DRAFT version Last revised 14 May 2019
Library Plunder in Belgium by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: Six ERR Seizure Lists of Priority Confiscations
Michel Vermote and Patricia Kennedy Grimsted
PRELIMINARY UNEDITED WORKING COPY: FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY!!
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS ARE STILL WELCOME
ABSTRACT Here we present six key original German NS lists covering a total of 150 ERR confiscations in Belgium, mainly private library materials (some containing considerable archives and art), with an accompanying chart combining the data. We initially review earlier assessments, before briefly describing the organization and operations of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) in Belgium, its relationship with rival German agencies, and interplay with Rosenberg’s Möbel-Aktion under his Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories (RMbO) for book and art receipts. Brief coverage extends to postwar restitution efforts, and newly available archival sources. Earlier government estimates suggest little more than 10% of the books seized in Belgium during occupation have been returned. The six seizure lists described at the end, and displayed in facsimile on this website, were prepared during occupation by the ERR, the most important agency of cultural plunder in Belgium. An accompanying Excel chart combines data from the six lists with names of names of the 150 ERR priority seizure victims through March 1943, with dates of seizure and shipment, materials seized, and related ERR documents available. Appendices detail specific issues and more sources. This combined presentation will be crucial to research, should identify specific victims and their losses of document help restitution claims for of books and archives still at large.
2
ASSESSING WARTIME CULTURAL SEIZURES IN BELGIUM
During the Second World War German agencies looted cultural valuables on a massive scale in Belgium, similar to plunder in other occupied European countries, in what one renowned study entitles the Rape of Europa.1 The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), led by Adolf Hitler’s ideological spokesman Alfred Rosenberg, was the Nazi Party (NSDAP) agency organized specifically for plunder, focused on the systematic confiscation of private library and archival collections from designated “enemies of the Reich.” Rosenberg’s justification: the Nazi elite need to study and understand their enemies in order to overcome their ideologies. In Belgium, victims included Masons, Jews, and socialists – individuals and organizations, as well as prominent political leaders and Roman Catholic institutions linked to France, such as the exiled Jesuit Order. The original six working ERR seizure lists we now launch online name and provide data about some 150 ERR numbered priority confiscations. An accompanying Excel chart combines data from the six lists, noting contents, quantity, shipping dates and related references to additional documentation. May these 150 ERR Belgian seizures serve as blatant examples of premeditated Nazi brutality to the Belgian cultural legacy and a tribute to those private individuals and organizations named. While our focus here is on library materials, often including archives and personal papers, the posted ERR seizure lists also reveal works of art seized from the same homes. The full extent of Belgian private art losses during the war, to which these lists may contribute additional data, is still inadequately researched. While the few looted private collections seized that went to the Jeu de Paume in Paris are well known, no adequate compendium of Belgian losses is available, and database efforts started in Belgium were never completed. In 1948, the main Belgian government agency handling postwar retrieval and restitution, the Office for Economic Recovery (DER/ORE), issued a repertory of works of art seized during the war (only recently launched on the Internet). Listing only 285 paintings, 2 sculptures, 4 tapestries, and 2 pieces of antique furniture, it did not begin to cover the extensive private losses.2 When in the early 1990s the Belgian government initiated a more extensive compendium of still lost works of art, an intended third volume covering private collections never appeared.3 More details regarding art from private collections and dealers were provided by Jacques Lust in the Buysse Commission 2001 report, still the most extensive survey to date, as will be discussed below.4
1 Lynn Nicholas, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Cultural Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War (New York: Knoff, 1994). 2 Office de Récupération économique, Répertoire d’oeuvres d’art dont la Belgique a été spoliée durant la guerre 1939–1945 (Brussels: ORE, 1948) ; initially issued for limited circulation, but recently available online at: https://issuu.com/hesiod/docs/r_pertoire_d_oeuvres_d_art_dont_la_belgique_a__t__. Retrieval and restitution was handled under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (Ministère des Affaires économiques, MAE), by the Office de Récupération économique (ORE) / Ministerie Economische Zaken (MEZ), Dienst Economische Recuperatie (DER). 3 Only coverage of works of art in the public domain or state collections appeared: The Missing Art Works of Belgium, 2 vols. (Brussels: Office Belge de l’Economie et de l’agriculture, [20 June 1994]), vol. 1: Public Domain Art Works; vol. 2: Belgian State. An original archival copy is held in the in the Archives générales du Royaume (AGR2) / Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA2) – Dépôt Joseph Cuvelier (hereafter ARA2), within the records of the ORE/DER in the fond of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MAE/MEZ), Inventory 21, nos 407 and 408, but files regarding the intended coverage of private collections are not available. 4 [Jacques Lust], “Les biens culturels et les oeuvres d’art,” in the Buysse Commission Report, especially pp. 132–38. 2
3
For Belgian archives plundered but not returned, it was not until the early 1990s that serious research and publications started, when specialists first learned about the many twice- seized Belgian archives, finally revealed in Moscow. Long-hidden since Soviet postwar capture in the top-secret Central State Special Archive of the USSR (TsGOA SSSR), they were opened to the public in 1992.5 Containing as they did major groups of military and other high-level government records, along with trade-union records, to say nothing of important Jewish and Masonic files and personal papers of key political leaders and newspaper editors, it became a high-level state priority to bring them home.6 Following ten years of costly, time-consuming negotiations, in 2002, some 40 fonds of Belgian provenance returned from Moscow. Twelve out of the 32 non-governmental Belgian fonds (several comprising miscellaneous collections) returned to Belgium contained files belonging to individuals and organizations named on the six ERR seizure lists, but others were seized by other Nazi agencies. For example, two intermixed collections of Masonic files (totaling 2,300 files) from many of the lodges the ERR plundered, as did several collections of Jewish provenance; some from political or miscellaneous sources were probably also seized by the ERR.7 Five years later the Belgian chapter in the volume, Returned from Russia, surveyed German wartime archival seizures, the search for missing archives during their interim migration, with a detailed list of the fonds returned and official legal transfer documents.8 Wartime library losses have never generated as much government or public interest, while fewer details have been available about the identity and fate of the extensive library seizures from individual Belgian citizens and important non-governmental organizations. A fourth volume in the 1994 ORE/DER art series mentioned above, planned to cover looted libraries, was never issued, and only meagre sources gathered remain in ORE/DER records today.9 Continuing revelations with the collapse of the Soviet Union aroused public interest in cultural valuables still missing or displaced from the Second World War, but identification in
5 Wouter Steenhaut, Dirk Martin, José Gotovitch and Michel Vermote, “Mission to Moscow. Belgische socialistische archieven in Rusland,” in Amsab-Tijdingen, vol. 11, no. 16 (1992), extra n°, pp. 1–24. The former Central State Special (Osobyi) Archive (TsGOA SSSR) in Moscow, was the top-secret repository in Moscow where the Soviet captured records were centralized. From 1992–1999 it was rebaptized as TsKhIDK (Center for Preservation of Historico-Documentary Collections); in March 1999, its holdings became part of the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA). 6 See the pamphlet with an annotated list of 35 fonds of Belgian provenance, prepared in cooperation with Belgian archivists, issued by the Russian Archival Administration (Rosarkhiv): Mukhamedjanov M. (ed.), Fondy bel’giiskogo proiskhozhdeniia: Annotirovannyi ukazatel’ (Moscow: Rosarkhiv, 1995); and the expanded Dutch version: Michel Vermote et al. (comp. and eds). Fondsen van Belgische herkomst: verklarende index (Ghent, 1997). 7 See chart of the archives returned, compiled by Michel Vermote, “Belgian Archival Fonds Returned from Russia (2002),” in Returned from Russia, pp. 231–39. 8 See the Belgian chapter by Jacques Lust and Michel Vermote, “Papieren Bitte! The Confiscation and Restitution of Belgian Archives and Libraries (1940–2003)”, in Returned from Russia: Nazi Archival Plunder in Western Europe and Recent Restitution Issues, ed. Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, F.J. Hoogewoud, and Eric Ketelaar (Institute of Art and Law, UK, 2007; paper edn, 2013), pp. 190–239, with references to many related publications. 9 Filip Strubbe, Inventory of the archive of the Department for Economic Recovery and Legal Predecessor, 1940–1968 (1997) (Brussels, 2010); at https://www.archives.gov/files/research/holocaust/international- resources/belgium-inventory.pdf (also available in Dutch); AGR2/ARA2, ORE/DER, I-21. The only list (1993) publicly accessible in the ORE records in the National Archives contains only 15 library entries – I-21/405. See also the 1993 list of books looted and sold during occupation in I:21/405; some recovered books appear in I:21/379/2. 3
4
Russia has been all too slow. A 1998 Russian law intended to regulate restitution, instead nationalized the postwar ‘cultural trophies’ that the government considered just ‘compensation’ for the German devastation and cultural pillage in the Soviet Union. While in the West, international calls for restitution of ‘Holocaust-Era assets’ in the 1990s (as exemplified in the 1998 Washington Principles) led to a Belgian Study Commission for Jewish Assets, established in 1997 under the Prime Minister’s Office, chaired by Lucien Buysse. The Buysse Commission issued an extensive online report (in French and Dutch) in July 2001.10 Jacques Lust prepared the most complete study to date of ERR library plunder in Belgium as a working paper of the Buysse Commission.11 Part of Lust’s text was subsequently included in his helpful section on seized Jewish cultural assets in the 2001 Buysse Commission Final Report. An appended list named 100 Jewish victims of private library and archival plunder (with an estimated 120,000 items).12 Notably, however, the 1943 ERR List #4 posted here, on which that 2001 list was based, covers an additonal 50 names of other victims, presumably non- Jewish, all of which must be included in the total picture of private library losses. But since the subsequent final report (2008) on Jewish indemnification, no additional analyses of library losses have appeared. 13 Our estimate for plundered books would suggest a figure closer to [???] That original 1943 compilation is one of the first five ERR seizure lists now posted online with this article. The data presented is now consolidated in our accompanying chart of the ERR 150 numbered seizures through February 1943. Access to those lists became possible only with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Ukrainian independence, because they are part of the largest collection of remaining ERR records from all over Europe captured after the war and long held in secret. The fastidious German data they reveal about ERR cultural plunder in Belgium, had never been known or utilized to trace wartime cultural losses. The main thrust of wartime plunder, including by the ERR was focused on the Judeo- Masonic-Bolshevik Conspiracy, the ideological ‘enemies’ of the German Reich proclaimed by Rosenberg and Hitler himself. Looted cultural property, however, was not limited only to those specific enemies. The extensive inter-mixed nature of wartime confiscations needs to be recognized from the start, as many other cultural treasures were swept up by the same Nazi brooms. Additional priorities varied in different countries. In Belgium, for example, the ERR and
10 The so-called Buysse Commission, i.e. the Study Commission for Jewish Assets (Commission d'Études des Biens Juifs / Studiecommissie Joodse Goederen) was established by Belgian Royal Decree in 1997 to investigate and indemnify Jewish Community assets: Commission for the Indemnification for the Belgian Jewish Community’s Assets, which were plundered, surrendered or abandoned during the war 1940–1945. The 2001 report is available online: Belgium, Services du Premier Ministre, Les biens des victimes des persécutions anti-juives en Belgique: Spoliation, Rétablissement des droits, Résultats de la Commission d’étude: Rapport final de la Commission d’étude sur le sort des biens des membres de la Communauté juive de Belgique spoliés ou délaissés pendant la guerre 1940– 1945 ([Brussels], July 2001) at http://www.combuysse.fgov.be/hoofdframemenufr.html ; Dutch version at: http://www.combuysse.fgov.be/hoofdframemenunl.html . 11 Jacques Lust, “De Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg en de bibliotheekroof in België (1940–1943),” (Brussels: Office of the Prime Minister, Studiecommissie joodse goederen, 30 October 2000); Internal Paper for the Study Commission on Jewish Property, but unfortunately never published separately and still not available online. 12 [Jacques Lust], “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: ERR et la spoliation des biens culturels,” in the 2001 Buysse Commission Report (above note 10), pp. 133–41; Dutch edn, pp. 133–42. Appendix 5 (in vol. 2), pp. 21–23. See the full ERR report described below as ERR list #4 (undated), with the last entry 29 Feb. 1943. 13 See the English edition of the Buysse Commission Final Report for Indemnification, dated 4 Feb. 2008 at http://www.combuysse.fgov.be/en/eindrapport_commissie_schadeloosstelling_2_en.pdf. 4
5
Sicherheitsdienst (SD) prioritized as well the personal collections of political leaders who fled to London with the Belgian Government in Exile. When the Germans identified the Jesuit author of a series of virulent interwar tracts against Nazi ideology, published anonymously in France, the exiled Jesuit Order in Belgium became another targeted enemy, even before the Gestapo identified the specific culprit. Four months before the ERR arrived in August 1940, among initial Belgian library losses during the initial invasion in May 1940, “the convent of the Jesuits in Eegenhoven (near Louvain), was devastated […and] about 30,000 volumes disappeared in fire.”14 The most brutal and symbolic devastation in Belgium also occurred during that initial invasion to the University Library in Louvain, recently rebuilt and restocked with internationally donated bibliophile treasures following near total loss in the First World War. Writing already in 1946, a Belgian librarian reported about the renewed Louvain disaster: “the bulk of the book collections, more than 900,000 volumes,” in the University Library, together with “800 manuscripts, all incunabula, 200 prints of old masters,” already in May 1940, were left in “a heap of smoldering ashes amid the distorted uprights of the steel framework of the main stacks.”15 When that report was written, Belgian librarians had yet to learn of the 150 systematic registered confiscations of library materials by the ERR. The ERR records containing those Belgian reports had then just been captured across the European Continent by Soviet trophy scouts, and rushed into half a century of hiding in Ukraine. Today, now that those ERR wartime operational records are available online for all to consult, and those identified from Belgium better analyzed, a more detailed account of the ERR role in Belgian wartime cultural plunder can be documented. Here we reveal many pertinent sources, now more publicly accessible, identifying the plundered cultural property of those 150 ERR priority victims, and perhaps even hope for determining the fate or even retrieving surviving items.
14 Jan F. Vanderheijden, “Belgium Counts Her Lossess: A First-Hand Account of Her Devastated Libraries,” Library Journal, 1 May 1946, pp. 636–37. 15 Vanderheijden, “Belgium Counts Her Lossess,” pp. 636–37. 5
6
THE EINSATZSTAB REICHSLEITER ROSENBERG (ERR) AND ITS PLUNDER IN BELGIUM: ORGANIZATION AND STAFF
As the key Nazi Party (NSDAP) agency specifically organized for cultural plunder, the ERR was formed and administered as an operational offshoot of Rosenberg’s office as the Führer’s Deputy for Supervising the Entire Spiritual and Ideological Training of the Nazi Party (Der Beauftragte des Fürhrers für die Überwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP, DBFU), to which Hitler appointed him in 1934. As part of his responsibility for ideological training of party members, starting already in 1937, Rosenberg planned the postwar creation of the university-level so-called Hohe Schule for the Nazi elite – to be based on the Chiemsee in Bavaria, with research institutes for specific subjects located throughout the country. Even before the invasion of Poland in September 1939, Hitler authorized preparatory work in establishing the Central Library for the Hohe Schule (ZBHS) in Berlin early in 1939.16 Moved to Austrian Carinthia in 1942, first to a lakeside resort hotel near Villach, the chosen books collected from all over Europe ended the war in the isolated monastery of Tanzenberg (near Klagenfurt). That site fell within the British Zone of postwar occupation, and British MFA&A specialists found close to 700,000 books, along with some of the ERR staff, whom they kept under house arrest to assist with restitution processing. The conduct of war on two fronts may have stifled immediate plans for the Hohe Schule, but German occupation opened abundant new opportunities for acquisition of research materials in occupied countries. On the heels of the invading army in France in June 1940, Rosenberg dispatched Georg Ebert, who headed the DBFU Berlin office. Ebert’s immediate reports about the extensive Masonic materials abandoned in major lodges resulted in organization of the ERR in Paris by early in July 1940 as an operational agency with the aim of securing books and archives for the projected Hoch Schule library and its planned institutes. While reporting to Rosenberg and the DBFU Office in Berlin, the ERR in France was embedded with the Military Commandant in France (Militärbefehlshaber Frankreich, MBF), and was also reporting to the German military occupation authority. Masonic materials and the rich Jewish libraries were the initial priority ERR targets, as evident in the first French seizure lists posted online.17 Even before the speedy occupation of Western Europe, the NSDAP Institute for Research on the Jewish Question (Institut der NSDAP zur Erforschung der Judenfrage, IEJ) was established in Frankfurt am Main in early 1940 (the only Hohe Schule institute fully operative during the war). By the time Rosenberg gave his inaugural IEJ lecture in March 1941, five freight cars of confiscated Masonic treasures and entire Judaica and Hebraica collections from major French Jewish libraries had already arrived from Paris, and even more freight cars with the Rothschild banking records. Initially, a Masonic Division was planned for the IEJ, given all the books, archives, and exhibition materials seized from the largest Parisian lodges. However, Heinrich Himmler as the key figure controlling the Reich Security Main Office –
16 See more background about Rosenberg and the ERR, and extensive bibliography, in “Alfred Rosenberg and the ERR: The Records of Plunder and the Fate of Its Loot” (August 2015) at www.errproject.org/guide.php. See also Donald E. Collins and Herbert P. Rothfeder, “The Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg and the Looting of Jewish and Masonic Libraries During World War II,” Journal of Library History 18, no. 1 (Winter 1983), pp. 21–36, although now considerably outdated by more recent research in newly available sources. 17 See www.errproject.org/looted_libraries_fr.php ; the original French version is at http://www.cfaj.fr/publicat/listes_ERR_France.html. 6
7
(Reichssicherheitshauptamt), or RSHA, with his strong interest in Freemasonry was quick to siphon off a large portion of the Masonic materials for the RSHA, and organize his own research center.
