ERR Archival Guide
Reconstructing the Record of Nazi Cultural Plunder: A Guide to the Dispersed Archives of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) and the Postwar Retrieval of ERR Loot
Patricia Kennedy Grimsted
After the Second World War, original ERR documents were widely dispersed and today are held in over 40 repositories in 10 countries. Written by the preeminent expert on WWII displaced archives, this Guide documents the current locations of remaining ERR files and related sources, details their contents, and provides links to the many now online. The Guide also describes considerable documentation including the subsequent fate, postwar retrieval, and restitution of ERR loot.
The following parts of the Guide are now available on this website:
NEWLY LAUNCHED
Chapter 3: Germany (March 2022)
This updated German chapter (March 2022) – highlights expanded English descriptions of three online groups of Rosenberg/ERR-related records in the Bundesarchiv (BArch Berlin-Lichterfelde): Bestand *NS 8 (Kanzlei Rosenberg), *NS 15 (DBFU), and *NS 30 (ERR), all now publicly available with full digital texts through the BArch Invenio reference system. Additional updates include several added repositories of interest; the new Federal Arts Administration (KVdB); extended Internet resources including library reports on NS-looted books; and an expanded bibliography of published literature, further extending research resources. Still featured are the online digitized records of postwar U.S. and German cultural restitution in Bestand *323 (TVK), with 75 files of digitized ERR inventories and related documents directly linked to this chapter.-
Introduction:
"Alfred Rosenberg and the ERR: The Records of Plunder and the Fate of Its Loot"
(August 2015)
Includes a summary table of contents and technical note for the entire Guide, with brief information on the archival sources worldwide.
- Chapter 1: Belgium (December 2016)
- Chapter 2: France (December 2021)
- Chapter 3: Germany (March 2022)
- Chapter 4: Israel (December 2015)
- Chapter 6: The Netherlands (December 2015)
- Chapter 10: United States of America (March 2015)
- Appendix 1: "French and Belgian Jewish Art Collections Processed by the ERR in the Jeu de Paume, 1940–1944: Correlation Tables for Archival Sources" (November 2019)
The original edition was published in 2011 (no longer online) under the title of Reconstructing the Record of Nazi Cultural Plunder: A Survey of the Dispersed Archives of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) by the International Institute for Social History, whose own massive Amsterdam and Paris archival collections were plundered by the ERR and whose building on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam was used for the ERR headquarters in the Netherlands. The earlier chapters covering Lithuania, Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom will soon be posted here, pending completion of updated versions.
This entire ERR project is funded by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference).
This page last updated 2022-03-30
