History 19/03/20 Sonderkommando later: how the Nazis “hunted” for treasures of the USSR
During the great Patriotic war the German invaders was plundered more than 170 museums located on the territory of the Russian Federation, and more than 150 in Ukraine. The exact figure of the lost Russian values is difficult to call. Today listed 1 million 177 thousand 291 exhibit.
the Export of property from occupied territories were engaged in Battalion – Ribbentrop Pact Sonderkommando later (Sonderkommando Künsberg) – a battalion of special forces of the SS, specially arranged unit at the Ministry of foreign Affairs of Germany, created on the initiative of I. Ribbentrop, Minister for foreign Affairs and adviser to Hitler. He commanded a battalion of Waffen SS major von Later.
From the testimony of the employee of a battalion
captured v1942 year SS obersturmführer förster told about the Sonderkommando: “the Task of the battalion was to immediately after the fall of major cities to capture cultural and historical treasures, libraries of scientific institutions, selecting valuable editions of books, movies, and then send it all to Germany. So, from Tsarskoye Selo battalion took away the property of the Grand Palace Museum of Empress Catherine. Even Chinese silk Wallpaper removed from the walls, and inlaid floors brought in the disassembled kind. From the Palace of the Emperor Alexander was taken with antique furniture and rich library from 6-7 thousands of books in French and more than 5 thousand books and manuscripts in the Russian language”.
In Berlin were poisoned ancient Chronicles, the Royal letters, the first printed books, unique collections of coins and weapons, the ancient Chronicles of the East.
Values are taken out of cars
suffered heavy losses, and Ukraine. From museums in Kyiv, was kidnapped by Repin, Vereshchagin, GE, Fedotov, and Kharkiv – work Aivazovsky, Shishkin, Polenov, and also a huge number of valuable literature.
Items arttion went to Germany whole trains. In reports of the invaders was said about the events: “When at the end of September from the Department of culture of the Reich received the order to take out of Kiev the remains of the artistic treasures, all the valuable cultural materials have already been sent”. However, in another document States that in October, Reich was sent to 40 carloads of art objects. And not to forget that these reports have not included values, secretly awarded by the staff of the battalion, as well as the items that went into the arrangement of the German offices and premises inhabited by the Nazis.
the Exhibition and the disappearance of the loot
In March 1942, all the loot was presented at the exhibition in Berlin. She was just full of exhibits: more than 37 thousand volumes from the Royal library of the Palace of Tsarskoye Selo and Gatchina, 69 thousand maps, 75 thousand names of geographical literature. After the exhibition, the art objects were distributed between the elected and the highest representatives of the Reich. It is easy to guess that he, Ribbentrop was known as a passionate collector.
Despite the fact that the facts of the robbery was well established, the fate of many lost values is still unknown.
Russian Seven
Source:
© Russian Seven
Featured articles Share: Comments Comments on the article “Sonderkommando later: how the Nazis “hunted” for treasures of the USSR” Please log in to leave a comment! br>
Share on Tumblr