ERR expansion to Belgium and the Netherlands followed during the summer of 1940, under the initial name “Einsatzstab of the Offices of Reichsleiter Rosenberg for the Occupied Western Territories and the Netherlands” (Einsatzstab der Dienststellen des Reichsleiters Rosenberg für die westlichen besetzten Gebiete und die Niederlande). With Hitler’s planned invasion of the Soviet Union (despite the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact), the ERR extended confiscations in Western Europe to East European émigrés and their well-established libraries in Paris, and to other key socialist collections, including the Paris Branch of the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), that might be needed for research on the Bolshevik enemy. Similar acquisitions followed in Belgium and the Netherlands. Once the Soviet invasion was underway in 1941, ERR units were organized in occupied Soviet lands, and the ERR name was modified to the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg for Occupied Territories (Einsatzstab Reichsleiters Rosenberg für die besetzten Gebiete).18 The ERR started operations in Belgium on 15 August under the Administrative Division (Verwaltungsabteilung) of the Military Commandant for Belgium and Northern France (Militärbefehlshaber in Belgien und Nordfrankreich, MB BelgNFr).19 They established Headquarters in Brussels – 32, rue du Châtelain – for the regional Working Group (Arbeitsgruppe), for Belgium and Northern France (AG BelgNFr). ERR staff led library and related archival seizure operations throughout the country, purportedly for the benefit of Rosenberg’s projected Hohe Schule. Initially the Arbeitsgruppe (AG) Belgien und Nordfrankreich was directed by Gauhauptstellenleiter Hans Wolfgang Ebeling, one of Rosenberg’s key figures in the DBFU in Berlin.20 Georg Ebert (DBFU Berlin), who had initiated the ERR in Paris, was on hand as a key advisor, bringing his experience dealing with the rich Masonic materials form French lodges to initial Belgian confiscations.21 August Schrimer, who first started work with the ERR in Paris, initially assisted in Brussels, before moving on to head ERR operations in the Netherlands. Hans Muchow, hailing from the Hamburg vicinity, as a member of the AG Belgien from the start, took over direction when Ebeling returned to the DBFU in Berlin in June 1942. As was the ERR pattern in other occupied countries, the AG Belgien Nord Frankreich then became the Main Working Group (Hauptarbeitsgruppe – HAG Belgien).22 Muchow continued in charge until
18 That initital ‘Western’ name for the ERR explains the Soviet Ukrainian archival designation of a fond with only three of the extensive captured ERR files from Belgium in Kyiv (now TsDAVO fond 3674); see below note ??. 19 The first ‘work project’ or confiscation operation –Le Grand Orient de Belgique – was started on 17 August 1940. 20 Professor Hans-Wolfgang Ebeling (b. 6 Dec. 1905).
8
ERR retreat from Belgium at the end of August and earlier September 1944, although in June 1944 he was transferred to Paris to advise closing operations in France during the final months of German occupation.23 The AG and later HAG Belgien consisted of experts and academics, some of whom Muchow apparently recruited from the Hamburg area. The main scientific staff were Dr. Adolf Vogel,24 Karl Funk, Lothar Freund, Robert Köster,25 and Peter Wörmke,26 although the composition of the core group varied in different periods, with addition of Gerhard Schilde, Pfeiffer, Dr Wilhelm-Jakob Schwartz, and Paul Lohmann. Several others appear as staff assistants at different times, but biographic data is needed for more of the ERR staff.27 Professor dr. Rudolf Stampfuss, an expert in archeology and a specialist in the history of the Germanic tribes, headed the Prehistory office in Berlin and later headed the ERR Sonderstab Vorgeschichte (Prehistory).28 He was working with the Belgium group during the fall of 1940 and part of 1941 and collected many crates of museum materials from Belgium, at least six or seven crates of which are documented as shipped to his Berlin office. He continued ties with the Belgian staff as an occasional consultant, but later was sent to the Eastern Front for much more extensive exploits in Ukraine and Crimea.29 Professor Hermann Noack, an expert in church history, also from Hamburg, supervised religious seizures, most particularly the ERR analysis of the extensive library and archives of the Jesuit Monastery in Enghien, after the ERR was given access in July 1942 (see below), which continued, even after his moved to Paris later in 1943 on the staff of the Sonderstab Wissenschaft. 30 The ERR also recruited Belgian citizen Dr Robert Baes, who had trained for the priesthood; he was involved in sorting and packing the confiscated materials, and continued with research on the Enghien project under Noack.31
along with the files from the Rosenberg Chancellery (NS 8). See more detailed coverage of those records and related ones in the enlarged and updated Grimsted German chapter (forthcoming 2018) for the ERR Archival Guide at www.errproject.org/guide.php. 23 See especially the coverage of the ERR in Belgium by Jacques Lust, De Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg en de bibliotheekroof in België (1940–1943), Brussel, 2000, Internal Paper for the Study Commission on Jewish Property, 2000, only partly integrated in the 2001 Buysse Commission report (above note 10), pp. 132–46 24 Dr Adolf Vogel (b. 12.3.1901 in Hamburg)
9
Dr Walther Grothe, director of the Central Library of the Hohe Schule (ZBHS) spent some time with the Belgian Working Group during the first three months of ERR Belgian operations, coveting some of the library for ZBHS. The ERR Sonderstab Bildendekunst was represented at least briefly in Belgium by Dr Karl-Heinz Esser, who was primarily based in Paris. He spent the summer of 1943 in Brussels, with the ERR HAG BelNFr, selecting paintings acquired by the Möbel-Aktion and the BTG, as will be discussed briefly below.32 Subsequently in 1944, Dr Walter Borchers, from the Sonderstab Bildende Kunst in Paris came to Brussels to select additional works of art.33 Other ERR Special Commandos (Sonderstaben) operating for specific subject profiles throughout the German-occupied territories, were only tangentially involved in Belgium. Dr Herbert Gerigk, who headed the Sonderstab Musik, sent many requests to the ERR Belgian office and also worked through Helmuth Osthoff, a musicologist on the Military Commandant’s occupation staff, but receipts from Belgium were disappointing. Gerigk personally made at least one visit to Brussels in October 1943, but was displeased by the meagre quantity and quality of the musical instruments seized by the M-Aktion. On the whole, musicalia receipts from Belgium were much more modest than those from France and the Netherlands.34
In comparison to arrangements in France the ERR AG/HAG in Belgium was more directly responsible to the German military occupation authorities under the Militärverwaltung under the MB BelgNFr, headed by General Alexander von Falkenhausen, the Military Commandant in Brussels, and Eggert Reeder, second-in-command. While reporting locally to the Military Commandant, the AG and later HAG Belgien was also reporting regularly to the ERR Headquarters (Stabsführung), headed by Gerhard Utikal under the DBFU in Berlin.35 Starting in mid-1943, with the order to evacuate cultural property from Berlin, as well as most ERR operations, the DBFU Headquarters to which the Belgian HAG and Working Groups in other occupied countries reported moved its headquarters, although apparently kept some presence in the Berlin area. Most research and library operations were transferred to the Silesian ERR evacuation Headquarters for libraries and research in Ratibor (postwar Polish Racibórz). Anti-Bolshevik research, headed by Gerd Wunder, and the Ostbücherei (Eastern Library), together with other library operations were thenceforth centered in Ratibor and surrounding facilities, where the ERR envisaged an Anit-Bolshevik Research Institute, parallel to IEJ. Simultaneously, the IEJ evacuated most of its research and library operations from Frankfurt to the remote town on Hungen about 70 km northeast (LK Hesse). Under the Administrative Division (Verwaltungsabteilung) of MB BelgNFr, the AG/HAG BelgNFr was often in contact and coordinating with the Archives Protection Office (Archivschutz) and the Library Protection Office (Bibiliothekschutz). Advance authorization
32 See further discussion of Esser’s postwar testimony in note 108 below. 33 Jacques Lust analyzed these details in the Buysse Commission Report, especially pp. 136–40. 34 See Willem de Vries, Sonderstab Musik: Music Confiscations by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg under the Nazi Occupation of Western Europe (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996); the Belgian coverage (pp. 169–80), references receipts from Brussels and some from the Möbel-Aktion, but has only scattered documents about Belgian activities. De Vries’ research was completed before he had access to the ERR documents in Kyiv. 35 As apparent in the appended discussion of sources, considerable files of correspondence with both Berlin HQ and the MB BelNFr are preserved in the ERR Belgian records in TsDAVO. 9
10 from the MB BelgNFr was required for all seizures, and the ERR operation unit was expected to supplement its daily operation reports (Tägesberichte) to Berlin with reports of confiscations to the Military Commandant.36 The ERR was instructed always to start by securing the premises of ‘abandoned libraries’ of the NS political adversaries. As was the usual procedure in France, the Secret Field Police (Geheime Feldpolizei), also under the MB BelgNFr, usually had the role of securing the premises and arranging confiscation. The HAG Belgien remained on good terms with the military government, while moreover, subordination to the MB BelgNFr protected the ERR and shifted their accountability for confiscations.37 The ERR had a relatively small team in Belgium given all their assigned tasks. In addition to seizing ‘enemy’ cultural property, and arranging appropriate transport to the Reich, they were also engaged in major propaganda activities: publications, training, films, and setting up exhibitions. Work on their propaganda productions gained in importance starting in mid-1942, while the level of confiscations sharply decreased, once the Möbel-Aktion started emptying abandoned Jewish lodgings in the wake of deportations.38 For example, one major film “Deutsche Grösse” (Greater Germany) was produced for public circulation. An anti-Bolshevik exhibit, “Das sind die Sowjets” (Such are the Soviets), followed the German defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943.39
ERR SEIZURE OPERATIONS in BELGIUM: UNIQUE “WORK PROJECT (AV)” SYSTEM
In Belgium, the ERR HAG BelNFr adopted a unique registration system for its seizure operations, or ‘work projects’ – (Arbeitsvorhaben – AV), as they called them, as apparent in the five posted seizure lists and many related documents. Between August 1940 and February 1943, there were 150 named and numbered work projects. Data from the six ERR seizure reports about these 150 sequentially numbered seizure operations (AV) through February 1943 have been combined in our accompanying Excel chart, with some clarification of names and addresses (following local verification), and an added column listing detailed periodic or special reports describing most of them. The chart also consolidates data the ERR reported characterizing the victimized individual or organization, address, dates seized, the nature and the quantity of materials (when given), and crate codes assigned. To the extent indicated, shipping dates and destinations are included in a separate column. In a few cases several lesser seizures are included in one numbered AV, and a few represented accumulated miscellaneous materials prepared for shipment from one of the ERR offices.
36 This regulation explains the content and scope of the extensive correspondence and reports to officers of the MB BelgNFr remaining in the ERR BelgNFr files now in Kyiv (see Appendix ?? below and the content survey of the Belgian portion of the Rosenberg Collection in TsDAVO). 37 See Lust and Vermote, “Papieren Bitte!, ” pp. 202–203. See also: ERR-HAG BelNFr, “Tagesbericht 18 August 1940”, TsDAVO 3676/1/161, fols. 535–36. 38 Ibid., p. 93. The ERR HAG BelNFr had a maximum of ten employees at its disposal, of which a third were administrative clerks. Apart from the occasional use of Belgian employees (a total of four), four students of the Auslandswissenschaftliche Fakultät were recruited in the fall of 1943 to carry out "scientific research". 39 Dirk Martin, “L’Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg en Belgique,” p. 84, p. 93. 10
11
As presented in the first five ERR seizure lists, these data provide an overview of ERR looting during German wartime occupation, involving their 150 confiscations of private non- governmental libraries, many with considerable archival materials and art, through February 1943. Subsequently, the ERR Belgian Working Group (HAG Belgien-Nordfrankreich) did not continue their named and numbered seizures, as Muchow explained in his annual report for 1943 (prepared in March 1944). This change of procedure, he explained, was due to the extensive M- Aktion household removals from abandoned Jewish lodgings in mid-1942, and also because increasing danger of transports to the Reich prevented further shipments after the last one on 31 March 1943.40 Given that unique numbered registration system of confiscations ERR used in Belgium, we have more assurance that these lists together with the accompanying chart, cover all of the main, named ERR seizures in Belgium. And as far as is known, the ERR did not use that numeric system of Arbeitsvorhaben (AV) in other occupied countries, including France and the Netherlands, where significant confiscations were undertaken. More expository details, analysis, and explanation about specific examples of the ERR seizures as registered in their 150 numbered ‘work projects’ (Arbeitsvorhaben, AV) through February 1943, are summarized in the related chart and will be discussed in our forthcoming article on “The ERR in Action,” which will also reference the assigned AV numbers and additional sources.
HIGHLIGHTS OF ERR SEIZURES IN BELGIUM
These 150 ERR confiscations listed in Belgium represent extensive library materials, often with personal papers and archives, and in some cases, many works of art, belonging to some 105 individuals and 36 non-government institutions. Many of these were prominent individuals, political leaders, and important Masonic, Jewish, and other religious, or trade-union organizations confiscated during the first two and a half years of ERR activity. Examples ranged from a royalist pretender to the French throne to the former head of the Second Socialist International, from Jewish émigré professors to top Belgian political leaders associated with the Belgian Government in Exile in London, and even Roman-Catholic institutions, including a French Jesuit priest who had published anonymous tracts against the Nazi Regime, specifically naming Alfred Rosenberg.
Masonic Targets. The extensive abandoned Masonic materials in lodges in Brussels and Antwerp were the initial and most productive ERR targets, as shown in the reports of the first six ‘work projects’ (AV 1–AV 6), starting on 17 August 1940. By the end of the month they could boast an estimated total of almost 270 crates including Masonic ritual items, as well as books and archives, even after the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) took part of the loot. Although the SD outpaced the ERR for Masonic materials in several other cities, the ERR could report another 27 crates from Belgium’s oldest Masonic lodge in Liège (AV 7), but only three crates that the SD had allotted to them from a lodge in Veviers (AV 11)
40 Muchow, “Arbeitsbericht der HAG Belgien und Nordfrankreich für das Jahr 1943,” TsDAVO, 3676/1/171, fol. 129. Full details have yet to surface for the 31 March shipment. 11
12
Jewish Targets. Simultaneously the ERR immediately canvassed Jewish institutions in Brussels and Antwerp, and individual abandoned Jewish lodgings, but the much more modest loot from Jewish organizations in Belgium, hardly ranked with the French wagonloads immediately rushed to Frankfurt. Already on the 21st of August, when ERR Brussels office head Ebeling, and co-worker Dr Wilhelm-Jakob Schwartz, conducted an inspection tour of nine Brussels Jewish organizations, jointly with the SD Hauptsturmführer Humpert and two other SD officers, following one of their many Jewish ‘hit lists’.41 Their only significant confiscation that day were 22 crates from the Brussels branch of the Alliance israélite (AV 9). That was undoubtedly a disappointment after the 50,000 volumes the ERR had seized earlier in Paris from the Alliance israélite universelle. As their first and only major Jewish organization in Antwerp, while they were packing up the 67 crates of their share of the Masonic loot from three Antwerp lodges, they also raided the Fédération des Zionistes Belges (AV 8), augmenting their Jewish library materials with 10 crates (2,654 volumes).42 Apparently, as Ebeling explained later, other Jewish organizations had anticipated potential German seizure and had duly disappeared.43 Thus the first ERR shipment from Brussels to Berlin in November 1940 thus contained predominately Masonic loot, with 195 crates of Masonic materials and only 32 crates from Jewish sources. While all of the Belgian shipments through March 1943 went first to Berlin, at least some of the Jewish and Masonic materials were thence forwarded to the IEJ in Frankfurt.
Emigré French Royalist Target. As highlight of that first ERR transport, it also included 37 crates of books (20,000 volumes) and rich archives from the estate of the exiled claimant to the French throne, Jean d’Orléans, duc de Guise (AV 12), living outside of Brussels, with his son and successor Henri.44 The ERR worked on his estate for two weeks in September 1940. Undoubtedly some of Jean d’Orléans’ library was eventually destined for the ZBHS, but, like the archival materials that went to Moscow, they were undoubtedly claimed after the war by France.45 In a second, unsuccessful royalist investigation, on 25 September, Ebeling and ZBHS director Grothe visited the castle of Steenokkerzeel (near Brussels), the Belgian residence of Empress Zita, the last Empress of Austria-Hungary.46 While no ERR seizure was reported it is unclear if any of the books they found were confiscated.
