Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce
Encyclopedia
The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg or ERR) was a Nazi Party organisation dedicated to appropriating cultural goods during the Second World War. It was led by Alfred Rosenberg
from within the Nazi Party Foreign Affairs Office (Außenpolitischen Amt der NSDAP or APA).
, 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 regionmal office in Brussles, for example, acted as a refuge for library materials.
“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”).
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 as well. Part of the German effort also 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.
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.
. This was one of the most important Masonic lodges in Europe. Ebert personally guarded the building, with its library collection 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.
“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.”
"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
)."
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.
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.
“These albums were created by the staff of the Third Reich’s Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR). This special unit was organized in the summer of 1940 under Reich Leader Alfred Rosenberg
, initially to collect political material in occupied countries for exploitation in the “struggle against Jewry and Freemasonry.” The ERR established its base of operations in Paris in July 1940 and on November 5, Hermann Goering assigned the ERR the responsibility for the confiscation of “ownerless” Jewish art collections. On November 18 of that year, Adolf Hitler
ordered that all confiscated works of art be brought to Germany and placed at his personal disposal. During the next several years, the ERR would be engaged in an extensive and elaborate art looting operation in France that was part of Hitler’s much larger premeditated scheme to steal art treasures from conquered nations. Soon after the German occupation of France in 1940, the German military, and subsequently the ERR, focused their art confiscations on the world renowned Jewish- owned art collections from families such as the Rothschilds, and the Veil-Picards, Alphonse Kann
, and Jewish dealers such as the Seligmann
s and Georges Wildenstein
. According to the German ERR documents from 1944, the art seizures in France totaled 21,903 objects from 203 collections. There were 5,009 items confiscated from the Rothschild family collections, 2,687 items from the David-Weill collection, and 1,202 from Alphonse Kann’s collection. The first shipment of confiscated art objects sent to Germany from Paris required 30 rail cars and consisted primarily of Rothschild paintings intended for Hitler’s Linz Museum. Among the first fifty-three paintings shipped to Hitler was Vermeer’s Astronomer from the Édouard de Rothschild
collection, today in the Musée de Louvre in Paris. As the ERR staff looted and catalogued the French collections, they created photograph albums specifically intended for the Reichschancellery and Adolf Hitler in an effort to keep them apprised of their work in France, and more importantly, to provide a catalogue of items from which Hitler and his curators could choose art treasures for the Führer’s Art Museum in Linz, Austria. A group of these photograph albums were presented to Adolf Hitler on the occasion of his birthday on April 20, 1943, by Alfred Rosenberg
to “send a ray of beauty and joy into [his] revered life.” ERR staff stated that nearly 100 such volumes were created during the years of their art looting operation."
“The latest advices from authentic neutral sources said that the Gestapo
had seized the libraries of all the Mason
ic organizations in France. The Biliothèque Nationale (the French National Library) there upon put in a claim for these books, but the latest word was that the Germans declined to hand over them over, saying the material would be sent to Germany for purposes of study. The library of the Alliance Israelite in Paris, worth several million francs, also was said to have been seized and sent to Germany. From the Biliothèque Nationale- one of the world’s leading libraries- the Germans were reported to have received an inventory of manuscripts, rare books and similar material that had been stored elsewhere in France for security during the war.. German officials, according to the information received here, have been exercising close supervision over the French publishing industry. They have also taken over the Maison du Livre de Français, the most important French book exporting agency.”
After the war, many of the books hidden by the Germans were collected by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of the American military government, and collected at the Offenbach Depot. There, many of the larger collections were identified and eventually returned to their owners. By the send of 1948, “…the French regained the archives of the Paris bank of Rothschild Freres, the Libschutz Librairie de Paris, the library of the Alliance Israelite Universelle de Paris, the library of the Ecole Rabbinique de Paris, and the Biliothèque de Chinon.”
agents seal the yeshiva
collections, in which the city abounded. However, members of the community were able to hide or disguise many of the collections from the Germans. A later visit in September 1942 by a scholar named Maertsch, likewise resulted in no new additions to the Frankfurt library. However, a 1943 report does show that 10,000 volumes had been received from Greece.
