Kurt von Behr

Kurt Freiherr von Behr (1 March 1890 in Hannover – 19 April 1945 in Kloster Banz) headed the Nazi art looting organisation, Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), in Paris and was involved in the M-Action which looted the home furnishings of French Jews.

Life

Baron von Behr, originally of Mecklenburg nobility, was Oberführer of the German Red Cross.[1] On 7 August 1924, he married the Englishwoman Joy Guzman Clarke (born 16 May 1896 in British India). From 1932 to 1934, he headed the Nazi (NSDAP) organization in Italy. In 1936, Behr worked for the Rosenberg Foreign Policy Office in Palma.

Nazi looter in France

During the German occupation of Paris in 1940, von Behr played a major role in looting art from Jews. As deputy to the staff leader Gerhard Utikal,[2][3] von Behr headed the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR),[4] West Department in Paris. His mission was to steal “abandoned cultural property of Jews”.[4] Alfred Rosenberg and his associate Kurt von Behr were "ruthless and eager to be Hitler's creatures".[5] Von Behr also supplied Hermann Göring with stolen works of art. From 17 July 1940 to 20 February 1941, he sent paintings looted from France and French Jews to the German Reich.[6]

From January 1942 to August 1944, he headed the M-Aktion in Paris, which stole the furniture, pianos and other home furnishings from the homes of French Jews and sent them to Germany to be distributed to German citizens of the Reich.[7][8][9] Von Behr was involved in Nazi looting and part of a network of Nazi functionaries and art dealers that plundered property from Jews to raise cash to support the war effort, to enrich private Nazi collections or for personal gain.[10] In its analysis of Nazi art looting, the OSS Art Looting Intelligence Unit wrote of von Behr, " As head of ERR, Paris, the individual chiefly responsible for organised looting in France."[11][12] Along with Bruno Lohse, von Behr was considered one of the "masterminds of the artistic plunder enacted by the ERR in France."[13]

Suicide of von Behr

After the arrival of Allied troops, von Behr and his wife committed suicide, with hydrogen cyanide on 19 April 1945.[14]

In von Behr's residence, Schloss Banz, the US armed forces found not only large holdings of books looted from Western and Eastern European libraries, but also ERR archive files that had been relocated there, which provided the basis of the Nuremberg trial against Alfred Rosenberg.

Literature
  • Léon Poliakov, Joseph Wulf: Das Dritte Reich und die Juden. Wiesbaden 1989, ISBN 3-925037-44-6.
  • Ulrike Hartung: Verschleppt und verschollen. Eine Dokumentation deutscher, sowjetischer und amerikanischer Akten zum NS-Kunstraub in der Sowjetunion (1941–1948). Temmen, Bremen 2000, ISBN 3-86108-336-1.
  • Götz Aly: Hitlers Volksstaat. Raub, Rassenkrieg und nationaler Sozialismus. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, S. 142–146 (mit Fotos).
  • Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5, S. 37 f.
  • Heinz Pfuhlmann: Der Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg in Banz 1944/45. In: Banz ..45. Ein Kloster im Mittelpunkt bedeutender Kriegsgeschehnisse. Kloster Banz, 2017, ISBN 978-3-88795-538-0, S. 58–71.
  • Hanns Christian Löhr: Kunst als Waffe – Der Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, Ideologie und Kunstraub im „Dritten Reich“. Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-7861-2806-9.

See also

References and comments
  1. H., Nicholas, Lynn (2009). Rape of Europa : the Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War. Random House US. ISBN 978-0-679-75686-6. OCLC 1031967394. More German officers soon arrived, among them Baron Kurt von Behr, chief of the ERR in France, wearing such a spectacular and unusual uniform that even the skeptical Mlle Valand was dazzled. The uniform was that of the German Red Cross, of which the Baron was an important official.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. "RECONSTRUCTING THE RECORD OF NAZI CULTURAL PLUNDER A SURVEY OF THE DISPERSED ARCHIVES OF THE EINSATZSTAB REICHSLEITER ROSENBERG (ERR)" (PDF).
  3. Grimsted, P. K. (1 January 2005). "Roads to Ratibor: Library and Archival Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 19 (3): 390–458. doi:10.1093/hgs/dci041. ISSN 8756-6583.
  4. "Art Looting Intelligence Unit (ALIU) Reports 1945-1946 and ALIU Red Flag Names List and Index". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  5. Susan., Ronald (2019), Hitler's art thief : Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazis, and the looting of Europe's treasures, Tantor Media, ISBN 978-1-61803-750-3, OCLC 1114905985, retrieved 30 May 2021
  6. "Kurt von Behr | AustriaWiki im Austria-Forum". austria-forum.org. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  7. "Jewish Museum Berlin - Looting and Restitution: Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present - M (Glossary)". www.jmberlin.de. Retrieved 26 May 2021. MÖBEL-AKTION ("FURNITURE ACTION") Under the code name "Furniture Action" or also "M-Action" (abbreviation for "Möbel-Aktion"), the "Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg" looted approximately 70,000 homes since early 1942 of French, Belgian, and Dutch Jews who had either fled or had been deported. The objects of art from these homes were inventoried separately, photographed, and transported to Germany. Alfred Rosenberg, who also became "Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories" as of July 1941, wanted to furnish German administrative offices in the East with the confiscated furniture and other items. In fact, bombed-out families in Germany mainly profited from the looted furniture.
  8. Jonathan., Petropoulos (2021). Goering's Man in Paris : The Story of a Nazi Art Plunderer and His World. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-25192-0. OCLC 1236375198.
  9. SMOLTCZYK, Alexander. "Avant la Grande Bibliothèque, un grand magasin nazi. De novembre 1943 à août 1944, les biens des juifs étaient triés dans un camp de travail au 43 quai de la Gare". Libération (in French). Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  10. Hermann Goring and the Nazi art collection: the looting of Europe's art treasures and their dispersal after World War II. 1 November 2012. On arrival Scholz was told by Kurt von Behr that Göring had received Hitler's permission to examine the collection already confiscated. Scholz received the impression that von Behr was working entirely in Göring's interest.
  11. "Art Looting Intelligence Unit (ALIU) Reports 1945-1946 and ALIU Red Flag Names List and Index". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  12. Polack, Emmanuelle (2019). Le marché de l'art sous l'Occupation : 1940-1944. ISBN 979-10-210-2089-4. OCLC 1090063439.
  13. Herausgeber, Fleckner, Uwe 1961- Herausgeber Gaehtgens, Thomas W. Herausgeber Huemer, Christian (2017). Markt und Macht der Kunsthandel im "Dritten Reich". ISBN 978-3-11-054719-1. OCLC 1006782142.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. "Activity of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg in France: C.I.R. No.1 15 August 1945 (a transcribed fully searchable text of the Report)". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  • Beleg für vermutete Gestapo-Tätigkeit Aus angeblicher Unterlage des französischen Aussenministeriums von 1936, die auf einer privaten Homepage abgebildet ist. Eingesehen 28. September 2013
  • Fotografie der Unterlage des französischen Aussenministeriums von 1936, die auf einer privaten Homepage abgebildet ist.
  • James S. Plaut: Loot for the Master Race. in The Atlantic online, September 1946.
  • Eintrag Baron Kurt von Behr (mit Bild) im Glossar der Datenbank des Jüdischen Museums Berlin
  • Eintrag Kurt von Behr in der Lost Art Datenbank, Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste www.lostart.de; online
  • Activity of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg in France: C.I.R. No.1 15 August 1945
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