The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce ( or ERR) was a Nazi Party organization dedicated to appropriating cultural property during the Second World War. It was led by the chief ideologue of the Nazi Party, Alfred Rosenberg, from within the NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs. Between 1940 and 1945, the ERR operated in France, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, and on the territory of the Soviet Union in the Reichskommissariat Ostland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Much of the looted material was recovered by the Allies after the war, and returned to rightful owners, but there remains a substantial part that has been lost or remains with the Allied powers.
Formation
The ERR was initially a project of Hohe Schule der NSDAP, a Nazi-oriented elite university, which was subordinate to Alfred Rosenberg. Rosenberg wanted it to be a research institute filled with cultural material on the opponents of the Nazi ideology. These included Jewish, Masonic, Communist and democratic organizations from throughout Germany and from the occupied countries. Plans to build monumental buildings for the university on the shores of Lake Chiemsee failed to materialize after the outbreak of World War II.Ernst Piper: Alfred Rosenberg – der Prophet des Seelenkrieges. Der gläubige Nazi in der Führungselite des nationalsozialistischen Staates. In: Michael Ley / Julius H. Schoeps (eds): Der Nationalsozialismus als politische Religion. Bodenheim bei Mainz 1997, p. 122, .
Shortly after the occupation of France the staff of the ERR joined the SS in the search for books, archival material, and huge stocks of artifacts that were in the possession of people of Jewish descent. Soon after the German Embassy in Paris and SS-Einsatzgruppen also began to steal the most valuable paintings from prominent national museums, galleries, and non-Jewish private collections. Rosenberg and his organization wanted to be involved in these art raids. He was able to get full authority from Adolf Hitler to be the only official art procurement organization acting in the occupied countries. For this reason, in a Führer Directive of 5 July 1940, Hitler authorized the ERR to confiscate:
precious manuscripts and books from national libraries and archives; important artifacts of ecclesiastical authorities and Masonic lodges; all valuable cultural property belonging to Jews.
The "Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg" was officially established in "Office West" in Paris and was divided into different functional departments. The ERR central administration was transferred to Berlin on 1 March 1941 where it became formal subdivision of the German Foreign Office.
The Nazis were so eager to acquire valuable masterpieces that art theft became the most important field of work of the ERR. In addition to art, many libraries were looted for the Institute for Research on the Jewish Question in Frankfurt, but especially for the library of the Hohe Schule. The operations staff had eight main regional task forces and five technical task forces (music, visual arts, history, libraries, churches). Raids connected with the ERR also plundered the belongings of people deported to Nazi concentration camps. Between April 1941 to July 1944, 29 convoys transported goods seized from Paris to Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, the ERR's principal place of storage. Until 17 October 1944, as estimated by the ERR itself, 1,418,000 railway wagons containing books and works of art (as well as 427,000 tonnes by ship) were transitioned to Germany.
Operations
Belarus "More than two hundred libraries of Belarus, especially the state (now national) library, suffered irreparable damage during the occupation. An associate of the national library, T. Roshchina, calculated that 83 percent of the library’s collection was plundered and destroyed. After the war, some six hundred thousand volumes from the library were found in Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and were subsequently returned. About one million books, however, including rare and old printed volumes, have still not been located."Adam Maldis. "The Tragic Fate of Belarusan Museum and Library Collections During the Second World War." p. 79.
"Day by day for 26 months, the Hitlerites systematically destroyed one of the most ancient Russian cities, Smolensk. The Soviet Prosecution has presented to the Tribunal a document as Document Number USSR-56, containing the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union. I shall not quote this document; but I shall only refer to it and endeavor, in my own words, to emphasize the fundamental points of this document, dealing with the reported theme now. In Smolensk, the German fascist invaders plundered and destroyed the most valuable collections in the museums. They desecrated and burned down ancient monuments; they destroyed schools and institutes, libraries, and sanatoriums. The report also mentions the fact that in April 1943, the Germans needed rubble to pave the roads. For this purpose, they blew up the intermediate school. The Germans burned down all the libraries of the city and 22 schools; 646,000 volumes perished in the library fires."
Belgium
By the middle of 1941, most of the ERR work in Belgium concentrated on small collections in Jewish homes. Larger operations involved the Jesuit convent in Enghien involved removing 200 crates of books and archives, and looting the École des Hautes Études in Ghent, which involved transporting 56 crates of books. "Both institutions were considered outposts of French culture on Flemish soil and unfriendly to Nazism." The Jesuit collection was considered a treasure trove of information on the politics of Catholicism in Belgium, and of Catholic procedures to thwart the Germans. The Jesuit College in Leuven and the regional office in Brussels, for example, acted as a refuge for library materials.Grimsted, P.K. Returned from Russia. pp. 203–204.