Before the war, Greece was rich in libraries. The National Library, which included the Public and University libraries in Athens, contained more than 400,000 volumes. “Reports reaching American authorities in Cairo have told of the pillaging of libraries, laboratories and workshops of the Universities of Athens and Salonika… A large part of the University of Athens library is reported to be lost. The libraries of three American colleges were reported to have been used as fuel in the central heating system used by the Germans.”
in 1943, ERR officers inspected the contents of the Roman Synagogue’s two great libraries, which contained extraordinary collections gathered over the 2,000 year history of Jewish life in Rome. They demanded the libraries’ catalogs; just days before the first deportation of Roman Jews to Auschwitz, two specially ordered railcars destined for Alfred Rosenberg
’s institute in Frankfurt were loaded with ten thousand books from these libraries.”
"Two archaeological libraries, the Hertziana Library of History and Art, and the German Archaeological Institute
’s library of the history, topography, art and customs of ancient Rome, were removed from Rome and taken to Germany by the Nazis. At the end of the war, the two library collections were discovered in two Austrian salt mines packed away in 1,985 wooden cases. The German Library’s collection was unharmed, but some of the Hertziana collection and the card catalog were damaged by water when part of the mine flooded. They were returned to Rome, where they became part of the Gallery of Modern Art, where both collections will be in the care of the new International Union for the study of Archaeology, Art and History in Rome."
After the war, many of the major collections looted from Italy were identified by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives service of the American military government and returned to their owners. The Collegio Rabbinico Italiano, the Kunsthistorische Institut Florenz, and the Deutsche Historische Bibliothek Rom were all returned, although not all were intact, to their owners in Italy. “These last two collections were seized by Hitler with the idea of re-establishing them in Germany.”
prisoners, including A.Y. Goldschmidt, librarian of the Hispanic-Ethnographic Society. Eventually, he committed suicide rather than assist the looting of the libraries. Dr. Johannes Pohl appeared in January 1942, and ordered that the city be made a collecting point for the region, and concentrated at the Yidisher Visenshaftlikker Institut (Institute for Jewish Research). Materials were brought in from the private collections from Kovno, Shavle, Mariapol, Volozhn and other towns, and included books from over 300 synagogues and personal libraries. Some of the Jewish workers were able to smuggle out and hide some of the most valuable books in the ghetto, which was stopped when the ghetto
was liquidated in July 1943. The accumulated collection of over 100,000 volumes were separated into piles by century of publication, and about 20,000 were selected for shipment to Germany. The remaining materials were pulped to avoid storage and transportation costs, and to make a small profit. One incident involved an assistant of Dr. Pohl dumping out five cases of rare books in order to make room for an illegal shipment of hogs.
in 1939, was represented in the Netherlands by an Amsterdam office. In 1940, the ERR confiscated all property belonging to the Freemasons, among which was the famous Biblioteca Klossiana. This library had been bought by Prince Hendrik (1876-1934) (Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin), husband of Queen Wilhemina (Wilhelmina of the Netherlands
), and had been presented by him to the order of Freemasons. It contained important incunabula and books on the occult
, which were not available anywhere else in the Netherlands. Other parts of the library and the order’s archive were of importance as well. The library if the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam was closed, and the ERR took over the building for its offices. In July 1940 the institute’s very important collection of newspapers and the library of approximately 160,000 volumes were confiscated. German arguments over their final destination kept the materials in Amsterdam until the winter of 1944, when they were transported to Germany in eleven ships. The International Archives of the Women’s Movement, established in Amsterdam in 1935, lost its whole collection after the institute was closed by the Sicherheitspolizei
(Security Police) in June 1940. In August 1942, 499 crates containing books and archives taken from, among others, Jewish antiquarian book dealers and theosophical societies were transported to Berlin.”
Most of the looted Jewish property, especially books, was sent to Rosenberg’s Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage in Frankfurt. Established in March 1941, the Institute served as the core research library for the planned Hohe Schule. Some of the other ERR research institutes that received looted books included the Institut für Biologie und Rassenlehre in Stuttgart, the Institut für Religionswissenschaft, and the Institut für Deutsche Volkskunde. In the Netherlands, where Seeligmann’s library was looted, the ERR enjoyed a monopoly on cultural property confiscation between 1940 and 1944. A particularly large number of books were seized, with an estimated value of thirty to forty million Reichsmarks. However, not all of those books were sent to the ERR’s research institutes. Certain collections, including Seeligmann’s, were sent to other Nazi agencies, such as the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or RSHA) in Berlin.
