Nazism and the acts of Nazi Germany affected many countries, communities, and people before, during and after World War II. Nazi Germany's attempt to exterminate several groups viewed as subhuman by Nazi ideology was eventually stopped by the combined efforts of the wartime Allies headed by the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States.
Much of the focus of the discussion about Nazi gold concerns how much of it Nazi Germany transferred to overseas banks during World War II. The Nazis looted the assets of their victims to accumulate wealth. In 1998, a Swiss commission estimated that the Swiss National Bank held $440 million of Nazi gold, over half of which is believed to have been looted.
Nazi plunder was organized stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Germany.
Priam's Treasure is a cache of gold and other artifacts discovered by classical archaeologists Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hissarlik on the northwestern coast of modern Turkey. The majority of the artifacts are currently in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.
Repatriation is the return of the cultural property, often referring to ancient or looted art, to their country of origin or former owners.
Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accepted definition of the term, and it has been applied variously to Jews who survived the war in German-occupied Europe or other Axis territories, as well as to those who fled to Allied and neutral countries before or during the war. In some cases, non-Jews who also experienced collective persecution under the Nazi regime are considered Holocaust survivors as well. The definition has evolved over time.
Looted art has been a consequence of looting during war, natural disaster and riot for centuries. Looting of art, archaeology and other cultural property may be an opportunistic criminal act or may be a more organized case of unlawful or unethical pillage by the victor of a conflict. The term "looted art" reflects bias, and whether particular art has been taken legally or illegally is often the subject of conflicting laws and subjective interpretations of governments and people; use of the term "looted art" in reference to a particular art object implies that the art was taken illegally.
The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section Unit (MFAA) was a program established by the Allies in 1943 to help protect cultural property in war areas during and after World War II. The group of about 400 service members and civilians worked with military forces to protect historic and cultural monuments from war damage, and as the conflict came to a close, to find and return works of art and other items of cultural importance that had been stolen by the Nazis or hidden for safekeeping. Spurred by the Roberts Commission, MFAA branches were established within the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of Allied armies.
The Hungarian Gold Train was the German-operated train during World War II that carried stolen valuables, mostly Hungarian Jews' property, from Hungary towards Berlin in 1945. After American forces seized and looted the train in Austria, almost none of the valuables were returned to Hungary, their rightful owners, or their surviving family members.
Jacques Goudstikker was a Jewish Dutch art dealer who fled the Netherlands when it was invaded by Nazi Germany during World War II, leaving three furnished properties and an extensive and significant art collection including over 1200 paintings, many of which had been previously catalogued as "Old Masters". The entire collection, which had been surveyed by Hermann Goering himself, was subsequently looted by the Nazis. Between the two World Wars, Jacques Goudstikker had been the most important Dutch dealer of Old Master paintings, according to Peter C. Sutton, executive director and CEO of the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science. Despite efforts of Goudstikker's widow after the war to regain possession of the collection, it was not until after her death that the Dutch government finally restituted 202 paintings to the Goudstikker family in 2006. To finance efforts to reclaim more of the stolen art, a large portion of them were sold at auction in 2007 for almost $10 million.
Art theft and looting occurred on a massive scale during World War II. It originated with the policies of the Axis countries, primarily Nazi Germany and Japan, which systematically looted occupied territories. Near the end of the war the Soviet Union, in turn, began looting reclaimed and occupied territories. "The grand scale of looted artwork by the Nazis has resulted in the loss of many pieces being scattered across the world."
The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce 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.
The Munich Central Collecting Point was a depot used by the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program after the end of the Second World War to process, photograph and redistribute artwork and cultural artifacts that had been confiscated by the Nazis and hidden throughout Germany and Austria. Other Central Collecting Points were located at Marburg, Wiesbaden and Offenbach, with the overall aim of giving restitution for the artifacts to their countries of origin.
The looting of Polish cultural artifacts and industrial infrastructure during World War II was carried out by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union simultaneously after the invasion of Poland of 1939. A significant portion of Poland's cultural heritage, estimated at half a million art objects, was plundered by the occupying powers. Catalogued pieces are still occasionally recovered elsewhere in the world and returned to Poland.
The history of the Soviet Union (USSR) (1922–91) began with the ideals of the Bolshevik Revolution and ended in dissolution amidst economic collapse and political disintegration. Established in 1922 following the Russian Civil War, the Soviet Union quickly became a one-party state under the Communist Party. Its early years under Lenin were marked by the implementation of socialist policies and the New Economic Policy (NEP), which allowed for market-oriented reforms.
Patricia Kennedy Grimsted is a historian focused on the dispossession and restitution of cultural materials during and after World War II. She is a leading authority on archives in the former Soviet Union and its successor states.
The Guelph Treasure is a collection of medieval ecclesiastical art originally housed at Brunswick Cathedral in Braunschweig, Germany. The Treasure takes its name from the princely House of Guelph of Brunswick-Lüneburg.
After the Second World War in 1945, issues surrounding wartime loss and compensation started to arise. Cultural valuables were taken from Germany and placed in the Soviet Union. Years later, at the break up of the USSR, the said cultural valuables came to attention as the issue of ownership arose. Following, the debates between the Russian Duma and the Yeltsin government began, with the Duma focusing on compensation to Russia for wartime loss, and Yeltsin focusing on maintaining international relationships and agreements. Arising from the debate, were many struggles, but ultimately the enactment of the Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian Federation.
"The Spoils of War—World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property" was an international symposium held in New York City in 1995 to discuss the artworks, cultural property, and historic sites damaged, lost, and plundered as a result of World War II. The three-day event was sponsored by the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the war. The conference was organized by Elizabeth Simpson, an archaeologist and professor at the Bard Graduate Center.
The General Government was the German zone of occupation in Poland after the invasion by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, at the start of World War II. The General Government represented the middle portion of occupied Poland, with originally the West being under German control and the East under Soviet control. The basis for this split was to eliminate the Polish state and to turn all Polish nationals as stateless subjects, disregarding international law.