41 Ebeling, “Tagesbericht, 21 Aug. 1940: Rundfahrt durch Judenorganisationen,” TsDAVO 3676/1/161, fols. 514–17. Given the considerable interest in the wartime fate of Jewish libraries in Belgium, we specifically name the organizations listed; the only other one from which books were seized is added to the “Alliance Israélite” entry on our Excel chart, which is listed only by address in this report. See also the “Arbeitsbericht” for the Alliance: TsDAVO, 3674/1/2, fol. 217. 42 Ebeling, “Arbeitsbericht, 28 Aug. 1940, Fahrt nach Antwerpen,” 29 Aug. 1940, TsDAVO, 3676/1/161, fols. 498–99; “Arbeitsbericht, 30 Aug. 1940, Fahrt nach Antwerpen,” 31 Aug. 1940, TsDAVO, 3676/1/161, fols. 494–95. 43 Ebeling to Dahlem, Reichsstatthalterei Hamburg, 3 Feb. 1941, TsDAVO, 3676/1/239, fol. 219: “…but here already partly cleared out”. 44 Jean d’Orléans (1874–1940), duc de Guise, descendant of Louis-Philippe I (1773–1850). After fleeing from Belgium, he died in Morocco 29 August 1940, less than a week before Ebeling and Grothe’s first visit. 45 At least part of the duc de Guise library, however, remains today in the Belarus National Library, along with other ERR-looted library materials from France and Belgium, as highlighted by Anatole Steburaka, “ 46 Zita of Bourbon-Parma (1892–1989), last Empress of Austria-Hungary, was the widow of Charles I (Karl Franz-Joseph, 1887–1922), the last reigning Hapsburg monarch of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire. She lived in the 12
13
More Prominent Jewish Targets. In any case, the ERR had many more productive, prominent individual Jewish ‘work projects’ among the 150 numbered confiscations registered. One of the first such victims was Léon Kubowitzki (AV 14), an influential Jewish attorney and leader of the Jewish World Congress, whose home ERR co-worker Dr Robert Köster first visited 23 September, together with ZBHS director Dr Walter Grothe.47 On the first of October, Köster and Gerhard Schilde first raided the home of Alfred Stern (AV 15), a prominent Jewish philosophy professor who had fled Vienna; they packed up two crates of books and papers.48 In November two other ERR staff made several visits to the home of the Secretary of the National Office of Museums of Belgium, George Philippart (AV 19) and confiscated two crates, containing Judaïca and many valuable art books.49 Other predators must have helped themselves to more, because Philippart filed a postwar claim reporting the seizure of his entire library of over 2,000 volumes.50 One of the most prominent Jewish individual seizures in January 1941 was from the home of Latvian-born Niko Gunzburg (AV 44), a leader in the pre-war Jewish Community in Antwerp, and also active in Masonic circles.51 Active in Belgian protest-movements against National Socialism, he had fled to the United States.52 An extensive report on Gunzburg’s confiscated library materials and personal papers is preserved in Berlin, one of the few such reports found from Belgium.53 On 21 May 1941, Wörmke and Vogel visited the “beautiful property” of Léo Rothschild in Flemish Brabant (Sint-Genesius-Rode), where they confiscated 2 crates of art books and paintings by 18 different artists; that seizure was subsequently registered (AV 80), but the fate of the art is not known.54 castle of Steenockerzeel near Brussels with her children starting in 1929, but fled to the U.S. just before the Nazis arrived. Ebeling, “Tagesbericht” (25 Sep. 1940), TsDAVO, 3676/1/161, fols 458a-458b. 47 Köster, “Arbeitsbericht, Leo Kubowitzki,” and “Tagesbericht über die Arbeit in der Rue de la Source im Hause des Advokaten Leo Kubowitzki,” 1 Oct. 1940, TsDAVO, 3674/1/1, fols. 122–27; see also ERR Lists #3, #4, and #6. 48 Vogel, Köster, “Arbeitsbericht, Alfred Stern,” and “Tagesbericht über die Arbeit in der Wohnung des Prof. Alfred Stern,” 2 Oct. 1940, TsDAVO, 3674/1, fols. 117–21. See also the Vermote case study, “Alfred Stern,” in Returned from Russia, pp. 218–19. 49 Vogel, “Arbeitsbericht” (2 Dec. 1940), 3676/1/239, fols. 911–12. 50 See the claim with list of many of the seized books by Georges Philippart, that ORE/DER forwarded to the American restitution office in Germany, a copy of which from MCCP records in NACP, RG 260 (OMGUS), NARA Microfilm Publication M1946, roll 39, at -- https://www.fold3.com/image/269998147 , together with further explanation. 51 Niko Gunzburg (1882–1984), born in Riga (Latvia, then in the Russian Empire), his family resettled in Antwerp in 1885; law professor at the University of Ghent, and later dean of the Law Faculty. After arrival in the USA, he worked in the Office of War Information (OWI) and taught law at the Syracuse University. Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging (1973), p. 632; Lust and Vermote, “Papieren Bitte!“, pp. 217–18 (case study Gunzburg). 52 ERR-HAG Belgien und Nordfrankreich, Arbeitsbericht ‘Niko Gunzburg, Schermerstrasse 40’ (1 Mar. 1941), TsDAVO, 3676/1/168, fol. ???. 53 ERR-HAG Belgien und Nordfrankreich, “Bericht über die Auswertung der im Hause Gunzburg (Antwerpen) gefundenen Freimauerakten” (n.d. 1941), BArch, NS 30/71, fols. 26-72. 54 Wörmke, Vogel, “Tagesbericht für Mittwoch, den 21. Mai 1941,” TsDAVO, 3676/1/159, fol. 650. A Belgian claim for some of the Rothschild paintings was included among those submitted to U.S. Restitution authorities in Germany, by ORE, 15 Mar. 1947: ADD URL and verify Rothschild full name . Based on ORE/DER files in AGR2, I:21/510, six seized paintings owned by Léo Rothschild are listed in the Jeu de Paume DataBase. 13
14
Even before the Jewish deportations and the M-Aktion got underway in 1942, the ERR surveyed names and addresses on prepared hit-lists searching for library collections of potential interest left behind by Jews who had fled. For example, on the 3rd of June 1941, Muchow and Vogel searched for Jewish publications in 14 named Jewish lodgings, with only a few results of interest. The next day Vogel searched 24 more and reported no Jewish residences which yielded books. Three out of the ten Jewish lodgings searched on the 29th were registered as ‘work projects’.55 Between the fall of 1940 and November 1941, for which ERR daily reports (Tagesberichte) survive among ERR files in Kyiv, over fifty such lists have been identified.56
Political Targets. Starting in October 1940, the ERR also started operations against Belgian political leaders, especially those involved with the Belgian Government in Exile in London, with an initial hit-list they submitted to the Militärverwaltung (18 October 1940).57 Among those targeted was former Prime Minister, Paul Van Zeeland (AV 56), the ERR removed 21 crates (4,200 books) with his personal papers, some of which were among those archives returned to Belgium from Moscow. The ERR also visited the home of former Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Paul-Henri Spaak (AV 49), also active with the Belgian Government in London, but found only a few manifestos and political documents.58
Socialist/Bolshevik Targets. The ERR especially focused on Socialist politicians: for example, the library of former minister and Mayor of Antwerp, Camille Huysmans (AV 45), along important personal papers and six paintings were seized in February 1941.59 Since he was then president of the Second International, and broadcasting on British radio from London, Rosenberg personally had noted “In Antwerp the house of Huismans [sic] must not be forgotten.”60 Among Socialist opponents of the Nazi regime the ERR focused particularly on Austrian- born Friedrich Adler (AV 52), Secretary of the Socialist Labour International (SLI), then headquartered in Belgium, because the remaining SLI records were – next to the Freemason organizations – a top ERR priority.61 Although the SD had earlier seized many of the SLI office records and rushed them to Berlin, the ERR won control of Adler’s Brussels home, where they
55 Muchow, “Tagesbericht für Dienstag, den 3 Juni 1941,” TsDAVO, 3676/1/159, fol. 627; Vogel, “Tagesbericht für Mittoch, den 4. Juni 1941,” file 159, fols. 621–22; “Tagesbericht für Freitag, den 27 Juni 1941,” 159, fol. 564. Wörmke, Vogel, “Tagesbericht für Donnerstag, den 29 Mai 1941,” file 159, fol. 636. See more examples in the “ERR in Action” article and Appendix ?? below. 56 See the chart of lists found among remaining Tagesberichte posted as Appendix ?? with the introduction to the six ERR seizure lists, listing Jewish lodgings inspected during the period ADD DATES. 57 Ebeling, ERR HAG BelNFr to Kriegsverwaltungsrat Heym, Militärverwaltung (18 Oct. 1940), TsDAVO, 3676/1/166, fols. 144–45. ADD reference to BASIC STUDY of London government! 58 Paul-Henri Spaak (1899–1972). See ERR HAG BelNFr , “Tagesbericht” (5 and 8 Feb. 1941), TsDAVO, 3674/1/161, fols. 150, 162; Arbeitsbericht “P.H. Spaak” (27 Feb. 1941), TsDAVO, 3674/1/163, fols. 2–3; and “Ubersicht über die Arbeitsvorhaben der AG Belgien in zeitlicher reihenfolge” (n.d. [Mar. 1943]), TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fols. 53–66. 59 Camille Huysmans (1871–1968), former secretary of the Second Socialist International, former Minister and Mayor of Antwerp. http://www.odis.be/lnk/PS_35956 - TEST: edit later 60 Note from A[lfred] Rosenberg (reacting to a letter of Ebert) (Jul. 1940), CDJC, CXLIV-394. 61 Friedrich Adler (1879–1960). See Lust and Vermote, “Papieren Bitte!“, pp. 220-223 (case study Adler and Socialist International). 14
15 confiscated 20 crates of his books and personal papers, some of which also ended up in Moscow.62 The SLI archives, however, were sadly dispersed during the war, with an additional portion ending in Poland, while Adler fled to the United States. After the war, Adler opted for what materials were restituted to be centered at the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), although he was never to know that a major part of the archives had been captured by Soviet authorities. Since their post-Soviet discovery, most of them remain in Moscow, however, because Russia refused their restitution to Amsterdam. The ERR ineffective search for the library of former Socialist minister Emile Vandervelde (1866–1938) led the ERR to another priority Socialist target: the National Institute of Social History (NISH) (AV 134).63 This specialized archive and documentation centre, established in 1937 – after the example of the International Institute of Social History (IISH) of Amsterdam, would become a major case for the ERR and was a typical example of a confrontation between the SD and the ERR. The SD was first to discover the NISH collections in October 1940 and evaluated their importance as a supplement to those of the IISH in Amsterdam and its Paris Branch.64 The SD organized the selective plunder of the collection: in 1940 and 1941 at least 25 crates were shipped to the RSHA in Berlin.65 But in the confrontation with the ERR they lost control over the NISH collections (similar to what happened with IISH in Amsterdam)66. Finally, in April 1942 the ERR lay hands on the 25,000 kilograms of library material, shipped in the following months to Amsterdam in 220 crates.67 In 1944 publications were transported from Amsterdam to the Reich as part of the collection of IISH.68 Meanwhile, the NISH material plundered by the SD was transferred from Berlin to Silesia, presumably to the same RSHA Amt VII archival centre in Wölfelsdorf as the materials from the Second International, where it fell into the hands of a Soviet trophy brigade in 1945.69 The war put all scientific ambitions and perspectives of the NISH to an end. This project, unique for Belgium with regard to formation of archival collections, perished after barely three years.
62 HAG Belgiën und Nordfrankreich (8 Jan. 1943), TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fol.xxx. 63 Jacques Lust, Evert Maréchal, Wouter Steenhaut and Michel Vermote, Een Zoektocht naar Archieven. Van NISG naar AMSAB (Ghent: AMSAB, 1997). See also ERR HAG BelNFr , “Arbeitsbericht – Wohnung Vandervelde, Residence Palace” (s.d., [1941]), TsDAVO, 3676/1/163, fols. 1–1a. 64 Telegram from RSHA-Berlin to SD-Dienststelle Brüssel (4 Sep. 1940), SOMA, Inventory Boumans. 65 Note from SD Dienststelle Brüssel to RSHA Berlin (28 Oct. 1940), SOMA, Inventory Boumans. See also the notes of RSHA Berlin (15 Oct. 1941-13 Feb. 1942) and the letter from RSHA Berlin to Wörmke, ERR Berlin (15 Oct. 1941), BArch, R58/6498. 66 Regarding the seizure and fate of the IISH collections from Amsterdam, see Karl Heinz Roth, ‘The International Institute of Social History as a Pawn of Nazi Social Research: New Documents on the History of the IISH during German Occupation Rule from 1940 to 1944’, International Review of Social History 34 (Supplement) (1989), which references related publications and sources. 67 Copy of waybill (n.d.), MTI, Archives of the Ministry of Reconstruction, War Damage, dossier ‘NISG’, no. 2.004.041. 68 Maria Hunink, De Papieren van de Revolutie. Het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1935-1947 (Amsterdam: IISH, 1986), pp.138-139, 152, 316-317. 69 15
16
The day after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, on 23 June 1941, the ERR looted the Soviet Embassy in Brussels, removing five crates of archives (AV 82).70 Continuing their anti-Bolshevik campaign, they next confiscated the entire stock of the Brussels Soviet-Russian bookshop Obla (AV 114), on 7 October 1941.71 Trade-union libraries were likewise targeted, including, for example, the Diamond Workers Union (AV 126) in Antwerp, and a series of trade-union libraries in Brussels (AV 140), some in collaboration with the SD.72
Francophile Targets. Much less known or publicized among German wartime targets are two of the largest ERR Belgian private library confiscations from Francophile institutions considered enemies of the Reich. First in November 1940 the ERR seized 27 crates with the most valuable books from the École des Hautes Études in Ghent (AV 24), founded in 1923, following the introduction of Dutch courses at the University of Ghent. That initial portion was rushed to Berlin already in January 1941. The Germans considered the École ‘unfriendly’ to Nazism, as an outpost of French culture on Flemish soil. A year later, they confiscated “the remainder of the Scientific Library” with an additional 56 crates (AV 109), shipped to Berlin 18 November 1941.73 The second major francophile target implicated the exiled French Jesuits, whom the Germans accused of importing politicized Catholic culture on Flemish soil.74 Most seriously, the Gestapo had a death warrant for the French Jesuit historian-archivist Father Pierre Delattre (1876–1961), who headed the Jesuit library and archives in Enghien (AV 133), Belgium, since 1926. Imprisoned during the First World War for anti-German activities, he rose of the top of the German hit-list for his vociferous anti-Nazi writings, especially three offensive volumes published anonymously in France, one entitled Hitler et Rosenberg.75 Like the NISH project, the Gestapo and SD first came in search for Delattre, only to discover he had fled. They took control of the Enghien Library with its over 80,000 volumes. Considering Enghien to be the headquarters of political Catholicism in Belgium, they were specifically anxious to find more incriminating material and to ascertain Delattre authorship; more arrests and incarcerations followed.76
70 ERR HAG BelNFr, “Ubersicht über die Arbeitsvorhaben der Arbeitsgruppe Belgien in zeitlicher reihenfolge” (n.d. [Mar. 1943]), TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fols. 53-66. See also the letter from ERR-Belgien to SD- Belgien (28 Jun. 1941), TsDAVO, 3676/1/159, fol. 23. 71 ERR Liste #3 ? , 8 Jan. 1943, TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fols. 46–52. 72 Wörmke, “Tagesbericht” (2 Oct. 1941), TsDAVO, 3676/1/162, fols. 224–25. 73 ERR HAG BelNFr , “Tagesbericht” (xxxx ??), TsDAVO, 3676/1/xxx, fol. xxx. And ARA2, DER/ORE, I-21/ xxx (fiche A989) 74 Belgium had provided fertile soil for Jesuit traditions since the reestablishment of the Jesuit Order in Belgium in 1832 and development of important educational institutions. 75 Pierre Delattre, S.J. (1874–1961), Jesuit historian/archivist was then in charge of the archive, which they found, also held many of his unpublished anti-German writings from the interwar period. After living clandestinely in a French monastery in the Gers (Gascony) after 1942, he returned to Enghien after the war, to what was then called the Institut supérieur de théologie. Among his many scholarly publications, he edited a seven-volume topo- bibliographical compendium on Jesuit establishments in France (1540–1940). See http://enghien-le-saviez- vous.eklablog.com/le-pere-pierre-delattre-p1114448 , and Yves Delannoy, Le P. Pierre Delattre (Enghien, 1962). 76 The French dissertation by Sheza Moledina, “L' histoire des bibliothèques jésuites à l'époque contemporaine, 1814–1998,” Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris, 2007), devotes a chapter to the Enghien library confiscation and Pierre Delattre. See also related documents in the file “Looted works of art” of the Service pour la Protection du Patrimoine Culturel de Belgique (n.d.), ARA2, ORE/DER, I: 21/542. See also Kober, SD-Dienstelle Brüssel to RSHA-Berlin (28 Feb. 1940), BArch, R58/6502. 16
17