The RSHA was interested specifically in information about those they perceived to be the prime enemies of the Reich. Accordingly, the RSHA in Berlin received looted library and archival materials relating to “enemies” such as the Jews. The RSHA Office Seven (Amt VII), which specialized in ideological research, established a center for the evaluation of looted documents. By August 1943, it contained more than 500,000 catalogued volumes.
Most of the Jewish materials collected by Amt VII related to Zionist groups, rescue agencies, communities, and cultural organizations. Materials pertaining to Jewish political, economic, cultural, and intellectual leaders were also collected. Seeligmann, who founded the Genootschap voor Joodsche Wetenschap in Nederland (Society for the Science of Judaism in the Netherlands) and served as president of the Dutch Zionist Organization, likely would have been of great interest to the RSHA. By August 1943, his library became part of the Amt VII library and archive center.
, where there was widespread destruction during the evacuation of the German armies. Interestingly enough, the Norwegians did not burn the German propaganda works that had filled their shelves when the original Norwegian books were removed. They will be kept for the study by future generations who will want to study the period of the German occupation.
, the German overseer of libraries, decided to send much of the reference collection to Germany in 1944. “Abb decided to send the major part of the reference collection, as well as most of the books bought by the Staatsbibliothek to Germany (altogether about 25,000 volumes). [Polish] Librarians, charged with the task of filling boxes with books, tried to sabotage Abb’s orders. They hid a large number of books and stuffed boxes with old newspapers. Despite those heroic efforts to save the collection, the Germans were still able to send a great number of books to Adelsdorf
(Adelin) in Silesia
. Fortunately, after the war the library was able to recover most of the books that Abb had evacuated form the library.” Later in the war, the main reading room was used as sleeping quarters for German soldiers, and other parts of the library were used as a hospital for Germans.
From the Frankfurter Zeitung
, Wochen-Ausgabe, March 28, 1941: “For us it is a matter of special pride to destroy the Talmudic Academy
which has been known as the greatest in Poland… We threw out of the building the great Talmudic Library and carted it to market. There we set fire to the books. The fire lasted for twenty hours. The Jews of Lublin
were assembled around and cried bitterly. The cries almost silenced us. Then we summoned a military band, and the joyful shouts of the soldiers silenced the sounds of Jewish cries.”
commanded the “Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg für die Besetzten Gebiete” or “ERR,” that was responsible for collecting art, books and cultural objects from invaded countries, also returned their captured library collection back to Berlin during the retreat from Russia. The ERR stands for “Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg für die Besetzten Gebiete” which means the “Reich Leader Rosenberg Task Force for Occupied Territories.” “ERR dispatches note they had to abandon their offices before the removal of the materials on hand could be completed ‘due to lack of loading spaces’ and the fact that German artillery, located in the center of the city [Kiev], was firing continually over their heads. Still, they managed to send on both their paintings 9,279) and prehistoric materials, which had come from Kharkov, their own library and office furniture, and the materials collected by the Department of Seizures, amounting to some ten thousand books and nearly a hundred cases of Bolshevist paintings, documents and archives…”
In the note of Vaycheslav M. Molotov [sic: Vyacheslav Molotov
], People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, dated April 27, 1942, presented before the International Military Tribunal, it was recorded that the Germans burned the library of 40,000 volumes belonging to one of the oldest agricultural libraries in the U.S.S.R., the Shatilov selection station in the Orel
district. Also submitted to the International Military Tribunal was the statement following: “There was no limit to the desecration of the Hitlerite vandals of the monuments and homes representing Ukrainian history, culture and art. Suffice to mention, as an example of the constant attempts to humiliate the national dignity of the Ukrainian people, that after plundering the Korolenko Library in Kharkov, the occupiers used the books as paving stones for the muddy street in order to facilitate the passage of motor vehicles.”
1941-1944 Soviet Union: As a result of the German invasion, heavy damage was done to Russian libraries. It has been estimated that more than 100 million books have been destroyed, mainly from public libraries.
“At Pskov
, 1,026 church books were removed from the kremlin (fortress), including sixteenth- to eighteenth- century manuscripts and seventeenth century printed books. Nearly 35,000 volumes were removed from the Pskov pedagogical institute, including 25,000 works of Russian scholars. At Novgorod, the library of the historical museum which was “displaced”, contained rare periodicals such as Russkaia rech’ of 1880 and Bibliograf of 1860. Books removed included editions of Voltaire
of 1785 and Jean Jacques Rousseau of 1796. All in all, 35,000 volumes were removed. Unique editions of archaeology
, including 51 books on the history of ancient Russia, were removed from the Novgorod library for the German professor Engel. Publications on ethnology were removed for Professor Thiele… The above-mentioned Sonderkommando Künsberg was active in removing the czars’ libraries from the suburbs of Leningrad
and the contents of museums and libraries from Rostov
and Taganrog
. In addition to the ERR, Künsberg’s clients were: the main branch of the Reich Security Agency; RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt); the geographic service of the ministry of Foreign Affairs; the State Library; the Slavic Studies seminar; and the Hermann Göring
economic library.”
