art" auction organized by Theodor Fischer on 30 June 1939 at the Grand Hotel National in Lucerne, Switzerland. The artworks on offer had been "de-accessioned" from German museums by the Nazis, yet many well known art dealers participated alongside proxies for major collectors and museums.[12] In addition to public auctions, there were many private sales by art dealers. The Commission for Art Recovery has characterized Switzerland as "a magnet" for assets from the rise of Hitler until the end of World War II.[13] Researching and documenting Switzerland's role "as an art-dealing centre and conduit for cultural assets in the Nazi period and in the immediate post-war period" was one of the missions of the Bergier Commission, under the directorship of Professor Georg Kreis.[14]
Soviet Union[edit]
After the initiation of Operation Barbarossa, Eastern Europe was relentlessly plundered by Nazi German forces. In 1943 alone, 9,000,000 tons of cereals, 2,000,000 t (2,000,000 long tons; 2,200,000 short tons) of fodder, 3,000,000 t (3,000,000 long tons; 3,300,000 short tons) of potatoes, and 662,000 t (652,000 long tons; 730,000 short tons) of meats were sent back to Germany. During the course of the German occupation, some 12 million pigs and 13 million sheep were seized by Nazi forces. The value of this plunder is estimated at 4 billion Reichsmarks. This relatively low number in comparison to the German-occupied nations of Western Europe can be attributed to the indiscriminate scorched-earth policy pursued by Nazi Germany in the Eastern Front.[28]
To investigate and estimate Nazi plunder in the USSR during 1941 through 1945, the Soviet State Extraordinary Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating the Crimes Committed by the German-Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices was formed on 2 November 1942. During the Great Patriotic War and afterward, until 1991, the Commission collected materials on Nazi crimes in the USSR, including incidents of plunder. Immediately following the war, the Commission outlined damage in detail to 64 of the most valuable Soviet museums, out of 427 damaged ones. In the Russian SFSR, 173 museums were found to have been plundered by the Nazis, with looted items numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
After the dissolution of the USSR, the Government of the Russian Federation formed the State Commission for the Restitution of Cultural Valuables to replace the Soviet Commission. Experts from this Russian institution originally consulted the work of the Soviet Commission, yet continue to catalog artworks lost during the war museum by museum. As of 2008, lost artworks of 14 museums and the libraries of Voronezh Oblast, Kursk Oblast, Pskov Oblast, Rostov Oblast, Smolensk Oblast, Northern Caucasus, Gatchina, Peterhof Palace, Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), Novgorod, and Novgorod Oblast, as well as the bodies of the Russian State Archives and CPSU Archives, were cataloged in 15 volumes, all of which were made available online. They contain detailed information on 1,148,908 items of lost artworks. The total number of lost items is unknown so far, because cataloging work for other damaged Russian museums is ongoing.[29]
Alfred Rosenberg commanded the so-called ERR, which was responsible for collecting art, books, and cultural objects from invaded countries, and also transferred their captured library collections back to Berlin during the retreat from Russia. "In their search for 'research materials' ERR teams and the Wehrmacht visited 375 archival institutions, 402 museums, 531 institutes, and 957 libraries in Eastern Europe alone".[30] The ERR also operated in the early days of the blitzkrieg of the Low Countries. This caused some confusion about authority, priority, and the chain of command among the German Army, the von Ribbentrop Battalion and the Gestapo, and as a result of personal looting among the Army officers and troops. These ERR teams were, however, very effective. One account estimates that from the Soviet Union alone: "one hundred thousand geographical maps were taken on ideological grounds, for academic research, as means for political, geographical and economic information on Soviet cities and regions, or as collector's items".[30]
Hermann Göring collection[edit]
The Hermann Göring collection, a personal collection of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, was another large collection including confiscated property, consisted of approximately 50 percent of works of art confiscated from the enemies of the Reich.[39] Assembled in large measure by art dealer Bruno Lohse, Göring's adviser, and ERR representative in Paris, in 1945, the collection included over 2,000 individual pieces including more than 300 paintings. The US National Archives and Records Administration's Consolidated Interrogation Report No. 2 states that Göring never crudely looted, instead he always managed "to find a way of giving at least the appearance of honesty, by a token payment or promise thereof to the confiscation authorities. Although he and his agents never had an official connection with the German confiscation organizations, they nevertheless used them to the fullest extent possible."[39]
Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project[edit]
The Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP) is a comprehensive database that focusses on the Jewish-owned art and cultural objects plundered by the Nazis and their allies from 1933 to 1945. The JDCRP was initiated in May 2016 by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany in collaboration with the Commission for Art Recovery.[76] Their goal was to further expand on the existing database of objects stolen by the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg), one of the primary Nazi agencies involved with the plunder of cultural artifacts in Nazi-occupied nations during World War II.[77]
This data on Jewish objects looted during WWII provides a deeper understanding of the looting agencies of the Nazis, the current whereabouts of individual artifacts, and details on persecuted Jewish artists. It can provide further guidance to families and heirs on art, museums, and the art market. Lastly, it can memorialize Jewish artists who were victims of the Nazi party, and celebrate their artistic legacies.[78] The goal of the JDCRP is not to replace existing databases and publications but to supplement the available information and build upon it with a focus on art plundered from Jews.[79] Furthermore, the mission of the JDCRP is also to develop a network of institutions to promote additional research on the topic.[78]
The JDCRP accumulates data from a variety of sources. A few examples include inventories of looted objects found by Allied forces, lists of stolen objects submitted by victims, and lists of looted and restituted cultural objects compiled by governments. Once data is gathered on a specific object, the JDCRP strives to exhibit the following pieces of information: details regarding the stolen object, background on the perpetrators and victims of the theft, information on those who profited from the thefts, and specifics on the locations at which the stolen object(s) were held.[78]
On 1 January 2020, the JDCRP launched its Pilot Project centered around the famous art collection of Adolphe Schloss. The purpose of this initial launch is to test the feasibility of a central database for stolen Jewish artifacts and to determine the manner in which the JDCRP database will be constructed and maintained. This venture is funded by the European Union and is intended to establish the framework necessary for the JDCRP.[76]
Albert Gleizes, 1911, Le Chemin, Paysage à Meudon (Paysage avec personnage), oil on canvas, 146.4 cm × 114.4 cm (57.6 in × 45.0 in). Stolen by Nazi occupiers from the home of collector Alphonse Kann during World War II, returned to its rightful owners in 1997.
Max Liebermann's Two Riders On The Beach discovered in the Gurlitt Collection and subsequently restituted to the descendants of the original Jewish owner
Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man was looted by the Germans from the Czartoryski Museum in 1939. Although Polish officials state that it has been known "for years" that the painting survived the war,[80] its whereabouts remain unknown.[80]
![Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man was looted by the Germans from the Czartoryski Museum in 1939. Although Polish officials state that it has been known "for years" that the painting survived the war,[80] its whereabouts remain unknown.[80]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/Raphael_missing.jpg/181px-Raphael_missing.jpg)