WARTIME DIPLOMACY AND CULTURAL RESTITUTION

To understand cultural restitution or nonrestitution as it took place in occupied Germany at the end of World War II, it is necessary to understand the diplomacy that went on in the Grand Alliance as the widespread and traumatic effects of Nazi looting came to the fore. This is the framework in which the complex issue of cultural restitution became enmeshed in political, military, and economic conflicts of the Grand Alliance.

The first major Allied discussion concerning efforts to recover lost property began in 1942 in two main forums: a subcommittee of the exiled European governments planning for an eventual armistice and periodic meetings of finance ministers, presided over by the British.Footnote ¹ For the exiled governments, much of their planning revolved around restitution and reparations.Footnote ²

Most of the discussion in early and mid-1942 took place among the exiled ministers of finance.Footnote ³ In the summer of 1942, they debated the text of a proposed declaration reserving the right to invalidate all transfers of property rights and interests in territory occupied by the Axis.Footnote ⁴ Because the United States had no representation in the finance ministers' group, the Americans had no influence on most of the negotiations that eventually led to the London Declaration of 5 January 1943, the Inter-Allied Declaration Against Acts of Dispossession Committed in Territories Under Enemy Occupation or Control.Footnote ⁵ The U.S. State Department belatedly requested that the American embassy in London send a representative to a crucial July 24 meeting on the proposed declaration.Footnote ⁶ But, typical of American reluctance to make any postwar political commitments, State Department instructions included only an expression of American sympathy and a request for a 10-day postponement until the American government formulated a policy on the declaration.

Several interesting points of contention arose during these negotiations, which illuminate the differences between the occupied states and the Big Three Powers (the United States, United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union) and the difficulties in implementing cultural restitution. First of all, the smaller nations, led by Belgium, wanted a statement of obligation binding all signatories to assist in the recovery of property.Footnote ⁷ The British led the opposition, arguing that the Belgian proposal turned the declaration into a treaty requiring a lengthy ratification process.Footnote ⁸ In reality, the British were reluctant to bind their hands with mandatory obligations to the smaller powers. The British, Americans, and Soviets wanted a free hand in all matters relating to the postwar settlement.

This reliance on general statements of principle, while at the same time maintaining operational flexibility, characterized the stance of the Big Three in other issues that arose. For example, at the urging of the United States a warning to neutral governments about trafficking in looted property was watered down to a warning to all persons in neutral countries.Footnote ⁹ Also, at American insistence the text was reworded from stating that the declaration related to the “Axis Powers and their associates” to “the governments with which the signatories are at war.”Footnote ¹⁰ This allowed the Soviet Union, which was not at war with Japan, to sign the declaration. Getting the Soviets involved, though they expressed little interest in these negotiations, always remained a top American priority in wartime diplomacy.

The issuance of the declaration on 5 January 1943 began the next round of difficulties. While the text denounced all methods of dispossession, no mention of concretely implementing the declaration was included.Footnote ¹¹ A pattern was set in regard to restitution; the pattern of laboriously developed agreements on principles, unaccompanied by specific procedures for implementation.

The Belgians, Dutch, and Norwegians wanted a subcommittee of experts to make recommendations on implementing the declaration in various countries. The British succeeded in restricting the subcommittee to a fact-finding role.Footnote ¹²

Even this proved controversial. The subcommittee gathered data on existing legislation in Allied countries that invalidated forced transfers and Axis methods of disposition, and drafted a report documenting depredations.Footnote ¹³ The Polish government-in-exile submitted a report on events in eastern Poland, occupied by the Soviet Union.Footnote ¹⁴ At the furious insistence of the Soviets, this section was dropped from the final report. With little American input or interest, the British and Soviets successfully argued that all political disputes must be kept apart from the work of the technical committees.Footnote ¹⁵ Another pattern was set.

In the last two years of the conflict, postwar restitution, a goal generally accepted by all the Allies, became thoroughly embroiled in the diplomatic and political conflicts of the great powers. The smaller powers in a variety of forums, such as the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education and the Interallied Commission for the Study of the Armistice, urged the early establishment of an interallied body for cultural restitution. This proposed organization was to have extensive powers to control property in Germany, recover looted property stored in neutral countries, set up special restitution machinery for persecuted minorities, and settle claims.Footnote ¹⁶ This obviously would guarantee conflicts with neutral countries and with the Big Three, who did not favor any competing machinery apart from what they planned.

