spoils of war
Spoils of war are movable objects that are withdrawn from the respective opponent's power of disposal during or after armed conflicts without consideration (payment) and often without contractual regulation and are not intended for immediate consumption. Material goods, intellectual goods (e.g. patents ) or people (e.g. for the purpose of forced labor , enslavement or ransom money ) can be taken as spoils of war.
Spoils of war can be made by individual combatants in the course of looting , which is now prohibited under international law . Looting is prohibited in accordance with Art. 28, Art. 47 and Art. 48 of the Hague Land Warfare Regulations .
In Germany , crimes against “the general rules of international law” are prohibited under Article 25 of the Basic Law . Breach of the peace is made a punishable offense with Section 125a of the Criminal Code , which, with Section 3 of the Military Penal Act, is also used in the event of war.
In Austria , similar provisions apply with Article 9 of the Federal Constitutional Law and Article 64 of the Austrian Criminal Code .
Larger art collections were often organized, looted and transported away during wars (see Looted Art ). The British and Americans had plastic officers in World War II . These often operated close behind the front and also worked for the protection of art : They tried to ensure that art treasures were adequately guarded by Allied soldiers and that no temporarily unlawful areas were created in the course of the conquest. B. Thieves who could steal art treasures.
Food or other consumer goods that are removed from the custody of the enemy or his citizens in the course of foraging and are used to supply the troops or prisoners of war are not considered spoils of war but as requisitions . In contrast to the spoils of war, a receipt has to be issued for requisitions since 1899, which can certify a claim for compensation.
Economic goods that are only withdrawn from the vanquished after the hostilities have ended due to contractual arrangements (often in a peace treaty ) are referred to as reparations . War booty that has already been made before can be offset against the reparations if the contracting parties agree.
For spoils of war under Islamic law, see Ghanima and Fai ' .
The role of spoils of war in the history of warfare
Improving one's economic or supply situation by gaining loot has been an important motive for warlords and combatants to go to battle for much of the known history of mankind. The wars of the early civilizations, which have only been handed down in inscriptions in summary form, presumably served in most cases to ward off predatory neighboring peoples.
Bronze age
The descriptions of the first recorded battle in world history ( Battle of Megiddo , 1457 BC) contain, among other things, a detailed list of the spoils of war . The first epic depiction of war that has come down to us also puts the booty of war at the center of the action: The Iliad - it depicts the Trojan War - is based on the dispute over the slave Briseis, who was brought in as the booty of war . This war is believed to be in the 13th or 12th century BC. In the second surviving battle in world history ( Battle of Kadesch , 1274 BC), the prospect of booty became decisive in the battle: after the Hittites had repulsed the Egyptian army under Ramses II and it only took one last effort to defeat them once and for all , the troops slipped from the king's leadership and began to pillage the Egyptian camp. With forces quickly combined, the Egyptians were able to push back the now disorganized enemy. The fact that the spoils of war played a central role in the earliest documents on armed events speaks for their importance. The loss of discipline of a fencing army in the face of luring spoils, which was documented for the first time in the Battle of Kadesch, is a recurring motif throughout the history of war. The relatively low availability of bronze and its components made the weapons of the defeated army or the fallen into sought-after and popular booty.
People take as spoils of war often served their exploitation ( forced labor , enslavement ), sometimes to Peuplierung its own territory. The latter motif appears in the robbery of the Sabine women .
Antiquity
The wars of antiquity are, among other things, strongly characterized by the participation of private warlords (now also known as 'warlord'). In addition to the purely state wars between the Greek Poleis or other subjects under international law at the time, there were very frequent military campaigns by private individuals. These operated completely independently ( pirates ) or on behalf of the state ( mercenaries ). In both cases, spoils of war were a major source of income. The catchphrase " War feeds war " is known to this day . Especially for the mercenaries, who increasingly emerged from the 5th century BC, the promise of booty before the start of the campaigns was an essential incentive and part of the contract. The Roman Empire sent high administrative officials or officers ( praetors ) to its non-pacified colonies with the promise of spoils of war. Those on the Iberian Peninsula between 193 and 178 BC The praetors who were employed there waged pure wars of annihilation and loot and, thanks to the wealth and prestige they acquired there, made brilliant careers. The promise of certain shares of the spoils of war was also a decisive motive for the legionnaires not to refuse such trains, which in principle was and also happened. Especially after successful sieges, it was customary to allow the conquered city to be sacked by soldiers. In addition to the usual items of booty, such as precious metals or stones and minted money, which are also easy to transport for the individual, the Roman Empire also transported art objects from the conquered territories as spoils of war. Bringing in slaves as spoils of war was considered a normal part of warfare and in many cases was the actual aim of the war. Weapons and pieces of equipment lost their importance as spoils of war. While they played a certain role in the wars of the Greeks, they were more in demand as “souvenirs” in the uniformly equipped Roman army. However, marginal cultures (" barbarians ") with less uniform equipment may have used Roman weapons to complete their own equipment.