Finally, in July 1941 ERR church specialist Dr Hermann Noack was given access to evaluate the library and archives, which turned out to be one of the largest and most important ERR operations in Belgium.77 Dr Heinrich Härtle, headed of the ERR Sonderstab Wissenschaft, sent to appraise the collections in April 1942, recommended confiscation of the entire library.78 In May 1942, the ERR removed 196 crates to their Brussels library depot (146, rue du Livourne).79 By coordinating Delattre’s diary entries with other manuscripts, Noack proved definitively that Father Delattre was the author of “three books against National-Socialism published anonymously in Paris.”80 By the end of the war, under Noak’s direction, the ERR completed a major study of Jesuit Clericalism in Europe, 1918–1940, with a detailed inventory of the archives.81 Apparently, the archives never left France; and were retrieved by the Jesuits in February 1945 at Livourne, 125; 115 crates (c.18 tons) were returned to Enghien, although many of the books were missing. After the war, the Jesuits were permitted to return to France, and the library and archives were later transferred to the Municipal Library in Lyon.82
ERR RIVALS FOR CULTURAL SPOILS IN BELGIUM: THE RSHA
From the start of Belgian occupation, the ERR was not alone in its quest for ‘enemy’ libraries and archives, although other agencies had somewhat different priorities and purposes. One of the first predators, the Special Commando Künsberg (Sonderkommando Künsberg) under the German Foreign Office (Auswartiges Amt), led by SS-Sturmbannführer Eberhard Freiherr von Künsberg, was responsible for the immediate confiscation of foreign ministry records in occupied countries. But they had little success in Belgium, thanks to government evacuation of major foreign office records to England, beyond the reach of N-S vultures, while the Künsberg Commando did not pursue library confiscations in Belgium.83
77 See note 29 regarding Dr Hermann Noack. 78 Oberbereichsleiter Härtle and Kulp, “Bericht über die Überprüfung des Jesuiten-Kollegs in Enghien am 29 April 1942,” 1 May 1942, TsDAVO, 3676/1/140, fols. 456–57. Härtle then headed the Sonderstab Wissenschaft, while Kulp was identified as Abschnittsleiter [Section Head]. The TsDAVO copy is n a file from the ERR unit investigating churches in Estonia. Other documents suggest the library comprised between 80,000 and 90,000 volumes, but reportedly some had been removed earlier under SD or Gestapo auspices. 79 ERR List #4 (AV 133) lists 120 crates of archival materials and 76 crates from the library, for a total of 196 crates from Enghien. 80 Noack, “Bericht über die Arbeit an der Auswertung des Archivs des Jesuitenkollegs Enghien,” 27 November 1942, BArch NS 30/74. The report relates only to Delattre and his anti-NS writings. The three books issued by the major French Catholic publisher, ‘Maison de Bonne Press,’ were entitled: Ce qui se passe en Allemagne (1933); Hitler et Rosenberg, ou le vrai visage du Nationalsocialisme (1936); and Sous le joug Hitlerien, la revolte des consciences (1937). 81 “Neue Dokumente zum Jesuiteschen Klerikalismus in Europa 1918-1940, Politische Dokumente der Archivs Edingen (Belgien)”/ Nouveaux Documents sur le Cléricalisme Jésuitique en Europe 1918-1940, Documents Politiques des Archives d'Enghien – Belgique, edited by R. Baes, et al. (209 p.; 146 supplemental documents) . 82 See details by Moledina, ADD 83 Belgium authorities succeeded in evacuating the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hundreds of crates were shipped in May 1940 to the Caernarfon Castle in north Wales, and returned safely to Brussels in November 1944. Only a small part of the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs fell into German hands in 1940 at Poitiers (France). See: Lust and Vermote: “Papieren bitte!,” pp. 194–95. 17
18
Other official government archives were targets of the Archivschutz (Archives Protection Office) also operating under the Military Commandant They prioritized archives that were vital for intelligence and other military government purposes. The counterpart occupation agency for Library Protection, the Bibliothekschutz, made extensive surveys of libraries within Belgium and Northern France, although apparently, they left confiscations to the ERR.84 Meanwhile special commandos of the German Military Archives (Heeresarchiv) seized vast quantities of Belgian military records that had been evacuated to France. Their well-prepared operations in Western Europe were so successful that, at the end of 1940, a special branch of the Heeresarchiv was organized for analyzing their loot in Berlin-Wannsee – the West Archival Depot (Aktensammelstelle West). Most of the captured Belgian records from that depot were captured a second time by Soviet authorities in 1945; they were not returned to Belgium until 2002. Today, the administrative records of the Berlin-Wannsee Archival Depot still held in Moscow (RGVA) contain valuable inventories with considerable details about the captured Belgian military records processed during the war.85
Reich Security Main Office – RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt). For Rosenberg in his several state and NSDAP offices, ideology was a top priority, namely the ideological and cultural struggle against the opponents of the Nazi regime, and especially for the ERR, the primary aim was collection of enemy library and archival materials for study of the enemies in the projected Hohe Schule. In that goal, however, the ERR was hardly alone. The ERR’s most important rival was the German Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, SD), or SD-Hauptamt, which in 1939 had merged with the Gestapo and other security and police agencies as numbered offices of the Reich Security Main Office – RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt). Under the overall command of Heinrich Himmler, following an agreement with Rosenberg 29 July 1940, the RSHA claimed priority over the ERR for archival materials postdating 1923 potentially relating to State security aims and immediate repression of enemies of the regime.86 Like the ERR, however, the SD also catered to Rosenberg’s N-S ideological goals. Hence, they also targeted personal and organizational documentation of political enemies – Jews, Freemasons, communists, social- democrats, liberals, trade-unions, and potential resistance fighters from every possible nationality. While many of the RSHA offices – Amter – amassed library and archival materials, the RSHA Seventh Office (Amt VII), designated for “Ideological Research and Evaluation” (Weltanschauliche Forschung und Auswertung), built up a research center, with an extensive central library and information centre with various subunits for different ‘enemies’ of the Reich. With Himmler’s special interest, Amt VII developed a particularly strong research and library unit on Freemasonry. Accordingly, that explains the immediate transfer to the RSHA Berlin
84 Such is apparent in surviving MB BelgNfr files with the Group 6 (Kultur)/Bureau I (Libraries) reports in the Archives nationales–site de Pierrefitte, AJ/40/37. 85 See Grimsted, “Military Capture: the Heeresarchiv and Berlin-Wannsee,” in Returned from Russia, pp. 20– 31. See also Karl Heinz Roth, “Klios rabiate Truppen, Archivare und Archivpolitik im deutschen Faschismus,” Archivmitteilungen 41 (1991), pp.1–13. The Russian preface to the pamphlet list of Belgian fonds (note 6) does not mention the top-secret Wannsee repository from which Soviet authorities removed 30 train wagons of military archives from Western Europe. 86 The agreement with the SD was dated 29 July 1940, CDJC, CXLV-578: 18
19 offices of many of the Masonic materials the ERR seized in Belgium, as was the case in France and other occupied countries. Initially based in Berlin, starting in mid-1943, most of the RSHA research and library functions were evacuated to Silesia and the Sudentenland.87 Amt VII Masonic research center was established in Himmler’s favorite lakeside castle on the Schliesersee (postwar Polish Sława), while Masonic archives were stored in Wölfelsdorf (postwar Polish Wilkanów), further southeast, where the village castle and other buildings also housed the captured Jewish and Socialist archives the SD (Sicherheirsdienst) had earlier collected in Berlin. Meanwhile close to a million books from the Jewish and parts of the Masonic looted collections were evacuated to four castles in the Sudetenland, with the Castle of Niemes (Czech Mimoň) as library headquarters. Major uncatalogued portions of the RSHA Jewish Library were sent for cataloguing to the concentration camp of Teriesenstadt (Czech Terezín), where incarcerated Hebrew scholars formed the famous Talmud Brigade.88 The RSHA, and especially the SD, often assisted the ERR in Belgium in many searches, although simultaneously competed for control of specific institutional holdings and their potential loot. Both rival German plundering agencies had efficient working organizations and both usually depended on the Secret Field Police (Geheimes Feldpolizei, GFP) or other police agents for securing the premises and actual seizures. By manipulating substrata of Nazi ideology, and carrying out their assigned functions of security and social control or the ideological struggle against Nazi adversaries, these agencies tried to avoid being hampered by restrictions in their operations. Their pretexts were often misused for camouflaging the plunder of valuable libraries as well as works of art. As a result of competitive battles, looting of libraries and archives did not always follow a logical path.89 Each agency had its own pattern, content preferences, and research strengths, which determined the destination of the spoils, but clearly coincidence also played its role. Notably, as apparent above during the initial months, such as the early Masonic seizures, for example, the ERR and the SD were involved jointly in investigations, and while clearly in competition, the spoils were often divided.90 In other cases, the SD, or other German occupation agencies first informed the ERR about the sites, which the ERR then investigated, and shipped the loot to its own destinations in the Reich. Remarkably, three of the most extensive ERR confiscations in Belgium mentioned above, namely the National Institute of Social History (NISH) (AV 134), the École des Haute Études in Ghent (AV 34; AV 109), and the Jesuit Monastery in Enghien (AV 133), gained control only after the RSHA first took over the site and analyzed the contents (often shipping out selected items), and only subsequently releasing the site and its loot to the ERR. More thorough investigation of those ERR seizures in which the SD were
87 See Grimsted, “Archival Loot of the Security Services (RSHA),” in Returned from Russia, pp. 33–64; and, “Twice Plundered or ‘Twice Saved’?: Russia’s ‘Trophy’ Archives and the Loot of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15(2) (Fall 2001), pp. 191–244. Several specific examples of required ERR transfers of Masonic loot to the RSHA are documented in our separate article on “The ERR in Action in Belgium.” 88 Grimsted, “Sudeten Crossroads for Europe’s Displaced Books: The ‘Mysterious Twilight’ of the RSHA Amt VII Library and the Fate of a Million Victims of War,” Restitution of Confiscated Works–Wish or Reality? op.cit at: http://socialhistory.org/sites/default/files/docs/pkg-sudeten_crossroads.pdf . 89 Jo Gérard-Libois and José Gotovitch, L’An 40. La Belgique occupée (Brussels, 1971), p. 136. 90 See more detailed examples in the forthcoming “The ERR in Action.” 19
20 also involved, would require comparable SD reports but few of those have surfaced, and apparently, others have not survived.91
THE MÖBEL-AKTION AND ERR CULTURAL RECEIPTS IN QUESTION
Rosenberg initiated the Möbel-Aktion in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, in January 1942 as a vast program for the removal of household furnishings – including cultural assets – from homes abandoned by Jews (and others) who had fled the country or were deported. The alleged purpose of this extensive plunder was to secure furnishings for the occupied Eastern territories, but most of the shipments reported from Belgium were destined for central Germany to aid bombed out victims. Initially in Belgium, as in France and the Netherlands, the operation was assigned to the ERR, but in March 1942 the M-Aktion was taken over by newly-established Western Office (Dienststelle Westen) of the Rosenberg-directed Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories (Reichsministerium der besetzten Ostgebiete, RMbO), i.e. predominantly Soviet lands. Thus Rosenberg was operating the M-Aktion as a State rather than Party operation. Notwithstanding the ERR and the Dienststelle Westen presence in Belgium, most of the actual M-Aktion seizures were carried out by local moving firms under the auspices of the Brüsseler Treuhandgesellschaft (BTG), an agency charged with the seizure, management, and disposal of ‘enemy’ (mainly Jewish) property and financial assets in Belgium. Administratively, the BTG functioned within the Economic Department (Wirtschaftsabteilung) of the Military Administration (Militärverwaltung) under the MB BelgNfr, rather than Dienstelle Westen, and hence its own seizures and acquisitions were quite separate from those of Dienstelle Westen. 92 ERR leaders are nonetheless named in directing roles in Dienststelle Westen staff lists. In postwar testimony, Muchow may have insisted that the ERR kept their distance from the M- Aktion, but his words are contradicted by his ERR reports. Most significant in the present context of cultural plunder (including books) in Belgium, as in other countries where the M-Aktion operated, first choice of any cultural property accumulated was intended for the ERR, as made clear in a notice regarding art collected to the AG Belgien 6 March 1942, when the M-Aktion was just getting organized.93 And, for example, Muchow instructed Gemeinschaftsleiter Mader, who was in charge of M-Aktion in Antwerp, to be looking out for musical instruments collected from Jewish households.94 The same was true of cultural receipts acquired directly by the BTG, which was responsible for dealing with the most valuable ‘enemy’ property; most of the art
91 See for an example of such a case study concerning the National Institute of Social History: Jacques Lust, Evert Maréchal, Wouter Steenhaut, Michel Vermote, Een Zoektocht naar Archieven. Van NISG naar AMSAB Ghent, 1997). 92 See [Johanna Pezechkian’s] helpful section on the Möbel-Aktion included in the Buysse Commission Report (above note 10), pp. 119–31, at http://www.combuysse.fgov.be/hoofdframerapfr.html . See also Pezechkian’s more dertailed version, also published by the Commission: “La Möbelaktion (1940–1963)” (Brussels, 4 September 2000), at http://www.combuysse.fgov.be/hoofdframepuben.html, and her subsequent article, “La Möbelaktion en Belgique,” Cahiers d’histoire du temps present / Bijdragen tot de Eigentijdse Geschiedenis 10 (2002), pp. 153–80; at: https://www.journalbelgianhistory.be/fr/system/files/article_pdf/chtp10_007_Dossier_Pezechkian.pdf . See the chart of occupation administrative structure in Belgium in the Buysse Commission Report (above note 10), pp. 40–42. 93 Ingram, Stabsführung Berlin to AG Belgien, 6 March 1942, TsDAVO, 3674/1/3, fol. 347. 94 Muchow to Mader, 11 June 1942, TsDAVO, 3674/1/3, fol. 345. 20
21 acquired by the BTG did in fact go to the ERR. Certainly, the ERR office was closely involved with the M-Aktion, as shown for example, in an August 1944 report from HAG BelNfr with the figure of 100,000 cubic meters of Jewish furnishings they had sent to the Reich by June 1944.95 The precise number of households from which the M-Aktion removed furnishings in Belgium has still not been conclusively established. But clearly, the systematic plunder of Jewish dwellings ran parallel to Jewish deportation between 1942 and 1944.96 The 2001 Buysse Commission report cites the figure of 3,868 Belgian lodgings emptied from September 1942 to 30 August 1943, with a total of 11,173 pieces of furniture removed.97 The M-Aktion itensified in late 1943 and 1944, to the extent that by the end of August 1944, another analyst found furnishings were removed from an estimated total of 7,200 lodgings.98
The ERR Component of Books from the Möbel-Aktion
No conclusive, let alone estimated, figure has been determined for how many books the ERR obtained from the Möbel-Aktion, and even with more sources available today, a viable figure still remains impossible. The one foreign specialist to have analyzed the library component of the M- Aktion in Western Europe, University of Chicago library specialist Sem Sutter found no specific documentation for Belgium in his initial 2007 sketch of the subject, compared to the sources he found for M-Aktion books in Paris and Amsterdam.99 Apparently, he had not seen the Buysse Commission report, in which Johanna Pezechkian quoted local sources and several Kyiv ERR documents; more of the latter are available today, regarding the ERR acquisition of M-Aktion library plunder.100 While the Buysse Commission, focusing on Jewish losses, did attempt to come up with an overall figures for ERR book seizures from the Jewish population, based on the 100
95 Muchow to Amand (Hamburg, 10 Jun. 1947), with annex, ARA2, ORE/DER, I-21, n°364. See the ERR HAG report of 18 August 1944, as quoted by Pezechkian, “La Möbelaktion” (2002), pp. 156–57. See also URO, “Möbelaktion Frankreich, Belgien, Holland und Luxemburg 1940–1944,” 1958, p. 84. ERR-Belgien to Militärverwaltung, Brussels, 22 July 1942 (MSP, SVG, R 123 Tr 148.282).
