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Reviewed by:
  • America and the Return of Nazi Contraband: The Recovery of Europe’s Cultural Treasures
  • Robert G. Waite
America and the Return of Nazi Contraband: The Recovery of Europe’s Cultural Treasures, Michael J. Kurtz ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2006 ), 288 pp., $75.00 .

“The Nazi war on European culture produced the greatest dislocation of art, archives, and libraries in the history of the world,” writes Michael Kurtz in his study of America’s role in the return of looted cultural treasures. Kurtz published a book on the same topic in 1985 and has now expanded and updated his research and findings, incorporating the newest research. There is good reason for the new edition, as he points out. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the opening of the archives of Eastern Europe, demands by survivors and their heirs for restitution, and a wider recognition of the sheer extent of the looting, a heightened awareness and renewed interest have emerged. During the 1990s many individuals, groups, and governments pushed hard for an accounting of these materials, most seized by the Nazis from Jewish owners. Much has been accomplished.

The systematic and vast looting by the Nazis, what Kurtz correctly terms “the war against European culture,” was shaped by their regime’s ideology, in which “culture” played an important role. Not only was this theft an expression of Nazi racist doctrines, it was also key to the regime’s efforts to eradicate all traces of the Jewish people. Kurtz sees the confiscations, in addition, as part of an intense competition among German leaders, mostly of lower middle class origins, to assemble their own trappings of wealth and influence, namely collections of fine art.

A handful of individuals played leading roles in the ruthless, wholesale confiscation of cultural items. Sonderauftrag Linz, a unit operating under Hitler’s direction, sought out treasures for the grand art museum he envisioned for his home town. Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, and Alfred Rosenburg had teams scouring occupied Europe for works of art to add to their collections. Kurtz describes the activities of each, their operatives, and the art historians and curators who prowled occupied Europe: Dr. Hans Posse, Karl Haberstock, Kajetan Mühlmann, and Maria Almas-Dietrich, to name a few. Some made small fortunes dealing in stolen art.

After an initial chapter on similar looting throughout history (based largely on recent studies) Kurtz turns to the unprecedentedly systematic efforts of the Nazis. Their large-scale robbery was well known during the war, but as Kurtz makes abundantly clear, the Allied powers manifested only a peripheral interest. While the Allies agreed in 1942 to return the property following the conflict, they failed to provide any international means for implementation. Postwar planning looked to the occupation, denazification, and demilitarization of Germany. The restitution of cultural property received little attention. At the urging of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, President Roosevelt established the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in Europe. Chaired by Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts, the so-called Roberts Commission [End Page 142] began its work, preparing during 1944 and 1945 hundreds of maps locating monuments, cultural repositories, and archives.

The most significant step in the U.S. response came after a recommendation by the Roberts Commission, when in fall 1943 the War Department established the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives branch, the unit that was to have, as Kurtz shows in detail and as scholars in recent years also have emphasized, the key role in locating, cataloging, and preserving looted cultural treasure, and in preparation for its restitution. A handful of MFA&A officers moved across France and into Germany with the advancing armed forces, finding themselves custodians of literally millions of cultural items at a time when the military was not especially concerned. As the army uncovered more storage places, the MFA&A responded with the establishment of collection points, locations where paintings, sculpture, libraries, archives, and other property could be preserved and processed. Kurtz describes in detail the operations of the collection points as well as the activities of the handful of officers who made the policy work.

The officers of the MFA&A...

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