middle Ages
In the Middle Ages , the transfer of parts of the population after wars was largely abolished within the European empires. The personal enrichment of war participants through booty remained an important accompanying motif in most wars. The trains of the Vikings and Hungarians , who were rarely interested in conquest and permanent settlement, were aimed exclusively at the acquisition of war booty . The Vikings often extorted silver from besieged towns and cities. There are 13 such incidents in the Franconian Empire. Paris paid 845 pounds of silver to be spared 7,000 pounds. Such a payment is documented during the Viking raids into the Rhineland ( Cologne ad 882).
In the place of the slaves, especially from the Hundred Years War (1337 to 1453), there were captured nobles who were only released for high ransom . From the battles of Crécy (1346) and Azincourt (1415) there are examples of how English mercenaries dragged back French knights who had fallen from their horses during breaks in the fighting, pegged them and marked them as their property, which they "sold" after the battle. The promise of spoils of war was still an important part of the service contracts with mercenaries and the clearance of conquered cities for looting was necessary in order to keep the troops in line. While the transfer of works of art almost completely disappeared, relics became coveted items. A prominent example of this are the bones of the Three Kings , which came to Cologne from Milan as spoils of war. The increase in the number of mercenaries in the armies forced the rulers concerned to collect material assets themselves as spoils of war in order to be able to meet payment obligations.
Outside Europe, people continued to be taken as spoils of war. The Moors used them as slaves, the South American peoples as human sacrifices for their gods. In Africa, some tribes had specialized in waging campaigns in which members of foreign tribes were captured for later sale as slaves (see also slavery within sub-Saharan Africa , slavery in West Africa ).
Early modern age
The gradual reintroduction of strict discipline in the newly emerging armed forces initially only concerned the battle. Outside of pure fighting, in camp life and on marches, the discipline only slowly gained acceptance. Nevertheless, as early as the 15th century there were codified regulations for Swiss and mercenaries that regulate the removal of goods from crossed areas and threaten unlawful acts with punishment. Usually, however, it was only forbidden to plunder or to requisition in one's own country . As soon as the troops entered foreign territory, the mercenaries found themselves in a more or less lawless area . As a result, the dangers arose to a greater extent, which had already been shown in the battle of Kadesh (see above) due to a lack of discipline and looting. In addition to regular payment, the contracts also stipulated a certain share of the spoils of war and the right to plunder on certain occasions. The possibility of acquiring spoils of war had already favored the re-emergence of private warlords ( condottieri ) in the late Middle Ages . These not only enriched themselves during the wars, but also plundered the areas they passed through during times without clients.
During the Thirty Years War , which was shaped by the so-called last condottiere , Wallenstein , there was devastating looting. The arbitrary plundering of swept regions or conquered cities did not end until the 18th century, after state power was able to enforce the desired discipline in all situations in the army. The booty of war was now only taken in exceptional cases by individuals; it was usually collected by government agencies. Because of the high production costs and the high cost of firearms, especially guns, they were valued loot that was added to one's own equipment. What was new, on the other hand, was the often cultivated custom of taking relatively low-value pieces of equipment from the enemy army as a trophy . Apart from captured flags, which were displayed in prominent positions in the manorial household or in churches, kettledrum , armor , sabers and the like were popular souvenirs of victories. These were given to certain units for use as an award. A well-known example of a prestigious piece of the time brought in as spoils of war is the tent of the Turkish Grand Vizier Suleyman Pascha, which was captured in the Battle of Mohács in 1687 and is now exhibited in the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt .
