M-Aktion

The M-Aktion ("Furniture Action" or also "M-Action", abbreviation for "Möbel-Aktion"), was a Nazi looting organisation. Attached to the "Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg", starting in early 1942 the M-Aktion looted approximately 70,000 homes of French, Belgian, and Dutch Jews who had either fled or had been deported.[1][2]

Artworks were inventoried separately, photographed, and transported to Germany. The M-Aktion art loot was separated into a number of special type-specific “M-A” collections: paintings and Oriental objets-d’art to weapons and rare books. Most of the Jeu de Paume “M-A” collections were first shipped to Kogl and Sessenberg, in Austria. Belgian collections went mostly to Nikolsburg, a special ERR art repository in Southern Moravia, then part of Austria. A final shipment of 1 August 1944, predominantly of modern art destined for Nikolsburg was stopped by French resistance and never left France.[3]

In Paris alone, the "Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg" combed through 38,000 Jewish homes. The Levitan Parisian department store served as an interim storage space before the looted furniture was transported to Germany.[4][5][6][7]

  1. ^ Ho, Gitta (2018-05-24). "Mobilisation of moveable assets: Objects designated for the art trade from the National Socialist plundering of the "M-Aktion"". Journal for Art Market Studies. 2 (2). doi:10.23690/jams.v2i2.36. ISSN 2511-7602. Under the code name "M-Aktion" (M as an abbreviation of the German word for furniture: Möbel), the German occupiers in World War II plundered the households of Jewish citizens who had fled, been interned or deported in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In France alone, tens of thousands of apartments and houses were emptied out in the course of the M-Aktion between 1942 and 1944.
  2. ^ "Jewish Museum Berlin - Looting and Restitution: Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present - M (Glossary)". www.jmberlin.de. Archived from the original on 2011-10-06. Retrieved 2021-12-24. 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
  3. ^ "Cultural Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: Database of Art Objects at the Jeu de Paume".
  4. ^ "RECONSTRUCTING THE RECORD OF NAZI CULTURAL PLUNDER A SURVEY OF THE DISPERSED ARCHIVES OF THE EINSATZSTAB REICHSLEITER ROSENBERG (ERR) Patricia Kennedy Grimsted" (PDF).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Fogg, Shannon L. (2012). "Nazi Labour Camps in Paris: Austerlitz, Lévitan, Bassano, July 1943–August 1944 (review)". German Studies Review. 35 (3): 697–699. doi:10.1353/gsr.2012.a488523. ISSN 2164-8646. S2CID 160373566.
  7. ^ "Rose Valland Institute". www.rosevallandinstitut.org. Retrieved 2021-11-12.

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