The Nuremberg Trials (Vol.7). International Military Tribunal

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СКАЧАТЬ over the Jewish race whom they have outlawed.

      In a report justifying their action, demanded by the Army Commander and drawn up on the order of the Defendant Rosenberg by the Chief of the Einsatzstab, Utikal, in November 1941, the latter went so far as to state—I submit this report as Documents RF-1319, RF-1320, and RF-1321; and I quote a brief passage from the attached supplement Number RF-1321, Page 31:

      “The German measures of reprisal against the Jews are likewise justified by international law. It is a recognized principle of international law that, in war, reprisals may be taken by resorting to the same procedures and the same concepts as primarily used by the enemy. Since time immemorial the Jews have, in their Jewish laws codified in the Talmud and the Schulchan Aruch, applied the principle that all non-Jews are to be considered as so much cattle, as outlaws; and the property of non-Jews should be dealt with as a thing which has been abandoned, that is to say, as derelict property.”

      Thus, Gentlemen, the confiscations of the Einsatzstab were sheltered by this strange interpretation of law. It seems useless to discuss the value of this argument before the Tribunal. The Belgian, Dutch, and French authorities made frequent protests, based on the most elementary principles of international law, but always met with refusals.

      It would at any rate be suitable to define the extent of these seizures. It is difficult to give a total estimate, although Rosenberg, himself, on several occasions made an estimate of his booty, especially in a letter to the Treasurer of the Party, Schwarz, 14 November 1940, a document discovered by the Army of the United States and bearing the Document Number 1736-PS, a copy of which I offer in evidence as Exhibit Number RF-1322. At that date Rosenberg already considered that the booty amounted to 500,000,000 Reichsmark.

      The documents of the Einsatzstab are sufficiently numerous and precise to allow us to establish certain quantitative data. First, the seizures by the General Staff for Art Treasures. The fundamental document is a report of Dr. Scholz, dated 14 July 1944, which we have just mentioned. This is Document Number 1015-PS, which was presented in part to the Court by Colonel Storey and which I offer in evidence as Exhibit Number RF-1323. From this report I shall extract only some very brief indications concerning the quantities of art objects carried off.

      According to this report, 21,903 objects taken from 203 private collections, were removed, notably from, the Rothschild, Alphons Kahn, David Weil, Lévy de Benzion, and the Seligmann brothers collections. According to the same report there were “all told, 29 transports, 137 trucks, and 4,174 cases.”

      I shall not quote any further from this report, because I think that my colleague, also entrusted with making the charges, will allude to it.

      THE PRESIDENT: Would that be a convenient time to break off?

      [A recess was taken.]

      M. GERTHOFFER: Staff Rosenberg was not only interested in paintings and objects of art, but in books as well. Thus it appears, in a document discovered by the United States Army and registered under Document Number 171-PS, of which I submit a copy as Exhibit Number RF-1324, that 550,000 volumes were seized in France.

      Holland also provided a heavy contribution in books. Libraries rich in early prints, books, and manuscripts were pillaged. It appears from Document Number 176-PS, discovered by the United States Army, a copy of which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-1325, that the value of the books amounted to about thirty or forty million Reichsmark.

      It must also be noted, as proved by Documents 178-PS and 171-PS, which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-1326, that archives of the Rothschild Bank were taken away in the month of February 1941.

      Staff Rosenberg likewise pillaged furniture. This is quite evident from a note addressed by the Defendant Rosenberg to the Führer, dated 3 October 1942, submitted under Document Number RF-1327. I read the following passage:

      “For carrying out action ‘M’ the Dienststelle Westen was created in Paris with special branches (Einsatzleitungen) in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. This service has to date sent about 40,000 tons of furniture to the Reich, utilizing all available transport, ship, and railroad facilities. Since it was recognized that the needs of bombed-out people of the Reich should be given preference over the needs of those in the East, the Reich Ministry has placed a considerable part of this furniture (over 19,500 tons) at the disposal of bombed-out people in the Reich. . . .”

      A copy of a Rosenberg report, dated 4 November 1943, Document Number 1737-PS(b), a copy of which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-1328, tells us:

      “52,828 Jewish lodgings were seized and sealed in favor of the bombed-out victims. Including special orders, furniture has been removed from 47,569 dwellings for shipment to the bombed cities.”

      Document Number L-188, found by the American 7th Army, is a report issued by the offices of the Defendant Rosenberg, Item 8 of which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-1329, shows that over 69,619 Jewish lodgings were looted, that the furniture occupied over 1 million cubic meters, and that it took 26,984 freight cars, that is, 674 trains, to remove it.

      In the same file there is a document which I submit, Document Number RF-1330, which indicates that in Paris alone 38,000 Jewish lodgings were emptied of their contents.

      Document Number 1772-PS, already submitted under Exhibit Number RF-1325, indicates that in Holland, from March 1942 to July 1943 inclusive, 22,623 lodgings were emptied of their contents and that it took 586 barges and 178 freight cars to move this furniture. These few figures undeniably suffice to support the accusation of economic pillage levied against Staff Rosenberg on behalf of the western European countries.

      As has already been stated, although the material elements of the breach of the law remain unaltered, there can be no comparison between the pillaging typical of the history of this or that conqueror and practiced throughout the centuries, and the pillaging as understood by the defendants.

      What prevents any comparison between the past pillaging and the looting practiced by Staff Rosenberg or the National Socialist chiefs, is the difference in purpose, however difficult and delicate a matter it may be to analyze it. The looting in the past of works of art may primarily be traced to the vanity of the conqueror, in which his egoism, his taste, and his love of glory played the determining part in the pillaging. It is of course possible to identify the same feeling as underlying the criminal activities of one or the other of the defendants. But—and here we find the fundamental difference—the National Socialist leaders, when estimating the value of this and that painting or of this or that work of art, wittingly took into account both the standard of aesthetic wealth, that is the value of the object to the individual, and the standard of material wealth, that is its exchange value, an exchange value in which it is a matter of retaining a pledge, if not to facilitate, at least to bring pressure to bear when negotiating future peace treaties, as is evident from the documents submitted to the Tribunal.

      Whatsoever the pretexts or excuses submitted by the National Socialist leaders when seizing the artistic heritage of western Europe, whether by theft, by so-called preservative confiscations, or by direct purchase from the owners or the markets for the sale of objects of art, the criminal intention is always the same.

      The German motive was undeniably the establishment of a reserve of securities, if not for the satisfaction of the individual desire, then for the satisfaction of a collective need in conformity with the myth of the “Greater Germany.”

      This reserve of securities would have a triple advantage: A cultural advantage, that is, the advantage of the Hohe Schule. Secondly, an economic advantage, a basis for financial speculation and a reserve of securities easily negotiable in the markets of the world; above all, a СКАЧАТЬ