In the face of these pressures, the three major Allies had differing responses. The Soviets ignored the schemes and the organizations behind them.Footnote ¹⁷ The American and British governments were internally divided regarding the principles and machinery for cultural restitution.Footnote ¹⁸ From 1943 onward, the Big Three's discussions about the future of Europe continued on the working level in a forum known as the European Advisory Commission (EAC). This became more urgent in the post-D-day environment.

On the larger issues involving postwar Germany, the Big Three could agree only on a brief surrender document restricted to military matters, zonal boundaries for the future zones of occupation, and a bare-bones structure for the future military government.Footnote ¹⁹ The approved governing structure included an Allied Control Council (ACC), composed of the commanders-in-chief from each zone, and a Coordinating Committee (CORC) to implement ACC decisions. No agreement on principles for governing Germany was ever reached.Footnote ²⁰

In EAC discussions, which by early 1945 included the French, issues involving cultural restitution went nowhere. On the issue of an international body of experts to handle cultural restitution, the Americans officially had no position, the British favored it in a tepid fashion, the French agreed with reservations, and the Soviets blocked it. Concerning a restitution-in-kind replacement policy, vigorously pushed by the French, the other three powers showed little interest. Nothing was accomplished regarding a final EAC policy on control of works of art and monuments, or in establishing a restitution commission.

At the final Big Three conference of the war at Yalta, extensive conflicts lurked under the façade of Allied unity. In fact, only a bare-bones agreement was reached on accepting the zonal concept, and related boundaries, for the soon-to-be occupying powers, as well as a commitment to denazification and demilitarization with the ACC intended to govern Germany on a quadripartite basis. Discussions about reparations and restitution focused on noncultural property, namely, factories, machinery, and railroad stock. To deal with this thorny issue, the Big Three created a reparations commission and agreed to discuss a Soviet suggestion that German reparations be set at $10 billion, with half of this amount reserved for the Soviet Union.

Several important facts and problems emerge from this brief review of Allied wartime diplomacy, particularly as it concerned restitution. First of all, restitution policy was a vital concern to only one of the Big Four, France (a French zone of occupation was carved out at Yalta). The British and Americans had only a peripheral interest, and the Soviets had their own ideas on how to recoup their losses. Serious Allied disagreements on general postwar policy for Germany inhibited the development of a coherent approach to handling cultural objects. Cultural restitution became lost in the maze of other, greater conflicts. Finally, many issues revolving around cultural restitution were in themselves very complex. Issues such as the scope of the entire effort, restitution in kind, returning property to refugees, and the disposition of heirless property were difficult to resolve. The German collapse in May 1945 placed these problems squarely in the lap of the occupying powers. After much discussion, debate, and wrangling since 1942, there was no Allied agreement on how to return millions of items of displaced cultural treasures.

RESTITUTION IMPASSE

During the summer of 1945 restitution issues remained enmeshed within the broader and more volatile issue of reparations. These problems were thoroughly aired at the Allied Reparations Commission session held in Moscow between 11 June and 14 July 1945. Bitter discussions about industrial reparations and maintaining an economic balance among the four zones of occupation crowded out any discussion of cultural items. With a stalemate in Moscow, the reparation issue was referred to the Big Three conference at Potsdam in July. Once again, agreement was impossible to reach, and the issues involving property were deferred to a conference of foreign ministers set for the fall of 1945.

While all this was playing out on the grand stage of international diplomacy, the day-to-day problem of displaced cultural property became ever more acute. The United States was particularly concerned because by early summer hundreds of repositories had been discovered in the American Zone, filled with works of art, books, manuscripts, and religious objects. It was a mix of looted items, displaced German property, and heirless Jewish property.

