loot

loot is a traditional perk of victorious armies and those fighting the Second World War were no exception. Art treasures have always been particularly vulnerable to any invader. For example, part of the Schliemann collection, the so-called King Priam's Treasure, as well as a number of paintings by Velasquez, El Greco, and other old masters, turned up in Moscow in 1991, having been lost to the world since the fall of Berlin in May 1945.

But during the Second World War, and in defiance of the Hague Convention, the Nazis turned looting into an official policy. Works of art—whether paintings, porcelain, sculptures, tapestries, furniture, rare books, or manuscripts—were acquired by a variety of dubious means. In the occupied countries of western Europe (including Austria and, after September 1943, Italy) the purloining of art treasures was often justified on the grounds that they were created by German artists, or were German-inspired, and therefore were only returning to their place of origin. Alternatively, it was argued that a work of art was merely being ‘protected’, and that it was much better for it to be displayed in Germany, where millions could enjoy it, than hidden away for safety. If the ‘legality’ of these arguments remained unproven, the work of art was purchased with devalued Reichsmarks.

In eastern Europe works of art were simply seized, though sometimes a receipt was issued. Museum authorities in Warsaw kept a secret inventory of what had been looted from the city: it amounted to 2,774 paintings of the European school, 10,738 Polish paintings, and 1,379 sculptures. One of the most famous paintings, Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man, was never recovered. The Soviet War News reported in September 1944 that 34,000 museum pieces, including ‘14,950 pieces of unique furniture’, had been plundered from four palaces around Leningrad; and the 18th-century Amber Room, 46 sq. m. (55 sq. yd.) of carved amber panels, was dismantled and removed from the Ekaterininsky Palace at Pushkin. It also has never been recovered.

To acquire the best of the loot for his proposed museum at Linz (see also Germany, 10), Hitler appointed an art expert, Hans Posse, to head Sonderauftrag Linz (Special Operation Linz) based in Munich. Posse had first choice from the art treasures that were looted from Poland, either on Göring's orders, or by Rosenberg's ERR (Einsatzstab-Reichsleiter Rosenberg, or Administration Staff Rosenberg). The ERR was established in the Jeu de Paume in Paris after the fall of France to sell, at artificially low prices, works of art confiscated from Jews. Rosenberg was, in fact, only ERR's titular head: Göring supplied the organization's personnel and transport and, incidentally, took whatever he required for his own art collection if Posse did not want it. What was left went to German institutions. The ERR sent 21,903 items to Germany, which included 10,890 paintings and pictorial works, and 2,471 pieces of furniture. A rival organization was also established by Ribbentrop. This was a ‘Special Service Battalion’ of four companies, three of which operated in occupied eastern Europe, to strip libraries, museums, and scientific institutions.

After the war most of the art treasures were tracked down by two Allied units: SHAEF's Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives teams and the Office of Strategic Services Art Looting Investigation Unit. Much of the loot was found stored in salt mines at Alt Aussee and Grasleben, or in castles in Bavaria and Austria. Several hundred items, including paintings by Frans Hals, have never been claimed and works by Canaletto, Cézanne, Dürer, Renoir, and Vermeer, to name but a few, have never been recovered.

Another aspect of Nazi loot was the gold they acquired, again by the most dubious ‘legal’ means, from the central banks of European occupied countries. Altogether, in 1939 terms, they seized $625 million in gold bullion and coins from the central banks of occupied countries, including Austria ($102.7 million), Czechoslovakia ($44 million), the Bank of Danzig ($4.1 million), the Netherlands ($163 million), Luxembourg ($4.8 million), Belgium ($223.2 million), and Italy ($80 million). About $330 millions-worth of gold was eventually found, most of it in a mine at Merkers in western Thuringia, but some of it has never been recovered. However, much of the balance went to neutral countries, primarily Switzerland, as early in the war they all accepted gold in exchange for goods required by Germany. Switzerland, despite Allied pressure, continued to accept the gold until the last months of the war.

Bibliography

Jaeger, C. de , The Linz File (Exeter, 1981).
Smith, A. , Hitler's Gold (Oxford, 1989).