Heinrich Himmler
sent a secret message to the SS and SD
troops in order to ensure their cooperation with the main troops in the total destruction and devastation of the parts of the Ukraine to be evacuated: “The aim to be achieved is that when the areas in the Ukraine
are evacuated, not a human being, not a single head of cattle, not a hundredweight of cereals, and not a railway line remains behind; that not a house remains standing, not a mine exists that is not ruined for years to come, that there is no well left unpoisoned. The enemy must really find a land completely burnt and destroyed.”
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
from within the Nazi Party Foreign Affairs Office (Außenpolitischen Amt der NSDAP or APA).
ERR Operations in 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 German, Polish and Czechoslovakia, and were subsequently returned. About one million books, however, including rare and old printed volumes, have still not been located.”ERR Operations in 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 GhentGhent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
, 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
Leuven
Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...
and the regionmal office in Brussles, for example, acted as a refuge for library materials.
“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
Racibórz
Racibórz is a town in southern Poland with 60,218 inhabitants situated in the Silesian Voivodeship , previously in Katowice Voivodeship...
, 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
Enghien
Enghien is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. On January 1, 2006 Enghien had a total population of 11,980. The total area is 40.59 km² which gives a population density of 295 inhabitants per km²....
, which was called a “Zentrale der anti-Deutschland speziell anti-National-Sozialistischen Information” (“Center for anti-German and anti-National Socialist Information”).
ERR Operations in Czechoslovakia
“The 700,000 volumes of the Charles University Library in Prague were stolen as a unit.”A library was created in the Theresienstadt ghetto, about forty miles from Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. 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
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
were also shipped there as well. Part of the German effort also included having the prisoners translate and catalog many Hebrew books, to be added to the ERR
Err
Err is the verb form of error or mistake.Err may also refer to:* Err, a character of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force animated comedy* Err, Pyrénées-Orientales, a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France...
“Museum of the Extinct Race” envisioned by Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
. Almost 30,000 Hebrew and Judaica volumes had catalog cards created by the ghetto inmates.
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.
ERR Operations in France
Georg Ebert, who was a member of Rosenberg’s Aussenpolitisches Amt (NSDAP Bureau for Foreign Affairs, also referred to as the APA), discovered that a Masonic lodge, the Grand Orient, had been abandoned in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. This was one of the most important Masonic lodges in Europe. Ebert personally guarded the building, with its library collection 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
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
and other cities.
“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
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
's authority and control, with the Gestapo seeking out Jewish houses, apartments, and shops in the hopes of finding valuable pieces.”
"Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
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
Geheime Feldpolizei
The ' or GFP, was the secret military police of the German Wehrmacht until the end of Second World War. These units were used to carry out plain-clothed security work in the field such as counter-espionage, counter sabotage, detection of treasonable activities, counter-propaganda and to provide...
)."
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.
The libraries of the Alliance Israélite Universelle
Alliance Israélite Universelle
The Alliance Israélite Universelle is a Paris-based international Jewish organization founded in 1860 by the French statesman Adolphe Crémieux to safeguard the human rights of Jews around the world...
(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.
“These albums were created by the staff of the Third Reich’s Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR). This special unit was organized in the summer of 1940 under Reich Leader Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
, initially to collect political material in occupied countries for exploitation in the “struggle against Jewry and Freemasonry.” The ERR established its base of operations in Paris in July 1940 and on November 5, Hermann Goering assigned the ERR the responsibility for the confiscation of “ownerless” Jewish art collections. On November 18 of that year, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
ordered that all confiscated works of art be brought to Germany and placed at his personal disposal. During the next several years, the ERR would be engaged in an extensive and elaborate art looting operation in France that was part of Hitler’s much larger premeditated scheme to steal art treasures from conquered nations. Soon after the German occupation of France in 1940, the German military, and subsequently the ERR, focused their art confiscations on the world renowned Jewish- owned art collections from families such as the Rothschilds, and the Veil-Picards, Alphonse Kann
Alphonse Kann
Alphonse Kann was a prominent French art collector of Jewish heritage. He was a childhood playmate and adult friend of the writer Marcel Proust, who incorporated several of Kann's features into the character Charles Swann .The name Kann, written with double "nn", was said in Paris to be "le plus...