The Russians first of all insisted that restitution was under the jurisdiction of the Council of Foreign Ministers and thus was not a subject the ACC or the subordinate group of deputy military governors, the CORC, could discuss.Footnote ²¹ When the foreign ministers decided they could not settle the knotty restitution question and referred it to the ACC, the Russians no longer had a basis for their objection. The Russian delegate, General Vasily Sokolovsky, next blocked matters by stating that the Soviet Union could not agree to any restitution actions until an overall definition of the term restitution and the property covered by the term was settled.Footnote ²² This very point had eluded the EAC, the delegates at the Berlin Conference, and the Council of Foreign Ministers.

Because of these Soviet objections, the CORC instructed the Directorate of Reparations, Deliveries, and Restitution (DRDR) of the ACC to work on an acceptable definition and an interim plan. This was consistent with the CORC's responsibilities in implementing ACC decisions, supervising German administrative units, and supervising interzonal transactions. In studying interim restitution, the DRDR prepared separate papers for cultural and noncultural items, although they worked on an overall definition covering both categories. Consideration of cultural restitution was delayed while the members of the CORC and DRDR wrangled over the definition and sensitive issues primarily relating to noncultural property.

The Soviet Union wanted to restrict restitution only to those items removed by force.Footnote ²³ The French delegate on the CORC, General Louis Koeltz, noted that the 5 January 1943 Declaration included dispossession by any means whatever. While his two Western colleagues supported Koeltz, General Sokolovsky caustically commented that the Russians were not interested in assisting French industrialists who had collaborated with the German war effort.Footnote ²⁴ The French were odd men out in debates focusing on replacement in kind. They wanted this to apply to noncultural and cultural items. The Soviets would accept replacement in kind only for unique cultural works that were not recovered.Footnote ²⁵ Long-held American and British views on this subject coincided with the Russian position.

With the CORC deadlocked throughout October and November on the definition and scope of restitution, the DRDR focused its efforts on reaching an agreement for the interim restitution of cultural works. M. Glasser, the French representative in DRDR, confronted his Soviet colleague, Colonel I. I. Volegov, with a request to reaffirm General Sokolovsky's agreement to restitute cultural items.Footnote ²⁶ Volegov, in view of the French–Soviet impasse on restitution, would only repeat the position of his superiors that restitution had to wait until an agreement was reached on the definition. The Russians did agree to the establishment of a Cultural Works Committee that was supposed to resolve cultural restitution issues.Footnote ²⁷

This committee drew up an interim plan designed to avoid most of the controversies that plagued efforts to settle the overall restitution question. Restitution was restricted to easily identifiable items of well-known ownership, which were taken during the occupation.Footnote ²⁸ The interim plan provided for a broadening of the terms at a later date. The idea behind this was to begin cultural restitution in all four zones, without bogging down in the question of whether the Germans had legitimately paid for any item or if the seller had acted voluntarily. All movable goods of religious, artistic, documentary, scholarly, or historic value, “the disappearance of which constitutes a loss to the cultural heritage of the country concerned,” were included in the definition.Footnote ²⁹ The plan also provided procedures for claimant nations to follow. These included submitting descriptive lists of missing items and establishing panels of experts to review claims.Footnote ³⁰ Though the DRDR approved the plan, nothing further could be done until the CORC and the ACC finally decided the scope of the restitution program.

While paying some lip service to the principle of returning the cultural heritage of other nations, British Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFA&A) officers already reported that the Russians were running the German fine arts program as an adjunct to its military command.Footnote ³¹ Foreign restitution missions were not allowed in the Soviet Zone. During the discussions in the ACC, CORC, and DRDR, the Russians gave little evidence of interest in expediting cultural restitution. In fact, reports from American military officials made clear that the Russians had already removed many priceless treasures from their zone of occupation. Treasures seized included the Pergamum Altar, stored in a Berlin factory by the Germans; more than 900 paintings from the Kaiser Friedrich Museum; and the art and sculpture of the Sans Souci Palace in Potsdam.Footnote ³²

Soviet military authorities, aided by Russian art and museum experts, removed thousands of items—statues, jewels, pottery, and artworks—from Berlin's most prestigious institutions including the Prussian State Museum, the Pergamon Museum, and the Altes and Neues Museums. In the wholesale removal of German cultural property, the Soviets made no effort to distinguish between German property and cultural objects looted by the Nazis from other countries, many of which were Russia's allies.Footnote ³³

The issues of reparations payments, interzonal exchanges of goods, and restitution confounded the Council of Foreign Ministers and the control machinery in Germany. In light of this impasse, General Lucius Clay presented a compromise proposal at the twenty-third CORC meeting designed to achieve some progress, at least, with the restitution program. The United States wanted to satisfy the demands of its Allies on restitution and, at the same time, hoped for movement toward an agreement that determined which German property was eligible for reparations, how much each ally received, and the terms for interzonal economic exchanges.