22
Jewish victims named on one of the six ERR lists of 150 ERR work projects, they made no attempt clearly to determine the Möbel-Aktion component. Clearly, even before the M-Aktion got underway, the ERR had been systematically canvassing abandoned Jewish lodgings in 1941, with relatively small seizures in many cases. But with many of the numbered priority Jewish targets, the ERR removed vast quantities of books they wanted from lodgings of ‘fugitive Jews’. Accordingly, there would have been many fewer books left in Jewish lodgings when the M-Aktion vans starting arriving in the summer of 1942 to remove furniture and other household goods. Starting in the summer of 1942, when the M-Aktion got underway, many of the detailed ER daily reports (Tagesberichte), along with other work-project reports make clear that ERR library specialists were working closely with both BTG and RMbO Amt Westen officials for most of the final numbered ‘work projects’ (AV 138, August 1942) through to the final AV 150 (February 1943). Apparently the BTG, the RMbO, or other occupation agents were often either tipping off the ERR about significant book collections, or authorizing or even providing transport to the ERR depots in Brussels.101 Several of those work projects specifically reported books received from M-Aktion or BTG depots. For example, five crates of books owned by Meier- Schwarzschild (some documents say Meyer-Schwarzwald) from Hamburg (AV 142) were transferred to the ERR from the Ostministerium (RMbO) in Antwerp.102 Two different confiscations from the Belgian “Jewish art dealer and forger” David Reder in December 1942 (AV 145) and February ERR inspection of Reder’s home on 11 December 1942 was made together with Dr Bauer and Pg Liß, identified as the head of the RMbO Brussels Special Office. With reference to the second receipt, Dr Vogel noted that “the large suitcase of books was ready for us in the RMbO Office.”103 In the case of AV No. 150, for example, ERR List #4 identifies the contents only as “nine Jewish libraries (14 crates).” But from an ERR report signed by Dr Vogel (4 March 1943), we learn that those books were actually received from the BTG. In his specific summary report (AB), Vogel lists the family names and addresses of the Jewish victims. Again, the books were all packed in the ERR book depot at Rue de Livourne, 125.104 Thus the Bussye Commission figures for books seized from the Jewish Community already include many books received from the M-Aktion and the BTG. To the contrary, however, Daniël Dratwa, founding curator of the Jewish Museum in Brussels, suggested that the Buysse Commission had not adequately taken M-Aktion book receipts into account; he estimated that a figure of 400,000 volumes should be considered. He argues that an average of 50 books per family were quite probably seized from the approximately
101 See the Arbeitsberichte or the Tagesberichte for AV nos. 138–150, for example, on ERR list #4. 102 A list of 468 titles (many with multiple volumes) in the 5 crates is found along with the Arbeitsbericht (AB) for AV 142, with explanation of the RMbO as the source, TsDAVO, 3676/1/217, fols 58–69; Vogel’s “Arbeitsberichte: Meier-Schwarzschild aus Hamburg,” 10 Sept. 1942, is on fols 55 (cc 56). From the RMbO in Antwerp the crates were transferred to the ERR book depot at rue Livourne 125. 103 Vogel, “Arbeitsberichte: Reder,” Brussels, 12 Feb. 1943, TsDAVO, 3676/1/217, folio 22 (cc fol. 23), and folio 28 (cc fol. 29). 104 ERR List #4], TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fol. 66; Dr Vogel, “Sammel – Arbeitsbericht: Jüdishce Bibliotheken gesammelt im Lager der Brüsseler Treuhandgesellschaft, Brüssel, Cinquantenaire,” TsDAVO, 3676/1/217, folio 16 (cc fol. 17). Those victims were also identified by nationality – two of the victims were Belgian, three Polish, one French, one Romanian, one German. More details are presented in the “ERR in Action” article, as for example, AV 142 and AV 148 are attributed to the Ostministerium (RMbO) depot in Antwerp, and AV 150, to the BTG depot in Brussels. 22
23
8,000 households victimized by the M-Aktion in Belgium, but he offers to further documentation to support his argument.105 That suggestion, however, overlooks the ERR book acquisition procedures involved for M-Aktion books, and that the Buysse Commission figures already included some ERR receipts from the M-Aktion. Most important, besides, ERR reports show that they were carefully selecting only those books they wanted from M-Aktion receipts, according to their own criteria and specific needs. The 2001 Buysse Commission Report has an authoritative section on the Möbel-Aktion prepared by Johanna Pezechkian, which mentions a few examples of ERR book receipts from the M- Aktion, via RMbO auspices.106 As a case in point, AV 148 lists 14 crates of books from the RMbO depot (Lager Ostministerium) in Antwerp transferred on 5 February 1943 to the ERR Brussels book depot at Rue de Livourne 125. In his summary “Work Report (Arbeitsberichte, AB)” for that action, ERR specialist Dr Vogel explains he had been surveying RMbO book receipts since the fall and selecting appropriate titles: After viewing the books there [in the RMbO depot] in November and December 1942 and January and February 1943, on 5 February 1943, I transported all of the books that were suitable for us in a Wehrmacht truck to our library building at Rue de Livourne 125. Under my supervision, our Flemish workers arranged the books from the 24 boxes delivered on our book shelves according to new criteria.107
None of the tallies that have surfaced to date provide the basis for a reliable estimate of how many books the M-Aktion removed from Jewish lodgings, but given the ERR selection procedure, even if we had an estimated figure, that would not correspond to how many were actually turned over to the ERR or shipped out of Belgium. Many seizure reports remain in BTG files and other collections from the private Belgium moving companies operating vans for the M-Aktion, but research in these sources is tedious.108 Yet combing sample existing files may yield indications of more books removed. Buysse Commission researchers examined several groups of sample claims files, but there is no indication how carefully they checked for M-Aktion or BTG book confiscation in the sample
105 Daniël Dratwa, “The Looted Jewish Libraries in Belgium,” Speech in Vienna 23 April 2003,” copy kindly furnished by Daniël Dratwa from his papers in the Jewish Museum in Belgium. Dratwa, “The plunder of Jewish- Owned Books and Libraries in Belgium,” from a symposium at the Smithsonian, Washinton, DC, 2004, in Vitalizing Memory: International Perspectives on Provenance Research (Washington, DC: American Association of Museums, 2005), pp. 143–45. 106 See [Johanna Pezechkian’s] helpful section on the Möbel-Aktion included in the Buysse Commission Report (above note 10), pp. 119–31, at http://www.combuysse.fgov.be/hoofdframerapfr.html . See also Pezechkian’s more dertailed version, also published by the Commission: La Möbelaktion (1940–1963) (Brussels, 4 September 2000), at http://www.combuysse.fgov.be/hoofdframepuben.html, and her subsequent article, “La Möbelaktion en Belgique,” Cahiers d’histoire du temps present / Bijdragen tot de Eigentijdse Geschiedenis 10 (2002), pp. 153–80; at: https://www.journalbelgianhistory.be/fr/system/files/article_pdf/chtp10_007_Dossier_Pezechkian.pdf . 107 ERR HAG BelNFr, “Ubersicht über die Arbeitsvorhaben der Arbeitsgruppe Belgien in zeitlicher reihenfolge” (n.d. [Mar. 1943]) [ERR List #4], TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fol. 66; Vogel, “Arbeitsbericht,” 12 February 1943, TsDAVO, 3676/1/217, folio 20 (cc fol. 21). See also the [Peschkian], “Möbelaktion” summary in the Buysse Commission Report (above note 9), pp. 124–25, where [Peschkian] makes reference presumably to the same 25 crates of books from the Antwerp a RMbO depot transferred to the ERR book depot at 125 rue de Livourne, 108 See the scattered specific examples om the BTG records presented in the Belgian chapter of the ERR Archival Guide, as well as M-Aktion reports in other Belgian repositories. 23
24 thousands they did examine.109 Many more postwar claims files have recently been processed and opened for public consultation, but many claims were prepared with the aim of monetary compensation, rather than indicating the nature of book losses, so we do not have the same wealth of documentation from M-Aktion victims (predominantly Jewish) as is available in France.110 Because the numbered ERR confiscations continued only through February 1943, we cannot ascertain how many books the ERR may have received after March 1943. And at the same time, we do not know the alternate fate of the hundreds of thousands of books that the M-Aktion undoubtedly continued to acquire from Jewish lodgings. No figures have surfaced either about how many books the ERR destroyed or sent to wastepaper facilities in Belgium, although we know in many countries they had instructions to destroy ‘offensive’ literature. As one example, with a load of books the ERR received from an RMbO depot in Antwerp in February 1943, Vogel reported, “Care was taken to ensure proper destruction of the masses of prohibited literature from the Antwerp publisher Volk en Staat.”111 So far, however, we have no hints of how many books were actually destroyed or sent to wastepaper facilities. Muchow in his annual report for 1943 (prepared in March 1944) specifically noted that the ERR staff were continually checking the books collected in RMbO Western Office depots in major cities, but he also noted that they had more books than they could handle in their library depots. Quite probably, some of the 52,000 books from unnamed sources he cited at the end of 1943 were acquired from the M-Aktion or BTG, but many were probably those they had been keeping for analysis and utilization in Brussels until they were forced to leave.112 Muchow also noted that the ERR had no more numbered seizures or shipments after March 1943. The fact that no more ERR activity reports, or shipping papers from after March 1943 have surfaced, confirms Muchow’s explanation. The last ERR Brussels report available from 24 August 1944 records a final transport of two railroad freight cars sent out, as the HAG Belgian office was packed for evacuation. Vogel, the ERR officer then in charge, notes 108 crates of books for ZBHS in Tanzenberg in one of the wagons and an additional 33 crates of books in a second, including 16 crates of art-related volumes, but we cannot know if these may have come from the M-Aktion, the BTG, or ERR
109 See the Belgian Chapter, ERR Archival Guide, Section 1.1.3. for the Series ‘Dossiers individuels Dommages de Guerre / Individuele oorlogsschadedossiers, 1945–1970,” AGR 2, “Serie Commission Buysse, no. 480,” with a group of 497 cartons containing 5,210 files for Jewish M-Aktion victims from different cities in Belgium that were examined by the Commission, although are still not publicly available. See also the extensive original M-Aktion files remaining in the Archives and Documentation Service of the General Directorate for War Victims, as described in Section 1.3. 110 Open access to French postwar claims and library restitution processing records made it possible for Martine Poulain to compile the extensive lists of French citizens claiming books (see note 19). See also Poulain’s brief survey, “Bibliothèques et archives juives spoliées (1940–1944) et tentatives de restitutions à la Libération: une vue cavalière des sources présents en France,” Archives Juives, 49, no. 1 (2016), pp. 30–35. 111 Reference is to AV no. 148 on ERR List #4; Dr. Vogel, “Arbeitsbericht: Aus den Lagern des Ostministeriums in Antwerpen, Pelikaanstraat und Scheldekaai,” Brussels, 12 February 1943, TsDAVO, 3676/1/217, folio 20 (cc fol. 21). This needs further clarification, because the reference involves a Flemish nationalistic newspaper supporting that was generally supporting the Nazis. 112 Muchow, “Arbeitsbericht der HAG Belgien und Nordfrankreich für das Jahr 1943,” TsDAVO, 3676/1/171, fol. 129. See more details in the “ERR in Action” article. 24
25 office accumulation.113 We still do have not possibly surviving reports of looted books recovered in Belgium itself after the war as, for example, the ERR apparently never shipped out most of the books from the Jesuit Theological Centre in Enghien. Thus crucial questions remain about the extent of wartime library plunder in Belgium, including the quantity of books seized by the M- Aktion, by other German agencies, and even reliable figures about the extent to which the ERR sent off their accumulated library loot to the Reich. In future research focused on library seizures, these matters deserve further clarification, if appropriate sources surface.
ERR SONDERSTAB FINE ARTS AND ERR ART SEIZURES IN BELGIUM
While emphasis here is on library seizures, given the lack of adequate previous coverage of ERR art seizures in Belgium, and the fact that our six posted lists and related ERR documents reveal a number of important art seizures, brief mention of a few highlights follows. By the fall of 1940, the ERR in France extended their prey to works of art on the instigation of Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring, anxious as he was to acquire treasures from world-class French Jewish collections for his own private art collection. However, Göring and other German art vultures had fewer Belgian priorities. The most important art seized in Belgium did not pass through ERR hands, such as the Ghent altar piece seized from its evacuation hiding in the South of France, or the collection of the Belgian banker and art collector Émile Renders (1872–1956) from Bruges, ‘sold’ in 1941 to Alois Meidl, the German dealer operating in Amsterdam on behalf of Hermann Göring.114 Nonetheless evident from the ERR seizure lists and chart posted, the ERR did confiscate many works of art along with libraries and archives from its Belgian victims, not all of which have been adequately accounted for. Details of the fate of the looted art in Belgium still needs appropriate public revelation. More still lost works of art have recently been added to the Jeu de Paume Database, but many of those never reached Paris nor were ever processed by the ERR. While the ERR did not engage in serious art processing in Belgium, five named private Belgian Jewish collections were processed at the Jeu de Paume in Paris by the ERR, along with over 200 Jewish-owned French art collections.115 Of the two best known, one belonged to financier and industrialist Hugo Daniel Andriesse (1867–1942) and his wife Elisabeth (AV 100
113 Vogel to ERR Stabsführung Berlin, 24 Aug. 1944 (with the wagon designations), BArch, NS 30/25, fol. 27; Lommatzach to Stabsführung Berlin, 6 Sept, 1944, NS 30/25, fol. 25. 114 Considerable documentation remains about the Renders Collection in AGR2/ARA2, I 21/368, 399–396, and 409. 115 See ERR images and registration cards for individual items displayed in the Jeu de Paume database: https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/, as part of the same ERR Project website with the present account; the five Belgian named collections are all represented there, along with a few others from Belgian M-Aktion collection and also the so-called BN Collection from the BTG (see more details below, notes ?? and ??). Regarding all of the Belgian collections, see also the ERR inventories in BArch-Koblenz, B 323/299See also more details and sources for the Belgian collections in Charts 2 and 4 in Appendix 1 to the ERR Archival Guide (soon to be added to the same website). Only three of those named ERR Belgian collections processed in the Jeu de Paume are listed in the accompanying chart of ERR Belgian confiscations. 25
26 and 127);116 and a second belonged to Belgian art dealer and collector Eric-Émil Lyndhurst (1876–1961) (AV 128).117 From Paris, a few paintings owned by both Andriesse and Lyndhurst went to Göring, but most of their art went to ERR art repositories; several others from those two collections were registered in the ERR BN Collection (from Belgium and Northern France). Both of those Belgian collector names appear on the ERR seizure lists posted, but ERR seizure reports in Belgium have not been found for the three other Belgian collections registered at the Jeu de Paume, including those of Alfred Cahen and Claire Loevensohn.118 Only two items listed in the JdP Data Base registered as the Frankel-Reder Collection came to Paris from the BTG rather than the ERR, and actually belonged to the Belgian art dealer Jacob Reder. Two ERR seizure reports (AV 145 and AV 147) are listed for Jacob’s brother David Reder, who the ERR characterized as a “dealer and forger”; the ERR received both those lots from the RMbO Dienstelle Westen, but no art is mentioned in either case. Twenty items from David Reder’s art collection went to the Jeu de Paume, however, as part of the BN Collection (from the BTG). He filed a Belgian claim after the war, which occasioned a second listing under the same name for an additional 22 items recently added to the Jeu de Paume Database, but full details are not yet revealed. The large art collection owned by the prominent Belgian banker Baron Jean Germain Cassel van Doorn, seized from his home in the South of France, should not be officially associated with the Jeu de Paume, although Rose Valland reported that the ERR in France was at least tangentially involved in processing.119
116 Correspondence relating to the shipment of the Andriesse Collection to Paris with an inventory of 30 paintings, 5 tapistries and 17 Oriental carpets, and notes about their finding the collection thanks to the Andriesse chauffeur, are found with the Arbeitsbericht on the seizure, DATE?, in TsDAVO, 3676/1/170, fols 21–33. 117 Tagesbericht for seizure, 27 Nov. 1941? A list of paintings in the Lyndhurst Collection, sent from Paris to the ERR repository in Nikolsburg, together with 350 art books, is found in a recently opened file in the French Foreign Ministry Archive, 209SUP/455/P105. 118 See details in the Jeu de Paume Database. The collection of art dealer Jacob Reder (31, sq. Marie-Louise, Brussels) had only 2 cards registered in the Jeu de Paume, with 2 watercolors, as per the ERR Jeu de Paume Database. Two other Belgian ERR collections registered there do not appear on the ERR Belgian lists posted: Alfred Cahen (51, av des Cerisiers, Brussels) had 5 registration cards, 2 for multiple engravings; and the collection of Claire Loevensohn ([Loewensohn at 5, av Besilare [sic], Brussels] in ERR documents], 50, rue Jean d’Ardenne, Brussels), has only one ERR registration card in Paris. However, her postwar claim submitted by Belgiium to U.S. restitution agents in Germany had many more.
