Nazi plunder

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Nazi plunder stored in a church at Elligen, Germany, 1945
Nazi plunder stored in a church at Elligen, Germany, 1945

Nazi plunder refers to art theft and other items stolen as a result of the organized spoliation of European countries during the time of the Third Reich by agents acting on behalf of the ruling Nazi Party of Germany. Plundering occurred from 1933 until the end of World War II, although most plunder was acquired during the war. In addition to lucre, such as gold and currency, cultural items of great significance were stolen, including paintings, ceramics, books, and religious treasures. Whereas many of these items were recovered by the Allies immediately following the war, many items are still missing. Currently, there is an international effort underway to identify Nazi plunder that still remains unaccounted for, with the aim of ultimately returning the items to the families of their rightful owners.


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[edit] Systematic Nazi looting

Adolf Hitler was an unsuccessful artist who was denied admission to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Nonetheless, he thought of himself as a connoisseur of the arts and when he became Chancellor of Germany, he enforced his aesthetic ideal on the nation. The type of art that was favoured among Hitler and the Nazi party were classical portraits and landscapes by Old Masters, particularly those of Germanic origin. Modern, non-representational, art that did not match this was dubbed degenerate art by the Third Reich.

[edit] The Führermuseum

After Hitler became Chancellor, he made plans to transform his home city of Linz, Austria into the Third Reich’s capital city for the arts. Hitler hired architects to work from his own designs to build several galleries and museums, which would collectively be known as the Führermuseum. Hitler wanted to fill his museum with the greatest art treasures in the world, and believed that most of the world’s finest art belonged to Germany after having been looted during the Napoleonic and First World wars.

[edit] Nazi looting organizations

While the Nazis were in power, they plundered cultural property from every territory they occupied. This was conducted in a systematic manner with organisations specifically created to determine which public and private collections were most valuable to the Nazi Regime. Some of the objects were earmarked for Hitler's never realized Fürhermuseum, some objects went to other high ranking officials such as Hermann Göring, while other objects were traded to fund Nazi activities.

In 1940, an organization known as the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die Besetzten Gebiete (The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Institute for the Occupied Territories), or ERR, was formed, headed by Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg. Its original purpose was to collect Jewish and Freemasonic books and documents, either for destruction, or for removal to Germany for further "study". However, late in 1940, Hermann Göring issued an order that effectively changed the mission of the ERR, mandating it to seize "Jewish" art collections and other objects. Hitler subsequently ordered that all confiscated works of art were to be made directly available to him. Other Nazi looting organizations included the Dienststelle Muhlmunn, which operated primarily in the Netherlands and Belgium, and the Sonderkommando Ribbentrop, which operated in Russian and North Africa.

Art collections from prominent Jewish families, including the Rothschilds, the Rosenbergs and the Goudstikkers were targeted because of their significant value. By the end of the war, the Third Reich amassed hundreds of thousands of cultural objects.

[edit] Nazi storage of looted objects

The Third Reich amassed hundreds of thousands of objects from occupied nations and stored them in several key locations, such as Musée Jeu de Paume in Paris and the Nazi headquarters in Munich. However, as the Allied forces gained advantage in the war, the Nazis began to hide the objects in places such as salt mines.


[edit] Post war recovery effort

The Allies created special commissions, such as the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives (MFA&A) organisation to help protect famous European monuments from destruction, and after the war, to travel to territories previously occupied by the Germans to find Nazi art repositories. They recovered thousands of objects that were pillaged by the Nazis.

The Allies collected the plundered artworks and stored them in a Central Collection Point in Munich until they could be returned. The identifiable works of art were returned to the countries from which they were taken, and the governments of each nation would then return the objects to the proper owners. When the Munich collection point was closed, the owners of many of the objects had not been found. Nations were also unable to find all of the owners or their heirs.


[edit] Effects of Nazi looting today

Approximately 20% of Western art was looted by the Nazis and there are well over 100,000 items that have not been returned to their rightful owners. The majority of what is still missing includes everyday objects such as china, crystal or silver, which have a strong sentimental value to the families that these were looted from.

Some objects of great cultural significance remain missing -- though no one knows how many. This is a major issue for the art market since legitimate organisations do not want to deal in objects with unclear titles. Since the mid-1990s, after several books, magazines, and newspapers began exposing the subject to the general public, many dealers, auction houses and museums have grown more careful about checking the provenance of objects that are available for purchase in case they are looted. Some museums in the United States and elsewhere have agreed to check the provenance of works in their collections, with the implied promise that suspect works would be returned to rightful owners if the evidence so dictates. But the process is time-consuming and slow, and very few disputed works have been found in public collections.

In the last two decades, information has become more accessible due to political and economic changes as well as advances in technology. Privacy laws in some countries have expired so records that were once difficult to obtain are now open to the public. Information from former Soviet countries that was previously unobtainable is now available, and many organisations have posted information online making it widely accessible.

The International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR), a not-for-profit educational and research organization, has helped provide information leading to restitution.

[edit] References

  • Feliciano, Hector. The Lost Museum, Harper Collins, New York, 1997
  • Harclerode, Peter and Pittaway, Brendan. The Lost Masters: WWII and the Looting of Europe's Treasurehouses, Orion Books Ltd, London, 1999
  • Löhr, Hanns Christian: Das Braune Haus der Kunst: Hitler und der Sonderauftrag Linz, Akademie-Verlag, 2005 ISBN 3-05-004156-0
  • Nicholas, Lynn. The Rape of Europa, Macmillan, London, 1994
  • Petropolis, Jonathan. Art as Politics in the Third Reich, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1996
  • Petropolis, Jonathan. The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany, Penguin Press, London, 2000
  • Schwarz, Birgit: Hitler's Museum. Die Fotoalben Gemäldegalerie Linz, Wien, Böhlau Verlag, 2004 ISBN 3-205-77054-4
  • OSS Report: Activity of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg in France, 15 August 1945

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

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