A special form of the acquisition of spoils of war developed among the seafaring nations, who granted private entrepreneurs as pirates permission to seize and sink ships of hostile nations in exchange for issuing letters of promise. Another source of income for these nations was the slave trade , in which African slaves were made on special slave campaigns - as in ancient times - and usually sold to America. Both ways of making spoils of war were raised on an almost industrial scale.
19th century
Soon after the French Revolution (1789), France under Napoléon Bonaparte set out to conquer Europe. With the revolutionary armies, a practice of stealing spoils of war returned that had not been seen in Central Europe for at least a generation. The oppression of the population by arbitrary requisitions of billeted Napoleonic soldiers or by the forcible appropriation of valuables by French troops passing through are handed down in many contemporary reports. Impressive descriptions of the sacking of Moscow during the Russian campaign in 1812 and how the members of the Grande Armée threw away women's clothes, curtains, silver implements and other items of booty as unnecessary burdens during the retreat are also preserved from French soldiers.
Reports on a special form of the acquisition of spoils of war were transmitted in anecdotal form. The members of the civilian baggage train of the armies have generously served from foreign households and sold the goods to the soldiers of his own army. There are similar reports from the Thirty Years' War ( Trutz Simplex ) and it is likely to be a phenomenon that has always been associated with the accompaniment of armies by civilian cables. The Grande Armée followed the example of their commander-in-chief Napoleon Bonaparte , who was also reviled as the greatest thief in Europe in contemporary caricatures . In addition to the Quadriga from the Brandenburg Gate , which was brought to Paris in 1806 (returned to Berlin in 1814) ; A large number of works of art were brought to France as spoils of war ( booty art ) on the instructions of Napoleon . The Louvre and several other important French museums still have large quantities of works of art captured at the time.
The recycling of captured weapons largely decreased. The manufacture of armaments became cheaper and easier with the rise of industrialization. Foreign weapons seldom met their own standards that have since been introduced (e.g. the caliber ). Napoleon had the triumphal column for the Place Vendome cast from the metal of the cannons captured near Austerlitz . The actions of the French armed forces resulted in not only private individuals hiding their assets, but also the sovereigns. For example, the imperial regalia were hidden in 1794.
In the further course of the 19th century, looting during the war of civil secession in the USA (1861 to 1865) by marauding northerners became known. During the Franco-German War (1870/71) allegations were made against the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich III. charged for the removal of works of art and furniture from a French castle. Apart from that, the victorious wars waged by Prussia are characterized by the fact that hardly any spoils of war were made. The spoils of war were replaced by reparation payments that the vanquished had to pay after the war was over. Some of the few war booty items from these wars still have an impact today, for example the Flensburg lion .
The slave trade came to an almost complete standstill in the second half of the 19th century because of the loss of demand from the American southern states, and with it the campaigns that were primarily intended to capture people dwindled. For a long time, however, the colonial states had found another lucrative source of spoils of war in the less pacified colonies. Unruly princes or nations were militarily put in their place and the economically interesting property confiscated. Great Britain in particular made use of private entrepreneurs such as Cecil Rhodes in South Africa or the East India Company in India in the 19th century .
20th century
In the 20th century , almost all European states were so well established that arbitrary arbitrary acts by the armed forces could be ruled out. The meanwhile highly developed production and transport facilities made it possible to provide all troops with constant and timely supplies , which largely made requisitions unnecessary. International agreements regulated what could be removed from the occupied territory and under what conditions, and criminal regulations of the individual nations punished property crimes with severe penalties, even during the war. However, this merely prohibited individuals from making booty, the state was still allowed to make booty.
Very few examples of spoils of war are known from the First World War . The Prussian Crown Prince , Wilhelm von Prussia, was charged with illegally taking works of art and furniture from a French castle.
In the German Reich , with the beginning of the First World War on August 4, 1914, the Reichsbank's legal obligation to redeem notes in metal money or gold (see Goldmark ) was lifted. Unlike in Great Britain and France , where the war was financed by property taxes, German war bonds were to be redeemed after the “victory peace” with the “spoils of war” in the form of reparations after the end of the war. Since Germany lost the war and was burdened with very high reparations in the Versailles peace treaty , inflation occurred which at the end of 1923 - after the end of the occupation of the Ruhr - could only be stopped by a currency reform .
The distinction between spoils of war and reparations is difficult. The unauthorized withdrawals of the invading Allied troops or the occupation troops can definitely count as spoils of war, as the war officially ended only with the German signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty on June 28, 1919.