, and Jewish dealers such as the Seligmann
Seligmann
Seligmann is a German word meaning "blessed man." It may refer to:* Seligman, Arizona* Seligman, MissouriAs a surname it may refer to:* Arthur Seligman , an American businessman and politician...
s and Georges Wildenstein
Georges Wildenstein
Georges Wildenstein was a French gallery owner, art collector, editor and art historian.-Life:Georges' father was Nathan Wildenstein, who came from a family of Jewish cattle-dealers but had in 1870 left Alsace aged twenty when it was annexed in the Franco-Prussian War and moved to Paris...
. According to the German ERR documents from 1944, the art seizures in France totaled 21,903 objects from 203 collections. There were 5,009 items confiscated from the Rothschild family collections, 2,687 items from the David-Weill collection, and 1,202 from Alphonse Kann’s collection. The first shipment of confiscated art objects sent to Germany from Paris required 30 rail cars and consisted primarily of Rothschild paintings intended for Hitler’s Linz Museum. Among the first fifty-three paintings shipped to Hitler was Vermeer’s Astronomer from the Édouard de Rothschild
Edouard de Rothschild
Edouard de Rothschild may refer to:* Édouard Alphonse de Rothschild , French banker* Édouard Etienne de Rothschild , French financier & horseman...
collection, today in the Musée de Louvre in Paris. As the ERR staff looted and catalogued the French collections, they created photograph albums specifically intended for the Reichschancellery and Adolf Hitler in an effort to keep them apprised of their work in France, and more importantly, to provide a catalogue of items from which Hitler and his curators could choose art treasures for the Führer’s Art Museum in Linz, Austria. A group of these photograph albums were presented to Adolf Hitler on the occasion of his birthday on April 20, 1943, by Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
to “send a ray of beauty and joy into [his] revered life.” ERR staff stated that nearly 100 such volumes were created during the years of their art looting operation."
“The latest advices from authentic neutral sources said that the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
had seized the libraries of all the Mason
Mason
Mason may refer to:* Masonry worker, who builds with concrete, brick or stone* Bricklayer, a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork* Mason , a common English surname* Mason , Dutch electronic music duo* Mason , on the Moon...
ic organizations in France. The Biliothèque Nationale (the French National Library) there upon put in a claim for these books, but the latest word was that the Germans declined to hand over them over, saying the material would be sent to Germany for purposes of study. The library of the Alliance Israelite in Paris, worth several million francs, also was said to have been seized and sent to Germany. From the Biliothèque Nationale- one of the world’s leading libraries- the Germans were reported to have received an inventory of manuscripts, rare books and similar material that had been stored elsewhere in France for security during the war.. German officials, according to the information received here, have been exercising close supervision over the French publishing industry. They have also taken over the Maison du Livre de Français, the most important French book exporting agency.”
After the war, many of the books hidden by the Germans were collected by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of the American military government, and collected at the Offenbach Depot. There, many of the larger collections were identified and eventually returned to their owners. By the send of 1948, “…the French regained the archives of the Paris bank of Rothschild Freres, the Libschutz Librairie de Paris, the library of the Alliance Israelite Universelle de Paris, the library of the Ecole Rabbinique de Paris, and the Biliothèque de Chinon.”
ERR Operations in Greece
Greece was also visited by the ERR after the country’s fall in April 1940. A special unit headed by Dr. Johannes Pohl, chief of the Hebraica collection at the Frankfurt Institute’s library, appeared in Salonica, where he had the Alfred RosenbergAlfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
agents seal the yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
collections, in which the city abounded. However, members of the community were able to hide or disguise many of the collections from the Germans. A later visit in September 1942 by a scholar named Maertsch, likewise resulted in no new additions to the Frankfurt library. However, a 1943 report does show that 10,000 volumes had been received from Greece.
Before the war, Greece was rich in libraries. The National Library, which included the Public and University libraries in Athens, contained more than 400,000 volumes. “Reports reaching American authorities in Cairo have told of the pillaging of libraries, laboratories and workshops of the Universities of Athens and Salonika… A large part of the University of Athens library is reported to be lost. The libraries of three American colleges were reported to have been used as fuel in the central heating system used by the Germans.”
