Künsberg special command
The Sonderkommando Künsberg , also known as the Künsberg group , was one of numerous National Socialist organizations that systematically confiscated cultural treasures from the areas occupied by the Wehrmacht during the Second World War .
The unit commanded by SS-Obersturmbannführer Eberhard von Künsberg was formally subordinate to the Foreign Office under Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop .
assignment
Originally set up to secure diplomatic missions of hostile and neutral states during the invasion of Poland and also to confiscate politically relevant material, the task area of the Sonderkommando expanded rapidly through further orders, special orders and, last but not least, through the unauthorized actions of Künsberg. Already in France it confiscated art objects on behalf of Ribbentrop.
The Army High Command (OKH), the Security Service (SD) , the Security Police (Sipo) and the Foreign Ministry tried in vain to restrict Künsberg's field of activity. An order of June 11, 1941 limited the activity of the Sonderkommando to the confiscation of records from the embassies and legations.
Operation area Yugoslavia
After the attack on Yugoslavia , the Künsberg special command in Belgrade confiscated a number of documents that were important to the war effort. The Luftwaffe had previously been expressly instructed not to bomb certain buildings such as the Military Geographic Institute and the statistical office housed in the Ministry of the Interior . On April 17, 1941, extensive map and geographical material was confiscated, including the latest topographical maps of the country that had not been in the possession of the Wehrmacht up until then, as well as the unpublished population statistics of the Yugoslav census of 1931.
Operation area Greece
After the occupation of Greece , the Sonderkommando Künsberg tracked down part of the Greek state treasure in Crete on June 5, 1941 and transported 91 kg of gold to Athens , from where the German General Representative Günther Altenburg had it brought to Berlin.
Operational area Soviet Union
Comparatively well equipped, the Künsberg Special Command acted as an independent unit on the front line after the invasion of the USSR . The command carried out secret special orders for Reich Foreign Minister Ribbentrop and at the same time confiscated foreign policy files on the orders of General Franz Halder in the uniform of the Secret Field Police .
As of 1942, the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) commissioned the seizures. Depots of the Sonderkommando were set up in the entire occupied territories from the Baltic States to the Crimea , in which the spoils of war were prepared for removal.
In Eastern Europe, the Sonderkommando Künsberg worked in competition with other National Socialist institutions operating there, in particular the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) and the research and teaching group Ahnenerbe , which was subordinate to Heinrich Himmler .
Unlike Ahnenerbe and ERR, whose confiscations were to be used for their own scientific purposes, Künsberg confiscated art for distribution to interested institutions. By 1942, 304,694 works of art had been handed over to other institutions.
War booty exhibition in Berlin
In March 1942, the spoils of war were shown at an exhibition in Berlin's Hardenbergstrasse, on which, among other things, over 37,500 volumes from the libraries of the Tsar's castles Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoe Selo) and Gatchina , 69,000 geographical maps, 75,000 volumes of geographical literature to selected representatives of the highest NS -Ministries, the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and the Reich Chancellery .
In addition to the departments of the Foreign Office, Alfred Rosenberg's Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories was one of the main recipients. The Wehrmacht High Command and the Security Service received maps and other regional geographic information confiscated in the war zone. Numerous libraries and institutes expressed interest in the deported Soviet cultural goods.
Suspension and dissolution
On August 1, 1942, the Sonderkommando was placed under the command of the Waffen SS . Künsberg was suspended from his post. He had lost the sympathy of Ribbentrops, for whom he had made too many arbitrary decisions.
In the winter of 1942 the main department in Berlin was closed, and in mid-1943 the Sonderkommando was completely disbanded. Some employees continued their work under the command of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).
Members
Selection of members: Hellmut Haubold ; Jürgen von Hehn ; Alfred Karasek ; Hans-Peter Kosack ; Wilfried Krallert ; Eberhard von Künsberg ; Viktor Paulsen ; Peter Scheibert
See also
literature
- Eckart Conze , Norbert Frei , Peter Hayes, Moshe Zimmermann : The Office and the Past. German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic. Verlag Karl Blessing, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-89667-430-2 , p. 214 ff.
- Ulrike Hartung: Raids in the Soviet Union. The Künsberg special command 1941–1943 . Published by the Research Center for Eastern Europe. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1997, ISBN 3-86108-319-1 .
- Anja Heuss : The Foreign Office's “loot organization”. The Sonderkommando Künsberg and the robbery of cultural property in the Soviet Union. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. 45, H. 4, 1997, ISSN 0042-5702 , pp. 535-556 ( PDF ).
- Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 2: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: G – K. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X .
- LJ Ruys: The "Sonderkommando von Künsberg" en de lotgevallen van het archief van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken in Nederland from 1940–1945. In: Nederlands Archievenblad. 65, 1961, ISSN 0028-2049 , pp. 135-153.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anestis Nessou: Greece 1941 - 1944. German occupation policy and crimes against the civilian population - an assessment according to international law . V & R unipress et al., Göttingen et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-89971-507-1 , ( Osnabrück writings on legal history 15), p. 127.