Perpetrators, Victims and Art
A Look Back at the National Socialists’ Campaign of Pil-lage
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Between 1933 and 1945, privately and publicly owned works of art, books and archives were extorted, “arianised”, “secured” and robbed, first in Germany, then throughout Europe. Special offices and organisations were involved in this activity. Among the victims of these campaigns of pillage were political opponents: union officials, socialists, free masons, priests. The robbery was especially hard on the Jewish population. With the attack on Poland and the invasion of the Soviet Union began the robbery of the East European peoples, who were categorized as “racially inferior”. The National Socialist campaigns of pillage for cultural assets are not merely the subject of historical research, they continue to strain objects mutual understanding within Europe to this day.
(Osteuropa 1-2/2006, pp. 7–22)
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Perpetrators, victims, and art