La spoliation des bibliothèques françaises par l’Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg : les sources disponibles

Résumé 0

Only the files created by German looters, primarily the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), provide complete information about the persons and institutions plundered in France during World War II. In 1940, Alfred Rosenberg created the ERR in Paris, which became the main agency for looting artistic and cultural goods, directed against Jews, Freemasons, Communists and emigrants from Eastern Europe. His staff stole massive quantities of books from Jewish collections to feed his Institute of Jewish Research in Frankfurt/Main, among others. Over the course of war, the looted books were dispersed throughout Europe, and the ERR’s archives were scattered across Germany, the US, Britain, and in the former Soviet Union. The ten lists analyzed in this article inform us of this journey, from Paris to Frankfurt, Tanzenberg, Ratibor, and Minsk, and will be an essential guide for studies on plunder and restitution in Europe