But which is actually the Devil ?  Joseph Goebbels and aide (future State Secretary) Karl Hanke at the Propaganda Ministry in the early days.  Best regards, JR.

Ah, Mephistophelis !

The Rosenberg Task Force (Einsatzstab Rosenberg) was headed by Alfred Rosenberg and tasked by Adolf Hitler to hunt out and then confiscate any art treasures in Occupied Europe. Rosenberg was guided in what to acquire by Hermann Goering and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. Rosenberg was ordered to move to Germany “cultural goods which appear valuable to you and to safeguard them there.” Rosenberg interpreted his task as giving him a free hand in Occupied Europe to take on behalf of Hitler all “ownerless Jewish property”. Rosenberg reported to Hitler with regards to what he had plundered. Between October 1940 and July 1944, the Rosenberg Task Force had plundered:

 

21,903 art works of all kinds were brought to Nazi Germany in 29 shipments using 137 freight cars.

 

5,281 paintings were taken including works by Rembrandt, Goya, Gainsborough and Rubens.

 

5,825 handmade objects such as porcelain, bronzes and rare coins.

 

2,477 pieces of antique furniture.

 

The plundered art treasures from France alone were valued at $1 billion and many ended up at Goering’s residences.

 

While on trial for his life at Nuremberg after the end of the war, Rosenberg defended his actions by saying that at the end of World War One property to the value of $25 billion Marks had been taken from Germany and that what he had done during the war was “historical justice”. Rosenberg also said that by carrying out his task he had ensured the survival of very many of the works of art that might have been destroyed during the war itself. Rosenberg did make it clear that there had never been any intention to let Goering take the pick of the plundered art treasures. When questioned as to why some Dutch Masters were found at his home at the end of the war, Rosenberg told the court that they had been gifts to his wife who had “a passion for antiques”.

greetz,brummbar

 

 



The Rosenberg Task Force

Karl Hanke as Gauleiter of Lower Silesia (1942-'45).  Hanke was a rather headstrong Nazi, and notable protegé of Joseph Goebbels, whom he served as personal secretary and later as State Secretary (Deputy Minister) at the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment.  Hanke's relationship with Goebbels entered a rocky phase in 1938 when - in response to the Propaganda Minister's unusually serious love affair with Czech actress Lida Baarová - Magda Goebbels appears to have entered in turn into an affair with Hanke, who had hitherto been particularly friendly with her.  The affair ended Hanke's appointment as State Secretary (part of Hitler's intervention to smother the Baarová affair and its threat to the Goebbels marriage).  However, Hanke does not really appear to have fallen from favour with Hitler, or even with Goebbels.  The military decorations shown here were earned as an Oberleutnant in the 7th Panzer Division, serving under another leading Goebbels protegé, Erwin Rommel.  When his outspoken criticism of Rommel's command style resulted in a falling-out with Rommel, Hanke was discharged from the Heer, but was almost immediately appointed Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, in which post, in 1945, he directed the early stages of the defence of "Fortress Breslau" against the Soviet Red Army.  Goebbels particularly praised his conduct in this regard in his Diaries.  As for Hitler, he appointed Hanke (who was an SS-Brigadefuhrer) as Reichfuhrer-SS and Reich Police President (but not Interior Minister) in succession to the disgraced Himmler in the dying days of the Reich, and awarded him the German Order, one of the few persons awarded the "Dead Heroes Medal" in his lifetime.  Karl Hanke did not live long to "enjoy" these honours - imprisoned as a PoW by Czech forces (while disguised as a low-ranking SS soldier) he was killed in the course of an attempted escape by PoWs early in June, 1945.  Best regards, JR.