During the Second World War , a lot was different - also with regard to the spoils of war. The German troops largely abstained from looting (the ' soldier 's honor' was often appealed to in order to encourage the soldiers to perform at their best, to be particularly willing to make sacrifices and to have courage "for the final victory "); But the top government systematically managed works of art from abroad to the German Reich with the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (the actor here was the German Reich as a subject under international law); and individual ministers or high-ranking Nazis made private spoils of war. The best known example of this is Hermann Goering , the whole trainloads of paintings, statues and carpets from specially prepared to commands rob left. Goering had already played a decisive role in taking power and building the National Socialist regime; He was therefore invulnerable to other Nazi ministers and could 'do what he wanted'.
The deportation of foreign Jews and other persecuted groups of foreign citizens to concentration camps was strictly organized by the state and nationwide . Their possessions or property became - mostly completely - the spoils of war; the term expropriation is legally incorrect here (it implies compensation for the expropriated).
At the beginning of the Second World War, especially after the Battle of Dunkirk and the Western campaign , which ended in June 1940 with the surrender of France, the Wehrmacht captured very large quantities of weapons. In view of the limited industrial capacities of the German Reich , Hitler's extensive war plans - see Eastern Campaign - and the armament that was forbidden for a long time during the Weimar Republic , it made sense to use weapons and equipment from defeated armies as spoils of war in one's own armed forces. In addition, members of other nations, both civilians and - contrary to international law - prisoners of war, were used for forced labor . The Soviet Union also practiced this . With the beginning of the withdrawal of the Wehrmacht, the later victorious powers began to make spoils of war. The action of the French and Red Armies was dominated by retribution thinking; Americans and British had primarily economic goals.
In the east there was extensive looting and the removal of a large part of the cultural assets and industrial facilities. The little controlled interventions by Soviet troops in private property or public collections resulted in the loss of most items. A long list of various works of art and books is still the subject of negotiations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Russia . The extractions that were not carried out by Soviet troops, which mainly took place in Poland and Czechoslovakia, are also controversial to this day between the governments of the successor states.
The situation was different in the western parts of the empire. The Americans, in particular, had the combat troops followed at short intervals by admission commands with plastic officers, who seized all objects of interest or searched specifically for certain things or treasures. No evidence is provided for the assertion that the patents were valued at DM 300 billion. The value of the German patents stolen by the USA as spoils of war was estimated at 300 billion marks. Immediately after taking the cities in question, special commandos occupied the German patent offices and took over whatever seemed useful to them. Other commands looked for prototypes of aircraft or other machines and facilities. Since this was also practiced by the Soviet leadership, there was a race between various commandos to German think tanks (see also Haigerloch research reactor ).
Western Allied soldiers made hardly any spoils of war; they were often more interested in souvenirs. Individuals, however, looked for valuable pieces with a connoisseur's eye, which were the basis of a private fortune after the war, even for ordinary soldiers. In reports of the time there are repeated reports that soldiers took Germans off their arms, even though they already wore a dozen such watches to their elbows, or that they gained access to private apartments in order to steal goods.
The well-known photo of the hoisting of the Soviet flag of victory on May 8, 1945 in the German Reichstag shows a soldier hoisting the Soviet flag. The soldier has been retouched because he was wearing several wristwatches in the original picture.
Extensive withdrawals of art objects from private and public collections (see Looted Art (Second World War) ) attracted a great deal of attention - even afterwards.
literature
- Dietrich Beyrau et al. (Hrsg.): Forms of war - From antiquity to the present. Paderborn 2007. ISBN 3506763687 .
- Bénédicte Savoy: Art theft. Napoleon's Confiscations in Germany and the European Consequences. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-205-78427-2 . (Translation by Bénédicte Savoy: Patrimoine annexé. Les biens culturels saisis par la France en Allemagne autour de 1800. Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, Paris 2003, ISBN 978-2-7351-0988-3 ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Page of the government of the Swiss Confederation: Treaty text of the Hague Land Warfare Regulations
- ^ Günther Haase: Kunstraub und Kunstschutz , 2008, Books on Demand, reading sample (p. 401; Volume I of II).
- ↑ DER SPIEGEL 23/1951
- ↑ Rote Fahne on the Berlin Reichstag in 1945 , Spiegel online, viewed on February 10, 2012.