Clay's 27 November 1945 proposal defined property liable to restitution as everything taken by force, with property obtained through other means eligible for return if consistent with reparations and the minimum economy necessary for Germany.Footnote ³⁴ This was to satisfy the Russian complaint that designating too much property as eligible for restitution would hinder reparations owed the Soviet Union. Also, this definition met Western objections that the 5 January 1943 declaration covered property taken by other than forceful means.

The Russians added a proviso to Clay's proposal at the 12 December CORC meeting. The Russians accepted Clay's definition, with the understanding that any replacement in kind was limited to unique cultural objects.Footnote ³⁵ They would not tolerate any threat to their reparations shipments. The French, who ardently desired a comprehensive replacement-in-kind provision, reluctantly agreed to the Russian position. The Americans and British, skeptical of replacement in kind even for unique objects, insisted that implementation wait for a separate paper.Footnote ³⁶ With the deadlock broken, the CORC adopted a final definition for the term restitution and forwarded it to the ACC for a decision.

The final definition provided for restitution of noncultural and cultural items, with Clay's compromise on the return of everything taken by force with return of all property removed by other means contingent on reparations agreements and maintaining the minimum-German economy. The CORC also approved and sent to the ACC the interim cultural restitution deliveries plan drawn up by the Cultural Works Committee.Footnote ³⁷ This plan did not draw a distinction between various means of dispossession and assumed all cultural objects were removed by force. In effect, this interim agreement was the program initiated by General Clay and the American military government in September. It is clear that from the first debates in the EAC onward, agreement on cultural restitution was held back by deep differences on noncultural restitution and reparations. Even though all the Allies supposedly shared similar principles regarding cultural property, one should not assume the program went smoothly from this point forward. Incredibly complex problems arose concerning heirless property, items belonging to Eastern European refugees, restitution in kind of unique objects, and the extent of the entire cultural restitution effort.

The Paris Conference on Reparations, which met in November and December 1945, was a harbinger of future conflicts. The Soviet Union boycotted the conference and refused to acknowledge the Inter-Allied Reparations Authority set up by the conference.Footnote ³⁸ The Russians insisted that reparations agreements were a subject only for the Council of Foreign Ministers, which had already met failure in this regard. In an annex to the final declaration of the conference, Albania, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Greece, India, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Yugoslavia stated their interpretation of restitution in light of the 5 January 1943 Declaration. They argued for complete restoration or replacement by equivalent objects for items of an artistic, religious, cultural, historic, or scientific nature.Footnote ³⁹ Clearly, this clashed with the American hesitancy concerning replacement. American doubts were clearly expressed in the DRDR, when a U.S. representative described how difficult it was to decide what object was unique, which German museum had a proper equivalent, and how to conduct removals while preserving democratic principles in Germany.Footnote ⁴⁰ The small states also called for restitution missions to operate in each zone of occupation and to search for missing objects.Footnote ⁴¹ This would obviously antagonize the Russians, who had no intention of letting anyone roam freely in their zone. The United States, for that matter, was not enthusiastic about this idea. The French were already pressing for the right to investigate freely in the American Zone.

CONTINUED CONFLICT

Despite the CORC recommendation on the definition restitution, Allied debate and divisions continued. These debates were almost exclusively focused on conflicts over industrial reparations and noncultural restitution. At the sixteenth ACC meeting, General Vassily Sokolovsky proposed amendments to the CORC proposal. He did this in spite of the fact that the Soviets had accepted the CORC definition, which was based on a compromise originally presented by General Clay. The Soviets insisted on a new clause that permitted any of the United Nations to receive compensation from Germany for any of its items used in the reparations program.Footnote ⁴² According to the CORC definition, any items removed by means other than force were eligible for restitution only if this did not interfere with reparations. The Soviets wanted to ensure that they received compensation for any of their property found in Germany, whether or not force was used in the original transfer.

