Roads to ratibor: library and archival plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (trans. Tomasz Olszewski)

Abstract

Scholarship has not adequately studied the history of Nazi cultural plunder during the Second World War, or the further international displacement and restitution efforts thereafter. The present study discusses one of the primary agencies of plunder, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) organized specifically for plunder seized cultural property across Nazi-occupied territories. It focuses on the plunder of libraries and archives, tracing their migration, revealing new sources, and identifying collections that did not return home after the war. Emphasis falls on materials that ended the war in the little-known ERR research and library center in Ratibor (now Polish Racibórz), to which the Germans transported more than two million books.

Keywords

• wojna światowa 1939-1945
• rabunek archiwów i dóbr kultury
• Sztab Operacyjny Rosenberga (ERR)
• Alfred Rosenberg
• Racibórz