Books and Publications

Title

Reconstructing the Record of Nazi Cultural Plunder: A Guide to the Dispersed Archives of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) and the Postwar Retrieval of ERR Loot

Author

Patricia Kennedy Grimsted

Date

February 2022

Description

After the Second World War, original ERR documents were widely dispersed and today are held in over 40 repositories in 10 countries. Written by the preeminent expert on WWII displaced archives, this Guide documents the current locations of remaining ERR files and related sources, details their contents, and provides links to the many now online. The Guide also describes considerable documentation including the subsequent fate, postwar retrieval, and restitution of ERR loot.

The following parts of the Guide are available below and on the Claims Conference funded ERR site at https://errproject.org/guide.php


UPDATED CHAPTER ON GERMANY PUBLISHED 31 MARCH 2022

Chapter 3: Germany (March 2022)

This latest major update by Patricia Kennedy Grimsted of her ERR Archival Guide includes the greatly expanded English descriptions of three online groups of Rosenberg/ERR-related records in the Bundesarchiv, several added repositories of interest; the new Federal Arts Administration (KVdB); extended Internet resources including library reports on NS-looted books; and an expanded bibliography of published literature. Still featured are the online digitized records of postwar U.S. and German cultural restitution in Bestand *323 (TVK), with 75 files of digitized original ERR inventories and related documents directly linked to this chapter.


UPDATED CHAPTER ON FRANCE PUBLISHED 9 FEBRUARY 2022

Chapter 2: France (December 2021)

This updated French chapter greatly expands English-language coverage of the newly augmented online inventories of the French Foreign Ministry cultural retrieval and restitution files from the Second World War regarding looted and displaced cultural assets throughout Europe, now publicly available in the Diplomatic Archival Centre in La Courneuve, near Paris. Additional updates expand coverage of other Paris archives and related Internet resources, with notes on more online databases and research facilitating offerings.


PUBLISHED CHAPTERS

Introduction: Alfred Rosenberg and the ERR: The Records of Plunder and the Fate of Its Loot (August 2015)

Includes a summary table of contents and technical note for the entire Guide, with brief information on the archival sources worldwide.

Chapter 1: Belgium (December 2016)

Chapter 2: France (December 2021)

Chapter 3: Germany (March 2022)

Chapter 4: Israel (December 2015)

Chapter 6: The Netherlands (December 2015)

Chapter 10: United States of America (March 2015)

Appendix 1: French and Belgian Jewish Art Collections Processed by the ERR in the Jeu de Paume, 1940–1944: Correlation Tables for Archival Sources (November 2019)

The original edition was published in 2011 under the title 'Reconstructing the Record of Nazi Cultural Plunder: A Survey of the Dispersed Archives of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR)' by the International Institute for Social History, whose own massive Amsterdam and Paris archival collections were plundered by the ERR and whose building on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam was used for the ERR headquarters in the Netherlands. The earlier chapters covering Lithuania, Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom will soon be posted, pending completion of updated versions.

This ERR project is funded by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference).

Source:
Claims Conference 9 February 2022

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