The CORC debated the Soviet amendment and the proposed definition at its weekly meeting on 17 January. The British representative, General Brian Robertson, expressed concern that there was no mention in the proposed definition for retaining a minimum level of economy for Germany.Footnote ⁴³ The British feared that massive restitution and reparations programs would leave Germany a wilderness and create a dangerous vacuum in central Europe. General Clay assured his British colleague that his original proposal to expand the definition of property obtained by means other than force was not intended to cause starvation or chaos in Germany.Footnote ⁴⁴ The Soviet delegation brusquely rejected the British concerns and refused to permit any reference to the German economy in the definition. The committee, therefore, decided to accept the Soviet addition to Clay's original proposal. Though the Western Allies forced the USSR to broaden the general categories for restitution beyond acquisition by force, the Soviets successfully insisted on provisions that limited restraints on their obtaining reparations.

The debate over restitution in kind was a cultural matter. Throughout the fall, the Soviets insisted that any restitution-in-kind or replacement program pertain only to unique objects. From the Soviet point of view, unique objects were outstanding artistic or historic items. The French wanted a replacement program for both cultural and noncultural items. The United States and Great Britain would have none of this. They correctly perceived that the French favored using cultural items in the reparations program.

Not only did General Clay support the Soviet position on restricting restitution in kind to unique works of art, but he categorically stated that “he would not commit the United States to replacement of objects of art item for item.”Footnote ⁴⁵ With the British supporting the Soviets and the Americans, the French reluctantly agreed to a provision that put the issue off a bit longer. The CORC revision, to which the ACC agreed, read: “As to goods of a unique character, restitution of which is impossible, a special instruction will fix the categories of goods which will be subject to replacement, and the conditions under which such goods could be replaced by equivalent objects.”Footnote ⁴⁶ So the restitution agreement ratified by the ACC on 21 January did not authorize an immediate restitution-in-kind program. It merely provided for the preparation of a “special instruction” to define the parameters of such an effort.

In light of the CORC compromises, the ACC accepted the proposed definition for restitution on 21 January with little debate. The definition is most interesting for what it did not say. There was no indication on how the restitution and reparations efforts were to interact, no precise delineation of the various methods of dispossession, and silence on such issues as restitution to ex-enemy nations, restitution of property taken from German citizens, and the disposition of heirless property. Now the ACC, as well as the EAC and the Council of Foreign Ministers, had proved unable to resolve substantively the difficult legal, political, and economic problems relating to property control. Most of the issues the ACC sidestepped or ignored never were resolved at the quadripartite level, eventually forcing unilateral decisions by the zonal commanders.

With an agreement on restitution in hand, the ACC instructed the CORC to prepare the necessary procedures. The procedures, issued on 17 April 1946, reflected the general Allied inability to operate programs on a quadripartite or unified basis. The responsibility for implementing the procedures, and thus controlling restitution, was squarely placed on the zonal commanders. Their duties included locating looted property, determining the custody and preservation of this property, and providing assistance to Allied restitution missions.Footnote ⁴⁷ The procedures did not spell out the method of handling claims when they were received nor the parameters for the functioning of the restitution missions. The commanders were required only to prepare periodic reports for the ACC. Clearly, four restitution programs, not one, were in the offing.

The effort to draw up a “special instruction” for restitution in kind illustrates, in a small way, the unbridgeable gulf that separated the occupying powers. This effort consumed a great deal of time in the CORC and the DRDR over many months. The French presented a paper in the DRDR on 22 January, making any looted item not found eligible for restitution in kind. Replacement was on an item-for-item basis, with an object of comparable value provided.Footnote ⁴⁸ In a subsequent DRDR meeting, the French proposed preparing a list of all German-owned objects removed from each zone after 9 May 1945. Restitution in kind would take place from this pool of objects. Negative reactions were swift and sharp. At the CORC meeting on 4 March, the American delegate, General Oliver P. Echols, once again emphatically rejected the idea of a general restitution-in-kind effort. He reiterated the American belief that this was really reparations.Footnote ⁴⁹ The French delegate heatedly responded that nine nations at the Paris Conference on Reparations supported his country's stand.Footnote ⁵⁰

Soviet intransigence almost totally derailed the negotiations for a “special instruction.” The Soviets adamantly refused to accept one proposed article, agreeable to the other three powers, which required:

The Soviets claimed that it was impossible to compile a list of German objects removed from its zone. After all, early in the occupation other armies were in what became the Soviet Zone, and the Germans had removed many items.