27
Noticeably a number of art seizures as part of other numbered confiscations on the ERR seizure lists and chart posted, have not been accounted for. For example, 13 ‘work projects’ among the 115 early confiscations on ERR List #1 include works of art. The most numerous art seizures noted are 111 paintings from home of Socialist leader Frederich Adler (AV 52), 20 paintings from Norbert Burger (AV 17); 80 from Max Gottschalk (AV 21), 9 from Niko Gunzburg (AV 44), and 13 from H.Ch. Spett (AV 19). The ERR author of the accompanying memorandum that ERR List #1 belittled the art collected. ERR Belgian staffer Peter Wörmke explained, only minimal value is assigned to the art, because “notably, they are all Jewish ritualistic representations by Jewish artists, … [and] will also be important for research on Jews and their rituals.… Only the value of the frames was counted.”120 Those paintings owned by Niko Gunzburg are now listed in the Jeu de Paume Database along with three paintings seized from Max Gottschalk, including one by Marc Chagall. A later seizure report from “the beautiful Jewish property” of Leo Rothschild (AV 80) lists 18 different artists whose paintings were represented; apparently the ERR did not register any of those in the Jeu de Paume, although six Rothchild items are listed the JdP Database, and more in a Belgian claim submitted by ORE to U.S. Restitution authorities in Germany.121 Also significant in the context of art plunder in Belgium, the ERR had first choice of cultural property accumulated by the Möbel-Aktion. That was likewise the case with receipts by the BTG, the separate Belgian agency charged with the disposition of Jewish assets. In fact, Dr Karl-Heinz Esser, primarily based in Paris with the ERR Sonderstab Bildendekunst, spent the summer of 1943 (24 June to 18 September) in Brussels, selecting paintings acquired by the Möbel-Aktion. Some of those were sent to Paris for processing in the Jeu de Paume (presumably in the so-called BN Collection), and were eventually shipped to the ERR repository of Kogl in Austria; in a postwar interrogation, however, Esser claimed that 136 paintings he processed that summer were sent directly from Brussels to Kogl, also presumably for the BN Collection.122 Subsequently in 1944, Dr Walter Borchers, from the Sonderstab Bildende Kunst, also came to Brussels to select works of art from the M-Aktion and the BTG; both groups were sent to Paris and then to Kogl.123 These included the 35 paintings and works on paper processed as the Belgian M-Aktion Paintings Collection (Belg. MA-Bilder, coded ‘Belg. MA-B’ or ‘MA-B-Belgien’), along with addition items group in other small Belgian M-Aktion collections.124 As one example of alternate fate, 69 works of art seized by the M-Aktion in Antwerp did not go to the ERR, but were rather sold at the Café Nutt am Zoo in Cologne on 9 February 1944.125
120 The subsequent fate of all of the art seized has yet to be determined. Noticeably, no art was mentioned for [Hugo] Andriesse (AV 100), but the ERR seized part of the Andriesse collection in the second later confiscation (AV 127). 121 Need URL for Rothschild listing in ORE claim fold3. 122 A summary of Esser’s postwar testimony is included in a Belgian claim submitted to U.S. restitution authorities in Germany, now online from NACP, RG 260: https://www.fold3.com/image/269999314 . His list of paintings from the BN Collection that he selected in 1943 is at: https://www.fold3.com/image/269999326. See also note 126 below. 123 Jacques Lust analyzed these details in the Buysse Commission Report, especially pp. 136–40. 124 After return to Belgium, half of the Belg. MA-Bilder were sold at public auction in 1950, when only 4 were identified as to owners and could be restituted. See the contents of this collection listed in the Jeu de Paume Database, at 125 Jacques Lust describes the sale at Café Nutt am Zoo in Cologne on 9 February 1944, “ERR et la spoliation des biens culturels,” in the 2001 Commission Report (above note 9), p. 137. 27
28
The ERR Sonderstab Bildendekunst in Paris received at least part of the BN Collection (Belgien-Nordfrankreich) directly from the BTG, including some art from both the Andriesse, Lyndhurst, and Reder Collections among 215 miscellaneous art works registered. Many of those paintings Esser chose from BTG acquisitions in the summer of 1943 were later assigned to the BN Collection; according to Esser’s postwar testimony, however, 136 paintings he processed that summer were sent directly to Kogl from Brussels.126 When most of the art items in the BN Collection were returned to Belgium after the war, Belgian restitution authorities were able to identify many of the owners.127 Notably, many art items that could not be restituted to owners Belgian restitution authorities sold at auction or placed in state museums. 128 The ERR-registered Neuwied Collection (ERR code: NWD or Neuw), processed in a customs depot in Neuwied on the Rhine (just North of Koblenz), reportedly comprised art seized by the M-Aktion in Belgium, as well as the Netherlands and south of France. Most of the art objects were dispatched to the ERR repository of Kögl (near St Georgien) in Austria. When found by the MFA&A after the war they were transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP). From the MCCP were turned over as “heirless,” or “unclaimed” (although some owners were identified) to the Weisbaden Central Collecting Point (WCCP) and thence to the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization (JRSO); in the process, considerable documentation on the paintings is found in the files of both MCCP and WCCP, as well those of the JRSO.129 Seventy-five years after the end of the war, we still do not have a complete account of Belgian art losses and the extent of recovery. Jacques Lust’s coverage in the Buysse Report, the most extensive to date, as noted earlier suggests at least 885 works of art were seized from Belgium. That figure is undoubtedly unduly low, however, as apparent in Marc Masurowsky’s latest additions to the Jeu de Paume Database, although not all of those additions were processed in the Jeu de Paume, or seized by the ERR.130 According to Lust’s earlier calculations, the ERR was directly responsible for only a small portion (258 objects), although in addition, he estimated that the ERR sent 285 to Paris, while 249 art objects were sent to Germany. The databases started in Belgium on several occasion were never finished. The data collected, if it could be made available publicly, along with other sources, could be helpful to compare alleged losses with art known to be still missing today, to say nothing of also encouraging further research.131
126 See note 122 above. 127 See records of restitution processing for the BN Collection among ORE/DER records in AGR2/ARA2), for example, I 21/364. See also Lust, “ERR et la spoliation des biens culturels,” in the 2001 Buysse Commission Report (above note 9), p. 142–43. 128 Sale catalogues for those sold on auction have been preserved among ORE/DER records in AGR2/ARA2, I:21/380–385 and 435; documentation on those ceded to Belgian museums (1948–1957), is in files I:21/386–388 and 447. Registration forms for many of the art still missing are available in the same AGR2 I :21series. 129 An ERR inventory of the Neuwied Collection B 323/581 and 251, with property cards in 732, from the transfer to JRSO from WCCP in 1951–1952. See additional details in the German and U.S. chapters of Grimsted, ERR Archival Guide. Lust suggests a larger percentage was from Belgium, but details have yet to be determined for items deemed of Belgian provenance. Individual items are also listed (some with images) in the MCCP DataBase on the website of the German Historical Museum. 130 In recent years the Jeu de Paume Database has added an estimated total of ???? art items plundered from Belgium, although most of these additions were not processed in the Jeu de Paume in Paris, and many were not seized by the ERR. 131 These figure are reported by [Jacques Lust], “ERR et la spoliation des biens culturels,” in the 2001 Buysse Commission Report (above note 10), especially pp. 139–40, 142–45, where he provides details of many of the specific seizures from Belgian art dealers and collectors, including the Möbel-Aktion. 28
29
BELGIAN POSTWAR RECONSTRUCTION AND RETRIEVAL – WITH LIMITED SOURCES FOR RESTITUTION RESEARCH
Given the extensive confiscation of libraries and archives during the Second World War, it was extremely difficult in the immediate postwar years for Belgian reconstruction and restitution authorities in the Service of Economic Recuperation (ORE/DER) to get a clear overview of the seizure process and wartime migration. The lack of German documentation left many grey areas. The lack of adequate claims and access to them left even more, for libraries perhaps even more than for art. Among survivors or heirs, only a few who had lists or catalogues of their lost libraries could document postwar claims, but many had none. Hence the lack of reliable data. Catalogues or other documentation, if not seized with the materials, had been destroyed. Many library seizure victims had fled; others were deported and did not survive. Heirs or those representing them, often knew little about what had been taken. Lack of reliable data about the victims of library plunder and the variant reliability of postwar claims, further impeded ORE/DER retrieval efforts. Accordingly, postwar retrieval efforts for looted books were far from successful, netting only a fraction of the materials returned to France and the Netherlands.132 The U.S. book restitution program at Offenbach Archival Depot (OAD), outside of Frankfurt, comprising among other sources, most of the books the ERR had sent to Rosenberg’s Institute for Research on the Jewish Question (IEJ) and the British restitution from Tanzenberg (Austrian Carinthia) of the books they found at the end of the war that ERR had collected for the Central Library of the Hohe Schule (ZBHS) were the two largest Western Allied book restitution programs. The image of one Belgian repatriation shipment from Offenbach is a sad testimony. Even sadder was the report of Belgian art historian Frans Baudoin, who personally visited Tanzenberg in February 1947 as ORE/DER restitution officer, before one shipment of 154 crates were returned to Belgium: “In Tanzenberg there are many books of primordial importance belonging to identified bibliophiles, whose addresses are unknown to me. It will hence require search in Belgian Jewish and bibliophile circles.” Positive identification of who had been looted in Belgium never came from Brussels, and hence the ORE did not return a single book to Alfred Stern (AV 15), M. Seyffers or L. Tolkowski. The potential restitution operation was completely unsuccessful.133
Surmising the ERR was a key culprit for private library and archival seizures, ORE/DER specialists lacked information on the Brussels ERR office and its operations, and none of the ERR reports on which our present account are based were available to them. They largely had to rely on reports on the ERR provided by British, French, and American intelligence services,
132 Restitution of books and archives from IEJ, including its evacuated centers for Judaica and Masonic materials, was handled through the U.S. Offenbach Archival Depot (OAD), outside of Frankfurt. Of the total of only 25 crates returned to Belgium from OAD, the first 9 crates were labelled Masonic and Jewish library materials from Brussels and Antwerp, as quoted from ORE/DER records by Lust and Vermote, “Papieren Bitte!,” in Returned from Russia, p.p. 206–207, with photo of one of the modest returns to Belgium. 133 F. Baudouin to Raymond Lemaire (Munich, 12 Feb. 1947), pp. 4–5, 6, KIK, ORE, Dossier Autriche; as quoted by Jacques Lust and Michel Vermote in Returned from Russia, p. 207. 29
30 supplementing what little documentation they found locally.134 One Belgian officer in charge of retrieval, Raymond Lemaire, suggested in November 1945, “the high desirability of finding the ERR archives for Belgium and precisely establish the fate of most of the Belgian Jewish and Masonic collections.”135 Regrettably it was another fifty years before those archives were found. The extensive Belgian ERR files are now online in Kyiv, but still in much less than optimal order and lack adequate finding aids, all of which has complicated research even after seventy years, when that task could be restarted more seriously. However, imperatives today are less acute; staff and funding are more limited. When Lynn Nicholas was writing her masterful Rape of Europa mentioned at the outset, she did not have adequate sources to counter her masterful coverage of the cultural devastation and plunder followed by restitution efforts in Western Europe, with the even higher level of devastation and brutality on the Eastern Front. Nor did she have access to the still-hidden sources that allowed Konstantin Akinsha and Gregorii Kozlov to sketch their revelations about the Beautiful Loot, along with millions and archival files that the Soviet dictator with his Trophy Brigades carted home by the trainloads from Germany and the Eastern lands ‘liberated’ by the Red Army. Those “reparation” qua “trophy” convoys, included considerable loot the Nazis had amassed from many European countries, along with many archival files providing details about the plunder. Western Allied restitution efforts were able to repatriate many of the looted cultural valuables the Monuments Men (i.e. Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives officers) retrieved in Nazi hideaways in the West from the hundreds of mines and castles of what had been the Third Reich, including many treasures from the Soviet Union. But the Continental Divide on restitution soon replaced the April 1945 handshakes of American and Soviet soldiers across the Elbe. Even today, neither the post-Soviet Russian Federation nor the now independent Republic of Belarus still have been unwilling to return the Nazi-looted books from Europe that arrived with the 12 million or more ‘trophy’ books that arrived in the Soviet Union.136 Belgian restitution authorities were able to find and interrogate only two key ERR staff who had who had worked with the ERR in Belgium. In 1947 ORE/DER interrogated Hans Muchow who had been on the staff of the ERR Belgian working group from the start, and headed the Main Working Group (HAG Belgien) from June 1942 until June 1944, when he was transferred to France assist the ERR during their chaotic final months and evacuation. Muchow had returned to his home near Hamburg, and his testimony could have been important. But the surviving report he submitted to the ORE/DER, testifying that the HAG Belgien closed their office on 3 September 1944, otherwise has scant substance, apart from the organizational structure of the ERR in Belgium, with no hints about seizures or the fate of the loot, or about his accomplices. ORE/DER could not benefit from subsequent interrogations, because they had none of his
134 Report of Marcel Amand, “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg – E.E.R.,” Brussels, July 1947, ARA2, ORE/DER, I-21, n°364. 135 R. Lemaire to E. Rae (28 Nov. 1945): “Une enquête visant à retrouver les archives pour la Belgique de ERR et à établir avec précision le sort réservé à la plupart des collections juives et maçonniques belges, serait hautement souhaitable,” ARA2, ORE/DER, I 21, n°364. 136 See Grimsted, “Twice Plundered, and Still Far from Home: Tracing Nazi-Looted Books in Minsk and Moscow,” in the Smithsonian publication, Collecting and Provenance: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, forthcoming 2019). 30
31 wartime reports that we have today that contradict his predictable self-defense.137 According to his postwar testimony, the ERR did not even conduct the seizure operations/actions: “Libraries were not actually confiscated by the ERR,” he wrote, “but by the GFP or the military government, which was always represented by police officials during the expropriation. The books were given to the ERR in trust.” He emphasized the ‘Sicherstellung’ (securing) of cultural assets left behind. He focused on ERR propaganda activities rather than seizures, and suggested the ERR kept their distance from the M-Aktion, hardly the case, as clear from his own surviving reports and correspondence now available.138 ORE/DER specialists also interrogated Dr Karl-Heinz Esser from the Sonderstab Bildendekunst. While principally based in Paris he was the one to have chosen for the ERR works of art seized in Belgium, by both the M-Aktion and the BTG, as described above.139 Only a few fragmentary ERR and RSHA documents were found in Belgium after the war, while the fate of the records of ERR operations in Belgium long remained unknown. Yet no indication surfaced ascertaining their destruction (as ordered in most occupied lands). Unfortunately, the lack of key sources about ERR plunder in Belgium seriously hampered would-be ORE/DER restitution efforts, and subsequent scholarly research that might have encouraged more retrieval. What research was possible in the meantime had to rely on what limited documentation was found elsewhere in Western Europe. Many documents from the original U.S.-captured “Rosenberg Collection” had been removed immediately after the war in preparation for the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials before shipment to the United States. Many of those documents not actually used in court were turned over to a French delegation thereafter and since held by the Centre de documentation juive contemporaine (CDJC), as the “Rosenberg Nuremberg Collection.”140 Those original, but highly scattered ERR documents, were long publicly available with selections published by CDJC, now part of the Mémorial de la Shoah. Only a few of those documents, however, yield data about Belgian confiscations. The remains of the so-called “Rosenberg Collection” captured in Germany by the U.S. Army and transported to the United States were microfilmed in its entirety, with detailed finding aids, and was long openly available in the West. Returned to the German Federal Republic in the 1960s, the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz reprocessed the Rosenberg Collection in several different record groups according to their creating agency. Those records were opened to researchers and well described in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz, but there were few documents relating to ERR Belgian
137 Hans Muchow to Amand (Hamburg, 10 Jun. 1947): Unterredung mit Herrn Amand am 8. Juni 1947 with annex “Bericht über den Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg in Belgien meine Zugehörigkeit zu demselben, sowie über die Sache Lindhurst,” ARA2, ORE/DER, I-21, n°364. The Belgians located Muchow in Vierhöfen, near Hamburg. Muchow’s wartime reports quoted here were not available to ORE/DER, and hence the Belgian restitution officers would not have been in a position to confront him with his earlier statements. 138 Muchow to Amand (Hamburg, 10 Jun. 1947), with annex, ARA2, ORE/DER, I-21, n°364. 139 See above note 122. 140 See the initial French publication by Jean Cassou, ed., Le pillage par les Allemands des oeuvres d’art et des bibliothèques appartenant à des Juifs en France: Recueil de documents (Paris: CDJC, 1947; “CDJC, Série “Documents,” no. 4); and the more extensive inventories by Joseph Billig, Alfred Rosenberg dans l’action idéologique, politique et administrative du Reich hitlérien: Inventaire commenté de la collection de documents conservés au C.D.J.C. provenant des archives du Reichsleiter et Ministre A. Rosenberg (Paris, 1963; = Les inventaires des archives du Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, Paris, vol. 1). Highlights are listed in the French chapter of the ERR Archival Guide. 31
32 operations. After German Reunification, they were moved to the enlarged Bundesarchiv in Berlin-Lichterfelde in the 1990s, where they are held today.141 Since 2009, full digitized texts of all documents in two record groups (Bestanden) devoted to the ERR (NS 30) and the Rosenberg Chancellery (NS 8) are online on the BArch website.142 Among them, however, are only a few incoming reports from the ERR HAG in Belgium. More documentation about the Nazi cultural loot from Belgium, and especially the ERR art loot is now available online in the records of the German agency Treuhandverwaltung für Kulturgut (Federal Trust Administration for Cultural Assets), in Munich, that took over and continuing restitution processing from the U.S. military- run Central Collecting Points in Munich (MCCP) and Weisbaden (WCCP), now held in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz (B 323).143 Soon after the war, CegeSoma Study Center War and Society (Studiecentrum Oorlog en Maatschappij / Centre d’Etude Guerre et Société, CegeSoma) in Brussels (since 2016 under of the Belgian National Archives), started considerable efforts to expand availability of wartime sources in Belgium by acquiring many relevant microfilms from archives abroad, including selections from important French and German records described in Appendix 4.144 The most important sources with extensive details about ERR plunder in Belgium, on which the present study is based, however, disappeared for half a century. Availability of ERR documents increased dramatically only after the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, and the opening of long-hidden archives in Eastern Europe. Indeed, the largest group of original ERR records anywhere in Europe finally opened for research in Kyiv (Kiev) during the period of glasnost in the late 1980s, first publicly reported in 1990. Among them, were the long-lost Belgian ERR office files.145 The crucial Rosenberg Collection now in Kyiv had been captured in several different batches by Soviet Ukrainian trophy officials in the summer and fall of 1945. Arriving in a shipment from
141 See more details about the several Rosenberg agency records held in Berlin-Lichterfelde, as described in the 2017 German chapter of the ERR Archival Guide at www.errproject.org/guide.php . The few original ERR files found in the former East German State Archive in Potsdam after 1989, subsequently moved to Berlin-Lichterfelde, yielded no more of significance for Belgium. 142 Basic description of these records and related ones in the Bundesarchiv and instructions for accessing the online texts through Invenio will be found in the forthcoming German chapter (early 1918) for the Grimsted, ERR Archival Guide at www.errproject.org/guide.php . 143 See the 2019 German chapter of the ERR Archival Guide at www.errproject.org/guide.php. 144 See the coverage of ERR and related records in the Grimsted ERR Archival Guide at www.errproject.org/guide.php. The introduction and updated chapter for the Netherlands (2015) and Belgium (2016) are already online, while expanded chapters covering sources in France and Germany are expected by the in spring 2017. The entire original volume, Reconstructing the Record of Nazi Cultural Plunder: A Survey of the Dispersed Archives of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), IISH Research Paper 47 (Amsterdam, 2011), and individual chapters not yet updated are available in PDF at: https://socialhistory.org/en/publications/reconstructing- record-nazi-cultural-plunder. 145 Patricia Grimsted, then working closely with Ukrainian archivists on various projects, had access to these ERR records in Kyiv during the summer of 1990. They were first mentioned publically by Grimsted and Hennadii Boriak at a conference in Kyiv in August 1990. See Grimsted’s article, “The Fate of Ukrainian Cultural Treasures during World War II: The Plunder of Archives, Libraries, and Museums under the Third Reich,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 39, no. 1 (1991), especially pp. 55–58; expanded with documents as a monograph in Ukrainian, Dolia skarbiv Ukrains'koï kul'tury pid chas druhoï svitovoï viiny: Vynyshchennia arkhiviv, bibliotek, muzeïv, trans. and ed. Hennadii Boriak (Kyiv: Arkheohrafichna komisiia AN URSR, 1991; 2nd edn., L'viv, 1992), pp. 8–12. 32
33
Dresden in November 1945, they were kept under wraps throughout the Soviet period in central state archives of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. Because they also contained extensive files from ERR operations in Ukraine, Ukrainian archivists avoided the mandatory transfer and centralization in Moscow for most other German wartime records. Utilized by the KGB to identify wartime collaborators, those files were never analyzed for wartime cultural losses before 1990. Following Ukrainian independence in 1992, more open research became possible in the renamed Ukraine state archives, including the one now known as the Central State Archive of the Highest Agencies of Power and Administration of Ukraine (Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv vyshchykh orhaniv vlady ta upravlinnia Ukraïny), or TsDAVO.146 In the early 1990s Belgian specialists learned that the surviving ERR collection in TsDAVO contained an especially large number of ERR files from Belgium. The abundance and character of the ERR files of Belgian provenance in Kyiv with ‘work-project’ and other reports from the period through March 1943, makes it clear that the contents of that crates of AG/HAG Belgien records from Brussels sent to Nikolsburg (now Czech Mikulov) were among the ERR records captured by Soviet Ukrainian scouts and shipped to Kyiv from Dresden in the fall of 1945, now intermixed with the large ERR collection in TsDAVO. Other scattered ERR files now in Kyiv would appear to be of Berlin and Ratibor provenance, which may account for a few original incoming reports from the Brussels office. The ERR collection in Ukraine was never appropriately processed according to the ERR creating offices and still today lacks German (or English) finding aids, continuing to make research tedious.147 Of special relevance to Belgium, Soviet Ukrainian archivists arranged three files from AG Belgien, in a separate fond (TsDAVO, fond 3674), with documents through December 1942.148 However, many more additional documents from the ERR Brussels office records (some extending through March 1943), are intermixed in many jumbled files from other ERR sources all over Europe including the Soviet Union in the main ERR fond (TsDAVO, fond 3676), especially the first series (opys 1). Other files with additional ERR Belgian reports and related documents (through March 1944) would appear to be of ERR Berlin or Ratibor provenance. Belgian specialists at CegeSoma obtained microfilms of selected (but far from all) of the ERR files relating to Belgium from TsDAVO already in the late 1990s.149 Despite limitations, the
146 See more details about the German archives and their fate in Kyiv in Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, Trophies of War and Empire: The Archival Heritage of Ukraine, World War II, and the International Politics of Restitution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Institute, 2001), especially pp. 314–29. See also the TsDAVO coverage in Ukrainian chapter in the Grimsted, ERR Archival Guide, an updated version is projected by the end of 2018 at www.errproject.org/guide.php; in the meantime the original 2011 published version of that chapter may be downloaded for free at https://socialhistory.org/en/publications/reconstructing-record-nazi- cultural-plunder. 147 Soviet, as well as later Russian and Ukrainian authorities have refused restitution of wartime German records to Germany, but since 1990, German academic centres encouraged training of Ukrainian specialists, who have made several extensive analysis of these records, although mostly concentrating on the Ukrainiann portions. 148 This interpretation is based on the fact that the files contain predominantly in-coming original documents on Berlin letterhead, and out-going copies of communications addressed to the Berlin ERR Headquarters, as well as correspondence with German occupation authorities in Belgium. 149 See Dirk Martin. “Something New: Archives from the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg from Kiev have been brought to the Centre War and Society (CegeSoma) in Brussels,” Spoils of War. International Newsletter, no. 7 (Aug. 2000), pp. 71–75; at: http://www.lostart.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/6742/publicationFile/224/Spoils%20of%20War%207.pdf . A finding aid for the seven microfilms from TsDAVO is now available at CegeSoma: “mic 199: Deelarchief Einsatzstab 33
34
Belgian component of the TsDAVO ERR Collection has already proved their key importance in documenting the official Belgian claims submitted to the Russian Federation in the 1990s for restitution of the extensive twice-captured archival material of Belgian provenance transferred to Moscow at the end of the war.150 Selected Kyiv files were also used extensively by the Buysse Study Commission for Jewish Assets, as evident in many of the references given in the final Report.151 During recent decades, further analysis of the Kyiv records continued. In connection with the current presentation, a more complete finding aid has been prepared of the Belgian- related component of the TsDAVO ERR Collection, a preliminary draft of which will included as Appendix 3 with the present article. Given further research in the last decade and a half, with identification of more of the Belgian- related ERR records in Kyiv, we are now able to extend that Belgian coverage to a more comprehensive account of ERR cultural plunder during the German occupation. To be sure, the ERR was only one of the several German agencies that seized cultural assets on Belgian territory during the Second World War. A number of SD book shipments to Berlin have been reported, but neither the number of crates nor the number of volumes is available, and no retrospective lists of SD confiscations or those by other N-S agencies have been found. The six lists now presented on the Internet – with this commentary and the Excel chart combining data about the victims – provide a overview of the ERR wartime plunder of Belgian private libraries (many including archives and art) owned by ‘enemies of the Reich’, by the most avaricious NS vulture. Revealing details about the 150 numbered ERR priority confiscations between August 1940 and February 1943 combined in the accompanying Excel chart, with citations to relevant ERR documents for each, should help expand identification of books and archival materials plundered and still at large belonging to these victimized Belgian individuals and institutions. Our forthcoming essay on “The ERR in Action,” will summarize patterns of ERR library confiscation, further identifying priority Belgian individuals and institutions victimized; while footnote references will specify related documents, most in the Kyiv ERR Collection, providing more details about those confiscations. Following brief comments on the six lists, several appendices discuss more technical issues. A final Appendix lists surviving documents of ERR Belgian provenance in scattered files of the TsDAVO ERR Collection, newly compiled in connection with this project. This whole presentation should better portray the extensive ERR library plunder in Belgium, contribute to wider knowledge of available sources (especially those in Kyiv), and stimulate further investigation and wider public research on the tragic wartime cultural loss and displacement in Belgium.
