The ERR and the Nazi Party’s Systematic Looting of Europe

Clip: Season 22 Episode 5 | 3m 13sVideo has Closed Captions

During WWII, the ERR operationalized Nazi art looting on an industrial scale.

After initially joining the German Army as a soldier at the outset of World War II, Dr. Bruno Lohse – an art historian by training – was selected to join the ERR, the Nazi Party agency tasked with plundering Europe. Headquartered in Paris, the ERR carried out, in the words of journalist Hector Feliciano, “the largest looting that has ever happened in history.”

Aired 02/19/2025

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-When the war breaks out in September 1939, Lohse is conscripted into the German Army, into an anti-tank unit preparing to go into the Soviet Union.

♪ Before the war, he was trying to find his way as an art dealer.

He has a PhD in art history, which he was very proud of, right?

So, he was always "Dr.

Lohse."

But, you know, when the war breaks out, he's really kind of a nobody in the art world.

But then something extraordinary happens.

He receives a call from Paris, and he is asked whether he wants to join a new and secret initiative.

And he's not told very much about it, except that they need his skills as an art historian and that he will be working for a Nazi Party agency in Paris called the ERR.

-So that's where the Lohse story basically officially starts.

♪ The ERR is one of the rarest forms of state organizations, whose sole purpose was to plunder Europe.

Its reach extended all the way from the far western parts of France, all the way up to the Baltic states, and as far southeast as Crimea.

And it basically went where the German army went.

So, we're talking about a massive organization with tentacles everywhere.

-It was probably the largest looting that has ever happened in history.

♪ -They actually stole everything that they could lay their hands on.

Whether it was a painting of really no value except to the family, they would steal it.

They stole furniture, they stole tables, they stole the plates, they stole the cutlery, the candlesticks.

♪ -And so, when Lohse arrives at the ERR in Paris, he sees German art looting on an industrial scale.

And France is special.

France has more art -- or more valuable art -- than any other part of Europe.

-France was really the place where art was being shown, the place where art was being collected, the place where art was being sold.

It was really the capital.

-They start to go after the French Jewish collections, right?

And they're going after the Rothschilds, and they're going after Alphonse Kann and the David-Weills and these great French Jewish families that have these great collections.

And they're going off with these commandos and bringing in masses of art.

♪ One estimate is that they steal one-third of all the art in private collections in France.