Furthermore, at a 29 January 1946 meeting of the committee charged with drafting the “special instruction,” the Soviet representative bluntly explained:

The British delegate pressed the Soviet member on whether the latter was referring to objects taken by individual soldiers or those removed by the authority of the Soviet Army. Somewhat incredulously, the Soviet representative replied:

The British, French, and American delegates were united in objecting to the Soviet approach. The American delegate made clear the position of the United States:

Officials in the American military government were convinced that Article 56 of the Hague Convention of 1907 prohibited the use of works of art as “war booty” or “trophies of war.” Colonel John Allen, chief of the Economics Division in the Office of Military Government for Germany, United States (OMGUS), also told General Clay that reports from the news media made it clear that museums in Moscow and Leningrad were being refilled with paintings from German museums.Footnote ⁵⁵

“Trophy” brigades were operating in the Soviet Zone with lists that were prepared by scholars under the direction of Professor Vladimir Bogdanov that identified valuable objects in German museums and items that had even a remote connection to Russia. The painter, architect, and art historian Igor Grabar, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, had come up with the scheme to replenish destroyed Soviet museums with artworks from Germany. The lists were a map to future confiscations. In fact, Grabar's scheme evolved into a plan to create a huge, new museum in Moscow filled with art trophies.Footnote ⁵⁶ This Linz-like plan eventually came to naught, though millions of artworks, books, archives, and other cultural objects were shipped to the Soviet Union by the Trophy brigades. On 30 July 1945, for example, 600 paintings were selected from the Dresden Art Gallery and shipped by train to Russia.Footnote ⁵⁷ Entire collections were removed from Berlin, including those of the Ethnographic Museum, the Art Library, and the Museum for Pre- and Early History.Footnote ⁵⁸ The Pushkin Museum, in particular, received many valuable items, including 52 crates with 146,258 coins and medals; the Dresden Historical Museum collection; and Western European paintings, sculptures, and miniatures. All in all, the museum received over 500 crates of materials.Footnote ⁵⁹ The brigades operated under orders approved by Stalin and made no distinction between looted Russian property, German-owned cultural items, or loot stolen by the Nazis from Russia's allies. The legality and propriety of Soviet actions were hotly debated at the time and came to the fore again in the postcommunist era of the 1990s.

An American counterproposal was designed to meet French demands for compliance with the ACC decision to issue a “special instruction” and at the same time limit the program as much as possible. General Harper presented the paper on 9 July to the CORC and plainly told his colleagues that the United States would consider claims only for items of great rarity, which the Allied Control Authority would consider on a case-by-case basis.Footnote ⁶⁰ Weighing each case individually meant that the ACC would not need to create elaborate machinery for a restitution-in-kind program. Yet by requiring that any claims be submitted to the DRDR as the appropriate quadripartite forum, the American delegate made it clear that any claims were not to be handled unilaterally in each zone of occupation. Rather, they were to be processed under the auspices of the Allied Control Authority. This point was reinforced at the sixty-first meeting of the DRDR on 25 February 1947. Harper went on to propose five categories of items eligible for possible replacement: works of art by the masters of painting, engraving, and sculpture; important works of masters of applied art and outstanding examples of national art; historical relics; manuscripts and rare books; and objects of importance to the history of science.Footnote ⁶¹ This was a far cry from the French proposals. Because the Soviets and British supported the American paper, the French had to acquiesce if they hoped for any replacement. The CORC accepted the American proposal in principle and directed the DRDR to prepare implementing procedures.