ERR Operations in Italy
“The ERR were also active in the west. After the German occupations of RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
in 1943, ERR officers inspected the contents of the Roman Synagogue’s two great libraries, which contained extraordinary collections gathered over the 2,000 year history of Jewish life in Rome. They demanded the libraries’ catalogs; just days before the first deportation of Roman Jews to Auschwitz, two specially ordered railcars destined for Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
’s institute in Frankfurt were loaded with ten thousand books from these libraries.”
"Two archaeological libraries, the Hertziana Library of History and Art, and the German Archaeological Institute
German Archaeological Institute
The German Archaeological Institute is an institution of research within the field of archaeology , and a "scientific corporation", with parentage of the federal Foreign Office of Germany-Origin:...
’s library of the history, topography, art and customs of ancient Rome, were removed from Rome and taken to Germany by the Nazis. At the end of the war, the two library collections were discovered in two Austrian salt mines packed away in 1,985 wooden cases. The German Library’s collection was unharmed, but some of the Hertziana collection and the card catalog were damaged by water when part of the mine flooded. They were returned to Rome, where they became part of the Gallery of Modern Art, where both collections will be in the care of the new International Union for the study of Archaeology, Art and History in Rome."
After the war, many of the major collections looted from Italy were identified by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives service of the American military government and returned to their owners. The Collegio Rabbinico Italiano, the Kunsthistorische Institut Florenz, and the Deutsche Historische Bibliothek Rom were all returned, although not all were intact, to their owners in Italy. “These last two collections were seized by Hitler with the idea of re-establishing them in Germany.”
ERR Operations in Lithuania
In Vilna (Vilnius, Vilno, Wilno, etc) the ERR set up a collecting point for Lithuania. Dr. Gotthard of the Berlin headquarters arrived in August 1941, and began looting the Strashun library. He conscripted the labor of two GestapoGestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
prisoners, including A.Y. Goldschmidt, librarian of the Hispanic-Ethnographic Society. Eventually, he committed suicide rather than assist the looting of the libraries. Dr. Johannes Pohl appeared in January 1942, and ordered that the city be made a collecting point for the region, and concentrated at the Yidisher Visenshaftlikker Institut (Institute for Jewish Research). Materials were brought in from the private collections from Kovno, Shavle, Mariapol, Volozhn and other towns, and included books from over 300 synagogues and personal libraries. Some of the Jewish workers were able to smuggle out and hide some of the most valuable books in the ghetto, which was stopped when the ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
was liquidated in July 1943. The accumulated collection of over 100,000 volumes were separated into piles by century of publication, and about 20,000 were selected for shipment to Germany. The remaining materials were pulped to avoid storage and transportation costs, and to make a small profit. One incident involved an assistant of Dr. Pohl dumping out five cases of rare books in order to make room for an illegal shipment of hogs.
ERR Operations in The Netherlands
“The Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg (ERR), established by Alfred RosenbergAlfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
in 1939, was represented in the Netherlands by an Amsterdam office. In 1940, the ERR confiscated all property belonging to the Freemasons, among which was the famous Biblioteca Klossiana. This library had been bought by Prince Hendrik (1876-1934) (Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin), husband of Queen Wilhemina (Wilhelmina of the Netherlands
Wilhelmina of the Netherlands
Wilhelmina was Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1890 to 1948. She ruled the Netherlands for fifty-eight years, longer than any other Dutch monarch. Her reign saw World War I and World War II, the economic crisis of 1933, and the decline of the Netherlands as a major colonial...
), and had been presented by him to the order of Freemasons. It contained important incunabula and books on the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
, which were not available anywhere else in the Netherlands. Other parts of the library and the order’s archive were of importance as well. The library if the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam was closed, and the ERR took over the building for its offices. In July 1940 the institute’s very important collection of newspapers and the library of approximately 160,000 volumes were confiscated. German arguments over their final destination kept the materials in Amsterdam until the winter of 1944, when they were transported to Germany in eleven ships. The International Archives of the Women’s Movement, established in Amsterdam in 1935, lost its whole collection after the institute was closed by the Sicherheitspolizei
Sicherheitspolizei
The Sicherheitspolizei , often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Nazi Germany to describe the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo and the Kripo between 1936 and 1939...
