1/ Today's doc, 3985-PS, illustrates Nazi Germany's compulsion to regulate everything -- even looting. It's an official ordinance about looting all of the works of art in Poland - private, state-owned, and church-owned. Breathtaking in scope. Written end of 1939.
2/ The ordinance was written by one of the most enthusiastic art looters in occupied Poland, Hans Frank. Pictured here entertaining Himmler at the Wawel Castle, his seat of power in Krakow, along with one of the pieces of art he stole, Lady with an Ermine (da Vinci).
3/ This section of document spells out rules for looting. Private art collections "shall be regarded as artistic public property, in addition to works of art owned by former Polish State" -- all subject to "seizure and protection" by a "special commissioner."
4/ Here, "entire artistic property of the Churches" is added in. Mandatory registration and description is added, to facilitate efficient theft by occupiers. All of this makes the entire process legal, in eyes of occupation authorities.
5/ One of many lost treasures, Portrait of a Young Man by Raphael, was finally located only a few years ago in a bank vault somewhere. Despite official looting rules, Frank made off with the Lady portrait, found by Allied troops 1945 in his Bavaria country estate.
6/ Much of what was stolen during the war has never been found; restoration stories are the exception. Shown: 1946 return of Lady with Ermine to Poland. Currently can be seen at Krakow's Wawel Castle, minus Hans Frank (he was executed just a few months later at Nuremberg.)
7/ Hans Frank was an amateur; real looting was carried out by Rosenberg's outfit (ERR) and by Goering's men. Here is part of another document, 1709-PS, in which Goering's confiscation of the Lubomierski collection of Dürer drawings is enumerated. These went to Hitler in 1940.
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