In the DRDR, the French once again tried to gain what they had lost in the CORC. The French delegate argued for a more elaborate process for handling restitution-in-kind claims, with the American representative dissenting from the need for any procedure. The DRDR, representing the four occupying powers, agreed with the American position and stated that any zone commander could inform any restitution claimant the following:

This meant that no nation, including any of the four Occupying Powers, had the authority to obtain restitution in kind other than by submitting a claim on a case-by-case basis to the DRDR for study and approval. No claims were ever received by the DRDR for review or decision. If the French believed their acquiescence to the American position would ensure at least cultural restitution in kind, they were greatly disappointed with the results. Soviet refusals to provide lists of German art objects prevented essential pooling of information, and American intransigence on machinery prevented the necessary organization. Richard Howard, Chief of Cultural Restitution in the American Zone, revealed in his final report the overall effectiveness of the restitution-in-kind program when he wrote:

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

To summarize, Allied agreements on restitution were limited in scope, extremely difficult to implement on a quadripartite basis, and subject to recriminations and breakdowns. Simply put, there was no effective Four Power governance in Germany. Beyond war crimes prosecution, demilitarization, and the dismantling of the Nazi Party, there was little Allied agreement. All the wartime diplomatic strife about the future of Germany and the question of German power continued in new venues. The problems with restitution reflected the broader clashes of Great Power interests and ideologies. In the cultural restitution arena, as in everything else, there were four distinct approaches. American efforts were focused on shedding responsibility for cultural loot and German property in U.S. custody as quickly as possible. General Clay's interim cultural restitution strategy, the creation of the collecting points, and the shipping of unopened crates back to the country of origin, all indicate America's desire to meet—and complete—its responsibilities in the briefest period of time feasible. That this effort took four years was not the result of the military's desire to retain custody over Europe's cultural patrimony. It is a testament to the difficulty of the task.

The strategy developed by General Clay and the American military government in the summer of 1945, with the exception of handling German-owned art, lasted until the end of the occupation period. Issues that slowed the task arose, but returning cultural loot to the countries of origin was the basic pattern. Deviations from this approach—heirless Jewish property and property of refugees from communism—were the rare exceptions. In the first months of occupation, the “factory” approach to implementing the strategy was well underway. The “factories,” the central collecting points, were managed by MFA&A officers who were experts in their fields and staffed by German art and museum specialists. Items were inventoried and catalogued and then shipped out. In this early period, the pattern was set for returning clearly identifiable German property to the institutions or individuals who had title to the property. Nothing fundamental changed in the American approach until the end of the occupation.

It can also be said that nothing fundamental changed in the Russian approach. The “trophy” brigades scoured the Soviet Zone and removed millions of artworks, drawings, prints, sculptures, books, and archives to the Soviet Union. No heed was paid to whether the items were Soviet property, belonged to other nations and stolen by the Nazis, or were legitimate German property. All were destined to replenish Soviet cultural institutions, to create a new “Linz-style” museum, or for exploitation for intelligence purposes. Consistent with their wartime pattern, the Soviets never meaningfully engaged their Allies and other states in resolving restitution issues. Their zone was a forbidden area to the Allies, and they provided little to no information concerning cultural restitution matters. From the beginning, the Soviets considered Stalin's decrees as providing the legal justification for their actions in Germany. This pattern and attitude has remained in place until the present time.

The French and British likewise demonstrated consistent patterns lasting until the end of the occupation. The French did not engage in wholesale removals of property along the Soviet model, but they insisted much more vociferously than the British or Americans that the Germans compensate for lost or destroyed cultural property. Experiencing two wars on its soil in a generation, the French were determined that the Germans must pay. Consistently, the French fought for restitution in kind on a broad basis, not just for so-called unique items. Though doomed to eventual disappointment, the French always sought the most extensive compensation possible. The British policies and attitudes were closer to those of the Americans than were the French, but neither the British nor the French had particularly robust or large-scale restitution programs. In great part, this was the result of the unanticipated consequences of the zonal boundaries. As luck would have it, the Germans had put their repositories mostly in what became the American Zone. This required the Americans to run a high-volume, high-profile operation. The British and French were not faced with the political and practical issues that confronted the United States. But overall basic restitution policies and procedures were quite similar among the three Western powers. Patterns formed by national self-interest, interpretations of international law, and operational realities set the cultural restitution policies and programs of the four powers.