"Libraries and archives sees as enemy and international were confiscated outright by the ERR, as indicated by the following three examples. The contents of the communist bookshop OBLA, Brussels, were sent to Racibórz, Poland. The records of the International Federation for Housing and Town Planning were confiscated and brought to Germany. A similar fate overtook the archives and library of the international Jesuit college at Enghien, which was called a "Zentrale der anti-Deutschland speziell anti-National-Sozialistischen Information" ("Center for anti-German and anti-National Socialist Information").Lust, Jacques. 1997. "The Spoils of War Removed from Belgium During World War II." In: Simpson, Elizabeth, ed. "Spoils of War." p. 59.
Czechoslovakia "The 700,000 volumes of the Charles University Library in Prague were stolen as a unit."Stubbings. Blitzkrieg and Books. p. 438.
A library was created in the Theresienstadt ghetto, about forty miles from Prague. Books were brought in by many of the people deported to this camp as part of their personal possessions, but also books from the collections of the Rabbinical Seminary Libraries of Berlin and Breslau, and the Jewish communities of Berlin and Vienna were also shipped there. Part of the German effort included having the prisoners translate and catalog many Hebrew books, to be added to the ERR "Museum of the Extinct Race" envisioned by Alfred Rosenberg. Almost 30,000 Hebrew and Judaica volumes had catalog cards created by the ghetto inmates.Intrator, Miriam. 2007. "People Were Literally Starving for any Kind of Reading." Library Trends. Volume 55 (3) Winter 2007. pp. 516–17, 519.
In 1935, there were 17,148 public, school and university libraries in Czechoslovakia, having a book stock of 8,528,744 volumes. Many of these items were confiscated by the Germans, especially any Czech books dealing with geography, biography or history. Works by any Czech writers were taken away, many burned, most others taken directly to the paper pulp mills. Special libraries were devastated, and suffered a loss of about 2,000,000 volumes.Zivny, Ladislav. 1946. "Czechoslovak Libraries During the War and After." Library Journal. June 15, 1946. p. 877.
France
Georg Ebert, who was a member of Rosenberg’s NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs, discovered that a Masonic grand lodge, the Grand Orient de France, had been abandoned in Paris. This was one of the most important Masonic grand lodge in Europe. Ebert personally guarded the building, with its library collection, museum and archives, until he could turn it over to the army. This was one point in the origin of the ERR, which eventually developed into a central headquarters in Berlin, with subsidiary offices Hauptarbeitsgruppen (Main Work Groups) in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Belgrade, Riga and other cities.Collins, Donald E. and Herbert P. Rothfeder, 1984, "The Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg and the Looting of Jewish and Masonic Libraries During World War II." Journal of Library History, volume 18 (1), p. 24.
"In January 1940, Hitler gave Rosenberg his task: to loot Jewish and Masonic cultural treasures, including synagogues, libraries, and archives in western Europe. By fall 1940, Hitler ordered Rosenberg to confiscate all Jewish art collections since these materials were now deemed "ownerless" by Nazi decree. Jews in France, as in most of Europe, were now labeled "stateless" and no longer had property rights. With France part of the German-occupied territories, the ERR and Rosenberg now fell under Hermann Göring's authority and control, with the Gestapo seeking out Jewish houses, apartments, and shops in the hopes of finding valuable pieces."Rothfeld, Anne, 2002, "Nazi Looted Art: The Holocaust Records Preservation Project." Prologue, Volume 34 (3), Fall 2002.
"Alfred Rosenberg reported to Hitler that his Einsatzstab had commenced confiscations in Paris by October 1940, with the assistance of the Service de Sûreté (S.D.) and the "Police Secrète Militaire (Geheime Feldpolizei)."Cassou, Jean. 1947. Le Pillage par les Allemands des Œuvres d’Art et des Bibliothèques Appartenant à des Juifs en France. Pages 108–109. The "Sonderstab Bildende Kunst" (Special Arts Staff), a section of the ERR, confiscated numerous Jewish art collections, often of international renown (for instance, the Rothschild collection). In the Netherlands, this Sonderstab did not seize much more than about a thousand works of art. The Sonderstab Musik, Kirchen, Osten, Bibliothekenaufbau der Hohen Schule und Rassenpolititische Fragen (Special Staffs for Music, Churches, the East, the High School Library and Race-political Questions) each fought for its own corner. By 1942, no fewer than 3,500 collections, libraries and archives had been ‘secured’ by the Hauptarbeitsgruppe Frankreich (Main Working Group, France) of the ERR- France having been divided into five districts.Aalders, Gerard. Nazi Looting. p. 55.
The libraries of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) and the French Rabbinical Seminary (SIF) were high on the list of German locations to loot. The AIU had built a new library in 1937, including an eight story high tower and reading room, and boasting of 50,000 books. By March 1940, 647 crates of books had been removed from the AIU, and 243 crates of books from the SIF. A list by the ERR dated March 1941 indicated that 81 libraries had been looted in Paris alone, and a later supplemental list included another 30 libraries of Jewish, Masonic, socialist and émigré collections had been seized.Grimsted. Returned from Russia. pp. 137–139.