DOCUMENTING ERR LIBRARY PLUNDER IN BELGIUM: SIX ORIGINAL LISTS OF LIBRARY SEIZURES
Reichsleiter Rosenberg, Hauptarbeitsgruppe Belgien,” compiled by Dirk Martin. Brussels, 23 June 1999; the online summary at: http://www.cegesoma.be/docs/Invent/EinsatzstabRosenberg_mic199.pdf, does not indicate the TsDAVO file numbers included. 150 See details in the appended lists to the Belgian chapter in Returned from Russia, pp. 226–39. 151 See note xx above. 34
35
Central to our presentation are the first five variant retrospective lists (ERR Lists #1–#5), together identifying the 150 numbered ERR library seizures (many with archival materials and art) in Belgium through February 1943. These five lists of non-governmental Belgian library confiscations (many including important private papers and some organizational records) accompanying this article in digital form were kindly furnished by Ukrainian state archives in Kyiv. These five lists are found in a single file among the bulk of surviving office records of the ERR Belgian working group captured by Soviet Ukrainian trophy scouts in 1945, now held in the Rosenberg Collection in Kyiv (TsDAVO, fond 3676/1/164). Muchow’s final retrospective list from March 1944 (ERR List #6), was kindly furnished by the Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde. In contrast to the first five, List #6 is one of the few remaining Belgian documents from the U.S.-captured Rosenberg Collection, now held in the Bundesarchiv ERR record group (NS 30), in Berlin-Lichterfelde. Similar retrospective library-seizure lists or similar reports have not been found from other German library predators in Belgium, and only a few scattered reports have surfaced of individual seizures by other agencies. While we now have a more comprehensive list of priority seizures, we still lack adequate data about any additional looted books the ERR acquired during the final year and a half of German occupation from the Möbel-Aktion and the BTG from related sources.152
Facsimile digitized copies now accompany this article. ERR List #1 focuses on the monetary value of the initial 115 seizures, while Lists #2 and #3 better identify the victims and content of many confiscations. List #4 provides the most comprehensive (but not finalized) list of all 150 seizures, while List #5 best indicates the specific crates shipped to Berlin through the transport of 27 May 1942. A few supplemental documents are added to the display copies of the unfinished Lists #4 and #5 to complete data on the content of crates shipped through 22 March 1943. List #6, prepared a year later by the head of the HAG Belgien, Hans Muchow, names no more victims and adds no more details. It rather gives a more propagandistic retrospective summary of ERR plunder of Belgium Jewish and Masonic collections, intended for an exhibition of ERR achievements in May 1944 at the evacuation research and library center in Ratibor, Silesia (postwar Racibórz, Poland).
Appendices to this text will explain additional surviving documents relating to Belgian, and especially cultural seizures, including, daily activity reports (Tagesberichte, TB) describing the seizures, and immediate work reports (Arbeitsberichten, AB) for over two-thirds of the Belgian 150 ERR operations, along with other relevant documents dispersed in the TsDAVO ERR Collection in Kyiv. For Belgium, accordingly, the intense ERR library and related cultural plunder through February 1943 can be more completely and systematically documented than is the case in other occupied countries.
SIX ERR LISTS OF SEIZURES IN BELGIUM
ERR #1
152 See below and regarding to a March 1944 report on ERR activity in Belgium for the year 1943, note ??. 35
36
“Schatzung des Wertes der bisher von der Arbeitsgruppe durchgeführten Arbeitsvorhaben” (Brussels, 14 October 1941), 7 folios [Estimated Value of the Work Projects (AV) conducted thus far by the (Belgian) Working Group] (TsDAVO, fond 3676, series [opys] 1, file 164, folios 36–42)
This first ERR list presents the quantity and appraised value of the material confiscated by the AG Belgien during their first year of operation – August 1940 to October 1941 – in their initial 115 seizure operations, numbered consecutively as ‘work projects’ (Arbeitsvorhaben – AV). The report enumerates victims by name in chronological order of seizure from AV 1 to AV 115, with the number of crates (and/or volumes) of books seized, although details were not given for the last six projects not completed by that date. No name was indicated for AV 31 (Varia), while the Office of the Working Group (Büro der Arbeitsgruppe, or similar) was listed for four others (AV 53, 83, 84, 108), probably representing smaller seizures from various sources.153 AV 54 is listed as unnamed “Jewish lodgings in Antwerp,” dated 11 February 1941, but no precise indications of Antwerp sources can be determined with data from the corresponding Daily Reports (Tagesberichte) for activities in Antwerp just before that date by Köster and Muchow.154 While no dates and addresses of seizure nor data about contents are given on List #1 for most of the victimized libraries of the 91 individuals and 22 institutions listed; additional data is supplied by Lists #2–#5. A signed covering memorandum (14 October 1941), by Peter Wörmke, representing the ERR Arbeitsgruppe Belgien (AG Belgien), is attached. Probably intended to justify their operation in financial terms and to impress Berlin with the value of these endeavors, Wörmke gives a total figure of 170,000 Reichsmarks for the confiscations listed. The list itself indicates an estimated value in Reichsmarks for each seizure (AV).155 Wörmke’s initial memorandum highlights some of their most important seizures, in a few cases with comment about the contents. The first seven entries are from Masonic lodges – six in Brussels and Antwerp (AV 1–AV 6, with an estimated value of RM 13,700), and one in Liège. He singled out the books from the École des Hautes Études in Ghent as the most valuable institutional library seized (AV 24 with 30 crates – RM 29,000). Among the notable personal libraries (many with personal archives) singled out are those of Jean d’Orleans, duc de Guise, pretender to the French throne (AV 12; 37 crates – RM 14,000); Niko Gunzburg (AV 44), Belgian lawyer, whose parents had fled from Latvia and settled in Antwerp, “with valuable materials on local Flemish history”; Paul Van Zeeland (AV 56), with “literature on international economics”; [Olympé] Gilbart (AV 79 – RM 13,000), with “a special library of Walloon editions and works on the Walloons and Wallonia”;
153 On later lists AV 31 is also identified with the AG Belgien office. Some of the crates represented by the AG Belgien office entries are identified on later lists, or with comments in the Daily Reports from the dates indicated, as apparent in the listings on the Excel chart. 154 See above note 63. That address has not been found in the daily reports covering Antwerp seizures. 155 Conversion of the value into Euros may be speculative, but if we assume that 1 RM (1941) corresponds to approximately € 3.9 (as of month 2019, according to statistics of the Deutsche Bundesbank), the total value of the cultural robbery comes – at the end of 1941 – to an estimated total of €663,000 (170,000 x 3.9). 36
37
Jacques Errera (AV 35); and Friedrich Adler (AV 52 – RM 10,000), with “an especially unique collection of Communist-Socialist literature.”
Also highlighted are the four libraries which, as explained in a subsequent report, were temporarily being kept for local use in Brussels in their library depot (rue de Livourne, 146).156of: [Paul] Hymans (AV 110 – RM 22,000), [Henri] Grégoire (AV 048 and AV 112 – RM 15,000), [Jean] de Sturler (AV 113) and [Victor de] Laveleye (AV 111),
Although mainly libraries (and personal papers) were removed in most cases, the number of art objects is given for some entries, but further details about their fate have not surfaced in many cases: Norbert Burger (AV 17, 20 paintings) H.Ch. Spett (AV 19, 13 paintings) Max Gottschalk (AV 21, 80 paintings) Keystone-Presse ([AV 23], press photos) [Joseph] Matusewitz [Matuzewitz] (AV 41, 2 paintings) [Niko] Gunzburg, Antwerp (AV 44, 9 paintings) Camille Huysmanns (AV 45, 6 paintings) S[amuel] Wolfgang (AV 46, 1 painting) Friedrich Adler (AV 52, 111 paintings) [Gustave] Kleinburg (AV 59, 5 paintings) Degonse [Degouse] de Numegeres (AV 67, 3 paintings) Casino, av. Louise 32a (AV 96, 1 sculpture) Jules Salomon (AV 97, 4 paintings).
Only minimal value is assigned to the art, Wörmke explains, because “notably, they are all Jewish ritualistic representations by Jewish artists,” and “will also be important for research on Jews and their rituals.… Only the value of the frames was counted.”157 No later report with similar monetary evaluation of confiscated collections has been found, although several of the most valuable libraries were seized later, namely the National Institute of Social History and the Saint Augustine Jesuit Monastery in Enghien, both in May 1942.
======ERR #2 “Inhalt der Kisten der Arbeitsvorhaben der Arbeitsgruppe Belgien.” “Bezug: Laufende Nummern der übersicht über die Arbeitsvorhaben der Arbeitsgruppe Belgien und Nordfrankreich” (Brussels, 8 December 1941), 7 folios [Content of Crates from the Work Projects of the ERR Belgian Working Group. Reference: Serial numbers of the Overview of Work Projects of the Working Group Belgium and Northern France]
156 Wörmke, “Ubersicht in Stichworten über Arbeitsvorhaben Hymans, Laveleye, Grégoire, (de Sturler),” 4 October 1941, TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fols 3–5. The de Sturler library, included in the title was not described in that document, a copy of which is in the same file. In March 1943, they sent the Grégoire and Laveleve libraries to Berlin, but the de Sturler and Hymans libraries were still in their Livourne depot at the end of 1943. 157 The subsequent fate of all of the art seized has yet to be determined. Noticeably, no art was mentioned for [Hugo] Andriesse (AV 100), but the ERR seized part of the Andriesse collection in the second later confiscation (AV 127). 37
38
(TsDAVO, fond 3676, opys 1, file 164, folios 8–12; carbon copy fols 13–17)
Belgian ERR List #2, dated two months later, highlights the main content of the library loot from ‘work projects’ (Arbeitsvorhaben – AV), i.e., seizures AV 1 through AV 118. It briefly describes the confiscated holdings of each sequentially numbered seizure, probably prepared as a retrospective summary listing of ERR loot, most of which had already sent to Berlin by December 1941.158 Victims are named for only two entries – Friederich Adler (AV 52) and the remainder of the library of the École des Hautes Études (AV 109). For the rest, listed only by AV number, victims’ names can be identified from lists #1, #3, #4, or #5, and from our Excel chart that combines the data from all six ERR lists. Several entries are again noted as remaining in Brussels, which, as explained with List #1 were still shelved in the ERR library depot (rue de Livourne, 146).159 namely the libraries of Henri Grégoire (AV 48 and 112), Paul Hymans (AV 110), Victor de Lavelye (AV 112), and Jean de Sturler (AV 113),
In terms of looted art, the wooden sculpture seized from the “Casino” (AV 96), as well as the paintings seized from Degouse de Numegeres (AV 67) and Jules Salomon (AV 97) were here also noted as being left in Brussels. Many contents are indicated only as ‘various (varia)’, and one is simply labeled ‘unknown (unbekannt)’. Materials seized (with the AV victim numbers given) include Masonic ‘Lodge materials’ for 9 entries, Judaica and Hebraica (15 entries, some only in part), as well as Socialist, Communist, and Marxist literature. Other descriptive categories include political and legal writings, French history, French literature, German-language philosophy, Russian literature, art history, periodicals, Belles-lettres, encyclopedias, chemistry, theosophical literature, and music scores (the latter intended for Sonderstab Musik). One entry is described only as ‘writings hostile to Germany’ and another as ‘literature forbidden in Germany’. Archival materials (or documents) are indicated as included in several crates. Notations are added that the crates coded ‘Reista’ in entries 31 and 84 (elsewhere named as from the ERR AG Brussels office) had already been diverted to the Prehistory Office (Amt Vorgeschichte), presumably containing the materials collected by Professor Stampfuss during his visits to various sites as one of the Brussels AG staff. In several cases this listing may be the only remaining trace – and hence confirmation – of cultural assets that disappeared during the Second World War; in other cases, it may serve to confirm the loss detailed in postwar claims submitted by the owners. An English rendering of content descriptions have been added to the appropriate AV entries on our Excel chart.