(Security Police) in June 1940. In August 1942, 499 crates containing books and archives taken from, among others, Jewish antiquarian book dealers and theosophical societies were transported to Berlin.”
Most of the looted Jewish property, especially books, was sent to Rosenberg’s Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage in Frankfurt. Established in March 1941, the Institute served as the core research library for the planned Hohe Schule. Some of the other ERR research institutes that received looted books included the Institut für Biologie und Rassenlehre in Stuttgart, the Institut für Religionswissenschaft, and the Institut für Deutsche Volkskunde. In the Netherlands, where Seeligmann’s library was looted, the ERR enjoyed a monopoly on cultural property confiscation between 1940 and 1944. A particularly large number of books were seized, with an estimated value of thirty to forty million Reichsmarks. However, not all of those books were sent to the ERR’s research institutes. Certain collections, including Seeligmann’s, were sent to other Nazi agencies, such as the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or RSHA) in Berlin.
The RSHA was interested specifically in information about those they perceived to be the prime enemies of the Reich. Accordingly, the RSHA in Berlin received looted library and archival materials relating to “enemies” such as the Jews. The RSHA Office Seven (Amt VII), which specialized in ideological research, established a center for the evaluation of looted documents. By August 1943, it contained more than 500,000 catalogued volumes.
Most of the Jewish materials collected by Amt VII related to Zionist groups, rescue agencies, communities, and cultural organizations. Materials pertaining to Jewish political, economic, cultural, and intellectual leaders were also collected. Seeligmann, who founded the Genootschap voor Joodsche Wetenschap in Nederland (Society for the Science of Judaism in the Netherlands) and served as president of the Dutch Zionist Organization, likely would have been of great interest to the RSHA. By August 1943, his library became part of the Amt VII library and archive center.
ERR Operations in Norway
In Norway, there were 150 school libraries, and 50 public libraries that were destroyed by the Germans. Most of these libraries were in the province of FinmarkFinmark
Finmark may refer to:* Finmark, Ontario, a community in the Thunder Bay District of Ontario* the Sápmi * a misspelling of Finnmark, a county in Norway....
, where there was widespread destruction during the evacuation of the German armies. Interestingly enough, the Norwegians did not burn the German propaganda works that had filled their shelves when the original Norwegian books were removed. They will be kept for the study by future generations who will want to study the period of the German occupation.
ERR Operations in Poland
“…From the very beginning of the establishment of the Staatsbibliothek Krakau, special importance was given to materials related to the natural sciences, mathematics, geography and medicine. In the fiscal year 1940-1941, the amount of money spent on book purchases was surpringly high.” The Germans recognized the value of the scientific collection, and from 1941 through 1944, 35,599 books were borrowed by 2,621 patrons, mostly German civil servants and military personnel. Polish civilians were not allowed access to the library during the occupation. Gustav AbbGustav Abb
Gustav Abb was a German librarian and Nazi.From 1921 to 1925 he was Chairman of the Prussian Library Affairs Advisory Council...
, the German overseer of libraries, decided to send much of the reference collection to Germany in 1944. “Abb decided to send the major part of the reference collection, as well as most of the books bought by the Staatsbibliothek to Germany (altogether about 25,000 volumes). [Polish] Librarians, charged with the task of filling boxes with books, tried to sabotage Abb’s orders. They hid a large number of books and stuffed boxes with old newspapers. Despite those heroic efforts to save the collection, the Germans were still able to send a great number of books to Adelsdorf
Adelsdorf
Adelsdorf is a municipality in the district of Erlangen-Höchstadt, in Bavaria, Germany.-Coat of arms:The key refers to the Lords of Schlüsselberg who were prominent in the area before they died out in the Middle Ages. The beaver refers to the Bibra family which had the castle of Adelsdorf from...
(Adelin) in Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
. Fortunately, after the war the library was able to recover most of the books that Abb had evacuated form the library.” Later in the war, the main reading room was used as sleeping quarters for German soldiers, and other parts of the library were used as a hospital for Germans.
From the Frankfurter Zeitung
Frankfurter Zeitung
The Frankfurter Zeitung was a German language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt...