158 See the full list of shipments below. 159 A separate report had been preapred for these libraries: Wörmke, “Ubersicht in Stichworten über Arbeitsvorhaben Hymans, Laveleye, Grégoire. (de Sturler),” 4 October 1941, TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fols 3–5. The de Sturler library, although it appeared in the title was not described in that document, a copy of which is found in the same file with the five lists. In March 1943, they sent the Grégoire and Laveleve libraries to Berlin, but the de Sturler and Hymans libraries were still in their Livourne depot at the end of 1943. 38
39
ERR #3 “Hauptarbeitsgruppe Belgien-Nordfrankreich” (8 January 1943), 7 folios. [Main Working Group Belgium-Northern France] (TsDAVO, fond 3676, opys 1, file 164, folios 46–52; carbon copy fols 23–29)
ERR list #3 represents an interim report on the library seizures of ERR HAG Belgien Nordfrankreich, with more detailed descriptions of loot from 42 of their “most important work projects” by early January 1943, covering 23 private individuals and 19 institutions. The numbers used (the highest is #145) again correspond to the numbered ‘work projects’ (Arbeitsvorhaben, AV) in other lists (Lists #1, #2, #4 (to AV 118), and #5). By that time, they reported having seized books and related archival materials in “Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Liège, and Enghien, Lille, and several smaller northern French locations.” They had already shipped a total of 853 crates to the Reich, and had 350 crates waiting transport, representing a total of at least 1,203 crates of looted books and archival materials. Content descriptions for only 42 named entries (out of 145 to date), provide more details about the general characteristics of books and archival materials seized, including several more recent victims not listed earlier, namely the Jesuit Saint Augustine Monastery in Enghien (AV 133) and the National Institute of Social History (AV 134). Also important, more complete identification is given for a many of the other entries, with full names and addresses, and often, comments about the owner (persons and institutions) and the number of crates seized.160 An English rendering of the ERR content descriptions have been added to the appropriate AV entries on our Excel chart.
ERR #4 “Ubersicht über die Arbeitsvorhaben der Arbeitsgruppe Belgien in zeitlicher reihenfolge” (s.l. n.d. [March, 1943]), 14 folios. [Overview of the Work Plan of the Working Group Belgium] (TsDAVO, fond 3676, series [opys]1, file 164, folios 53–66)161
ERR List #4, as a key administrative document of the ERR HAG Belgien, provides the most comprehensive retrospective overview available of 150 numbered ERR seizures in Belgium (and Northern France).162 AV 150 was in fact the last numbered ‘work project’ registered for the Belgian AG/HAG, as Muchow explained in his recently identified annual report for 1943.163 Numbered ‘work projects’ (Arbeitsvorhaben – AV) given correspond to the seizure operations so-named in Lists #1, #2, #3, and #5. Names and addresses of victimized persons or organizations, with date(s) of confiscation for 150 numbered entries are listed in chronological
160 See more details about some of the unnamed entries in the description of List #4 below and the final discussion of victims in the concluding section. 161 A fainter carbon copy of List #4, pp. 7–11 (folios 67–71), covering AV 55–AV 118, follows in TsDAVO, 3676/1/164. 162 Although the term Arbeitsgruppe (Working Group) is used in the title, the Belgian Working Group had become a Main Working Group (HAG) by June 1942. 163 Muchow, “AB…für das Jahr 1943,” TsDAVO, 3676/1/171, fol. 129. 39
40 order from 15 August 1940 through 27 February 1943. The number of crates and crate codes, the shipping date and destination are indicated for most crates shipped through the transport of 27 May 1942. Five entries represent second visits to the same victim.164 Ten entries are not identified as sources of seizure; six of those (AV nos. 31, 53, 83, 84, 108, and 117) are labelled “Arbeitsgruppe Belgien, Brüssel” (32, rue du Châtelain), the main Brussels office of the AG/HAG Belgien), undoubtedly representing various smaller seizures, with the source of all of the crates indicated yet to be determined. As one example, several of the crates in AV 31, AV 53, and AV 84 with codes ‘Reista’ were elsewhere identified as materials collected by Professor Stampfuss in various Belgian sites, which were forwarded to Berlin for the Amt Vorgeschichte (Prehistory Office), which he headed.165 Two (AV nos. 102 and 116) are labelled “Quartieramt Brüssel” (20, rue du Pont Neuf, Machelen); in the latter case, the Work Project Report (Arbeitsbericht) explains the books were abandoned by the “former fugitive Jewish residents Aronstein.”166 AV 54 is identified merely as “Jewish lodgings,” in a single building (Antwerp, Belgielei 73).167 One (AV 148) is labelled as “Lager Ostministerium, Antwerp,” which we now know, thanks to Vogel’s Tagesbericht for that date, was a depot of the RMbO Diensstelle Westen, from which the ERR had selected 25 crates of books from the Möbel-Aktion, and hence unidentified victims.168 The final entry (AV 150), seized 27 February 1943, is for “9 Jewish libraries” (with unnamed victims), but the names, addresses, and nationalities of the owners are given in Vogel’s “Arbeitsberichte” (4 March 1943) for that seizure. Thanks to the survival of Vogel’s report we now know that these were apparently the first collections of books the ERR acquired from the Depot of the Brüsseler Treuhandgesellschaft (BTG) in the Cinquantenaire in Brussels. No explanation is given, however, as to when and under what grounds the BTG confiscated them.169 This ERR list #4 confirms that the pace of confiscations slowed down after the fierce start in August 1940 that continued through 1941. The copy presented here remains unfinished, but a more finished one, possibly completed for submission to Berlin has not been found. While all of the main entries through AV 125 are typewritten, the final entries, starting with AV 126 (seized 2–6 March 1942) through AV 150 (26 February 1943) are penciled in by hand. Later typewritten lists of the ‘work projects’ (AV 117– 136 and 137–150) – see the supplemental documents with ERR list #5, verify that the penciled in names of victims (AVs) correspond to the final ones registered.170
164 AV 15 and AV 149 were both confiscations from Alfred Stern; AV 24 and AV 109 were both confiscations from the École des Hautes Études, Ghent; AV 48 and AV 112 were from Henri Grégoire; AV 100 and AV 127 were from Hugo Andriesse; and AV 145 and AV 147 were from David Reder, or Frankel-Reder as his name is usually rendered. 165 For example, those shipped with one transport are noted by Ebeling to Stampfuss, 2 July 1941, TsDAVO, 3676/1/160, fol. 186; noting 6 crates (Reista I and II, Reista P II–P V). 166 Cross reference needed 167 See above notes 63 and 102. 168 See further explanation in the “ERR in Action,” and above (note 63) ADD cross reference at end. 169 Vogel, “Sammel – Arbeitsbericht, 4 March 1943, TsDAVO, 3676/1/217, folio 55 (cc56). See also the discussion above (note ??). 170 “Arbeitsvorhaben,” nos. 117–136, in TsDAVO, 3676/1/170, fol. 1, and nos. 137–150, in TsDAVO, 3676/1/???, fol. ??; a typewritten list covering operations (AV 137–150). 40
41
Numbers of crates, crate codes, and shipping data are penciled in for most entries above 125, although some of the penciled entries are barely legible, and in other cases were left blank. Many of these can now be verified with the additional crate list (identified in the same file, now included as a supplement with ERR List #5). The date of transport and destination entries are indicated in the right-hand column, although again, indicative of the unfinished text, all of the shipping data starting with AV 119 are also in pencil, the Berlin transport of 18 November 1941 being the last to have been typed in the original. Starting with the crates for AV 118, for those that were sent out with the Berlin transport of 17 May 1942, that shipping data has been added in pencil in the right-hand column, although not all of the entries are legible. And the Paris shipment for the art collections of Hugo Andriesse (AV 100 and AV 117) and Lyndhurst (AV 128; ‘Lindhurst’ in the penciled text) is also given in pencil as 9 March 1942. Except for that art shipment to Paris, Berlin was the destination for all of the rail shipments of seized books and archives, through the spring of 1942. While all of the rail shipments indicted were all intended for the ERR Headquarters in Berlin-Wilmersdorf (Margaretenstrasse 18), remaining copies of freight waybills in the same file are actually addressed to the ERR shipping agent Edouard Franzkowiak in Berlin. By March 1943 the Headquarters was being addressed in Berlin-Charlottenburg 2 (Bismarckstrasse 1). The first freight shipment sent to Berlin on 26 and 27 November 1940 contained the comprehensive result of the ‘Judeo-Masonic’ seizures (240 crates). Additional shipments were dispatched to Berlin on 17 January and 28 February 1941, with the loot from seizures through AV 54. Most of the crates from AV 55–86 were shipped to Berlin 30 June 1941.171 The loot from most of the subsequent entries, AV 87 through AV 117 (AV 117 = 4 crates seized from unnamed owners) were shipped on 18 November 1941.172 Many of those added in pencil on this list were included among the 69 crates dispatched on 17 May 1942.173 In terms of art shipments, only two of the art collections the ERR seized in Belgium are recorded on this list, namely the major collections of Hugo Andriesse (AV 100 and AV 127) and Eric-Émil Lyndhurst (AV 128), turned over to the ERR Sonderstab Bildende Kunst in Paris. Shipping documentation and related correspondence and detailed inventories for those shipments to Paris are found elsewhere.174 Those two collections were processed with French collections in the Jeu de Paume, along three others the ERR sent from Belgium, for which shipping data has not surfaced. The fate of the additional works of art seized in other named 150 operations, including the 123 paintings by Jewish artists and 1 sculpture noted on List #1 and others added on the Excel chart has yet to be determined. Supplementary documents held in the same TsDAVO file – now included at the end of digitized List #5 confirm and supplement the data listed.
171 The waybill for the shipment of 105 crates (dated 28 June 1941; with a stamp on the 30th) addressed to the firm Eduard Franzkowiak is in TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fol. 1 with a note by Vogel (6 July 1941), clarifying some of the crate codes 172 The waybill for the shipment (dated 13 Nov. 1941; with a stamp on the 18th) is in TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fol. 3. 173 The waybill for the shipment (dated 11 May 1942; with a stamp on the 17th) is in TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fols. 18–21. 174 41
42
ERR #5 “Ubersicht der nach Berlin geschickten Kisten” (n.d.[March 1943]), 13 numbered pages [Overview of crates shipped to Berlin] (TsDAVO, fond 3676, series [opys]1, file 164, folios 72–84175) See also the supplemental documents at end of this file.
ERR list #5, a summary of books and archives already shipped to Berlin by the end of February 1943, is exactly the same as ERR Belgian List #4 for numbered entries through AV 120. The first 11 pages would in fact appear (except for the first page with the title) to be carbon copies of ERR List #4. The final two pages (also typewritten carbons) extend to AV 139 (thus not including the penciled additions to List #4), with AV 136 dated 22 January 1943 and AV 137 dated 27 February 1943, with those typed variants extending beyond List #4. However, the ‘work project’ numbers listed above AV 118 are all at variance with those penciled in on List #4, and thus do not include those above AV 139. These variants, all noted on the Excel chart, turn out not to be the final ones, as confirmed in the separate typed list of the final 14 seizure operations (AV 137– 150) – included as one of the supplement documents for Lists #4 and #5, and the separate “Work Reports” (Arbeitsberichten) in TsDAVO fond 3676/1, file 217. Thus the final AV numbers should all correspond to those penciled in on List #4, rather than the alternates on List #5. Similar to List #4, List #5 gives names and addresses of the victims of confiscation, earlier referred to as 'work projects' (Arbeitsvorhaben – AV), with dates of seizure, number of crates and their coded crate markings. The date of transport and destination are indicated in the final right-hand column, through the transport of 17 May 1942 (including the crates from AV nos. 199–125), which had been penciled in on List #4.176 On the final page covering AV nos. 134–139, a Berlin destination is listed for all except AV 136 (noted as left in Brussels), but the shipment date remains in question, indicating that the 22 March 1943 transport data had not been added to this copy. More clarification of crate numbers and contents for many of the final entries, as well as an additional major shipment to Berlin on 22 March 1943,177 has now been ascertained, thanks to documents identified in the same Kyiv ERR Belgian file (TsDAVO, 3676/1/164). It is now clear that Lists #4 and #5 were never completed, but additional finalized typewritten versions have not surfaced, if indeed they were submitted to Berlin. Accordingly, several supplemental typewritten documents are included in facsimile, with the list of contents for the 121 crates in the Berlin transport on 22 March 1943. These resulting data have been incorporated in the accompanying Excel chart.
175 The second list has a different numbering from p. 12 on (seizure n° 121) and is incomplete (limited to n° 139) but fully typewritten (in contrast to the original full list). A notation on p. 9 (folio 80), is dated 7 March 1944. 176 In almost all cases the final destination was Berlin (ERR Headquarters at Margaretenstrasse). Only on two occasions the transport went to Paris (for works of art) and just once (NISH) the material was sent to Amsterdam. By the spring of 1943, the ERR was using the building in Berlin-Charlottenburg as its main headquarters (Bismarckstrasse). Many of the shipments, including the final March 1943 transport, according to the waybill also included in file 164, were addressed to the ERR Berlin shipping agent Eduard Franzkowiak in Berlin-Charlottenburg. 177 A copy of the freight waybill (Frachtbrief) for that shipment is also in TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fols. 1. The document was originally prepared for 11 Mar. 1943, but a stamp on the 22nd signed by Muchow, on another form addressed to Eduard Franzkowiak in Berlin is in TsDAVO, 3676/1/164, fol. 30, presumably for the same shipment. Similar documents for the shipment of 30 March that Muchow later reported has not been located. 42
43
The last two entries in List #5, indicated as having been left in Brussels (AV 138 and AV 139, which refer back to earlier entry numbers AV 111 [Victor de Laveleye] and AV 112 [Henri Grégoire]), we now know were shipped to Berlin in the 22 March transport. The copy of unfinished List #5 presented here also gives a final total of 810 crates, but that total would thereby be 831. Data for the additional Berlin transport of 31 March, referenced above in Muchow’s “1943 Annual Report,” such as a crate list or other details, have not yet surfaced.178
Supplement to Lists #4 and #5 In effort to complete the account of the 150 ERR confiscation actions, we are accordingly supplementing both ERR Lists #4 and #5, with facsimile copies of the following documents related to the Berlin shipment of 22 March 1943. These documents include: (1) A typewritten list verifying the final 14 seizure operations (AV 137–150), TsDAVO, 3676/1/217, fol. 15. (2) A letter of Muchow (signed) to the ERR Stabsbsführung (Berlin/Charl.2, Bismarchkstr.1), dated 25 March 1943, with crate codes and rough contents of 121 coded crates, most resulting from those final seizures (with 4 appendices [Anlagen]), fol. 32: [2a] A crate list of the 121 crates (and corresponding crate codes) in the 22 March 1943 shipment, fol. 31; (3) [marked Anlage 3] detail of contents for crate nos. 346–359, packed in Brussels, (dated 9 March 1943), fol. 33; cc. fol. 45. (4) [marked Anlage 4] detail of contents for crate nos. 360–363, fol. 34; cc fol. 44.
The resulting data, and clarification of shipping data, for some of the earlier entries have been incorporated in the accompanying Excel chart.
ERR #6. Hans Muchow, “Beantwortung der Eilanfrage aus Ratibor,” Brussels, 24 March 1944, 2 folios with cover note. [Answering an Urgent Inquiry from Ratibor] (BArch Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 30/56, folios unnumbered)
Hans Muchow, who headed the ERR HAG Belgien from June 1942 until the closing down of the Brussels office in September 1944 (although in June 1944, he was transferred to Paris), in a much more propagandistic tone than the earlier lists, provides a retrospective summary of prominent Jews and Masons from whom books and archives were seized. There were no additions to the seizures recorded in Lists #4 and #5 above, all of which were completed by the end of February 1943, thus further confirming his explanation that the 150 numbered confiscations were not continued. Muchow’s report was prepared on request from the ERR headquarters in Ratibor (Silesia) in connection with an exhibition there of ERR achievements planned for May 1944.179
178 Muchow, “Arbeitsbericht der HAG Belgien und Nordfrankreich für das Jahr 1943,” TsDAVO, 3676/1/171, fol. 129. 179 Starting in May 1943, most of massive ERR library holdings from Berlin had been evacuated to the Ratibor centre. See P.K. Grimsted, “Roads to Ratibor: 43
44
The copy presented here, signed by Muchow from the ERR records (NS 30) in the Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, is from a file with other documents relating to the Ratibor exhibition.180 In this somewhat popularized, propagandistic report, Muchow first lists eight cities from which the ERR seized Jewish materials (Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Liège, Charleroi, Namur, Lille, and Bruges). He notes two important ‘fugitive’ Jewish leaders from Brussels, the Jewish emigrant banker Norbert Burger [AV 17], and the Jewish banker Max Gottschalk [AV 21]. He then identifies 21 ‘prominent Jewish’ individuals with their professions from which materials were confiscated.181 He also notes that Freemasonic materials were seized in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Liège, and Lille, and names Norbert Burger and Max Gottschalk again as Masonic leaders. Among the prominent Masons named, he also repeats the names of the Jews Gunzburg [AV 44], Huysmans [AV 45], and Speyer [AV 42], and then identifies two others – the “emigrant professor and Slavist” Henri Grégoire [AV 49/112] and the “well-known attorney” Victor de Laveleye [AV 111], who had been a government minister before he fled to London. While only repeating names included on earlier lists, Muchow includes neither addresses, nor quantities seized; nor does he mention any institutional seizures. The inclusion of ‘Charleroi, Namur, Lille, and Bruges’ as cities of seizure fore Jewish material acquired is to be noted because previous lists had not been indicated as a source of Jewish materials. ERR confiscation of one Masonic lodge in Lille [AV 69] was listed earlier, and as explained in the “ERR in Action,” the SD seized Masonic materials in both Charleroi and Namur, some of which were turned over to the ERR.182
180 De Vries, describes additional documentation with photographs from the ERR Ratibor exhibition, May 1944, Sonderstab Musik, pp. 107–115; copies of the original documentation and selected photographs are found in the Bundesarchiv, NS 30/56. 181 Here too the consideration was not always accurate (see note 60). Camille Huysmans and Isabelle Blum are two examples of non-Jews, who were wrongly described as Jewish. 182 See details in “The ERR in Action.” 44