, Wochen-Ausgabe, March 28, 1941: “For us it is a matter of special pride to destroy the Talmudic Academy
Talmudic Academy
Talmudic Academy can refer to:#The general concept of a yeshiva.#The Talmudic Academies in Babylonia#The Talmudic Academies in the Land of Israel...
which has been known as the greatest in Poland… We threw out of the building the great Talmudic Library and carted it to market. There we set fire to the books. The fire lasted for twenty hours. The Jews of Lublin
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
were assembled around and cried bitterly. The cries almost silenced us. Then we summoned a military band, and the joyful shouts of the soldiers silenced the sounds of Jewish cries.”
ERR Operations in Russia
Alfred RosenbergAlfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
commanded the “Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg für die Besetzten Gebiete” or “ERR,” that was responsible for collecting art, books and cultural objects from invaded countries, also returned their captured library collection back to Berlin during the retreat from Russia. The ERR stands for “Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg für die Besetzten Gebiete” which means the “Reich Leader Rosenberg Task Force for Occupied Territories.” “ERR dispatches note they had to abandon their offices before the removal of the materials on hand could be completed ‘due to lack of loading spaces’ and the fact that German artillery, located in the center of the city [Kiev], was firing continually over their heads. Still, they managed to send on both their paintings 9,279) and prehistoric materials, which had come from Kharkov, their own library and office furniture, and the materials collected by the Department of Seizures, amounting to some ten thousand books and nearly a hundred cases of Bolshevist paintings, documents and archives…”
In the note of Vaycheslav M. Molotov [sic: Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
], People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, dated April 27, 1942, presented before the International Military Tribunal, it was recorded that the Germans burned the library of 40,000 volumes belonging to one of the oldest agricultural libraries in the U.S.S.R., the Shatilov selection station in the Orel
Orel
Orel or Oryol can refer to:*Oryol, a city in Russia, the administrative center of Oryol OblastIt can also refer to:*Alexander Oryol , Soviet military leader and admiral...
district. Also submitted to the International Military Tribunal was the statement following: “There was no limit to the desecration of the Hitlerite vandals of the monuments and homes representing Ukrainian history, culture and art. Suffice to mention, as an example of the constant attempts to humiliate the national dignity of the Ukrainian people, that after plundering the Korolenko Library in Kharkov, the occupiers used the books as paving stones for the muddy street in order to facilitate the passage of motor vehicles.”
1941-1944 Soviet Union: As a result of the German invasion, heavy damage was done to Russian libraries. It has been estimated that more than 100 million books have been destroyed, mainly from public libraries.
“At Pskov
Pskov
Pskov is an ancient city and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, Russia, located in the northwest of Russia about east from the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Population: -Early history:...
, 1,026 church books were removed from the kremlin (fortress), including sixteenth- to eighteenth- century manuscripts and seventeenth century printed books. Nearly 35,000 volumes were removed from the Pskov pedagogical institute, including 25,000 works of Russian scholars. At Novgorod, the library of the historical museum which was “displaced”, contained rare periodicals such as Russkaia rech’ of 1880 and Bibliograf of 1860. Books removed included editions of Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
of 1785 and Jean Jacques Rousseau of 1796. All in all, 35,000 volumes were removed. Unique editions of archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, including 51 books on the history of ancient Russia, were removed from the Novgorod library for the German professor Engel. Publications on ethnology were removed for Professor Thiele… The above-mentioned Sonderkommando Künsberg was active in removing the czars’ libraries from the suburbs of Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
and the contents of museums and libraries from Rostov
Rostov
Rostov is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, one of the oldest in the country and a tourist center of the Golden Ring. It is located on the shores of Lake Nero, northeast of Moscow. Population:...
and Taganrog
Taganrog
Taganrog is a seaport city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the north shore of Taganrog Bay , several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: -History of Taganrog:...
. In addition to the ERR, Künsberg’s clients were: the main branch of the Reich Security Agency; RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt); the geographic service of the ministry of Foreign Affairs; the State Library; the Slavic Studies seminar; and the Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
economic library.”
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
sent a secret message to the SS and SD
SD
SD may refer to:* Salvia Divinorum* Southern Cross Decoration , a South African military award* Stage directions* Sisters of the Destitute, a Syro-Malabar Catholic women's order* Spasmodic dysphonia...
troops in order to ensure their cooperation with the main troops in the total destruction and devastation of the parts of the Ukraine to be evacuated: “The aim to be achieved is that when the areas in the Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
are evacuated, not a human being, not a single head of cattle, not a hundredweight of cereals, and not a railway line remains behind; that not a house remains standing, not a mine exists that is not ruined for years to come, that there is no well left unpoisoned. The enemy must really find a land completely burnt and destroyed.”