Gerald Aalders. Nazi Looting: The Plunder of Dutch Jewry during the Second World War. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2004. xxii + 318 pp. $105.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-85973-722-4.

Reviewed by Jennifer L. Foray (Department of History, Columbia University)
Published on H-German (April, 2005)

Systematic Robbery, to the Last Teaspoon

Nazi Looting is the somewhat belated English translation of Gerald Aalders's rather pivotal work on the Germans' wartime plunder of the occupied Netherlands.[1] When the Dutch version first appeared in May 1999, Europeans and Americans were still raptly focused on the "dormant" Jewish bank accounts and insurance policies held in Switzerland. Following the revelations of the Swiss banks in the mid-1990s, Jewish survivors in the Netherlands, often represented by national umbrella organizations or by well-known international associations, had stepped forward not only to recount their own experiences at the hands of the German occupiers during the years of 1940-1945, but to decry their treatment after the war, when they had sought to recover their possessions and assets. Late 1997 then saw the sudden discovery of an archive belonging to the Dutch "robber bank" of Lippmann, Rosenthal, and Co., which led to extensive press coverage and public interest in the economic impoverishment of the Dutch Jews during the war. In turn, the Dutch government appointed a number of commissions and research projects charged with investigating both the extent of the wartime robbery and the survivors' allegations about what was termed the post-war "restoration of rights." There was consequently no more opportune moment for the publication of Aalders's work, and its reception can only be described as explosive. After the book's release, Dutch banks suddenly opened their previously sealed archives to the public and explicitly invited researchers to examine their wartime activities, all the while intimating their willingness to engage in negotiations concerning compensation. When Aalders first began his research in 1990, very few people would have predicted this course of events.

Now, in 2005, we have become accustomed to the various lawsuits, research findings, and political lobbying efforts directed at the recovery of stolen Jewish assets, and so the English translation of Aalders's work will not provoke the firestorm unleashed by the original Dutch version. Nazi Looting, however, does endure as a testament to the far-reaching, systematic exploitation and robbery of the Dutch Jews, whose savings and property were plundered by German officials and Dutch fellow citizens alike. In the very first sentence of his introduction, Aalders, a staff researcher at the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), proclaims that "the greatest looting in Dutch history took place during the Second World War" (p. 1). He also prefaces his work with the disclaimer that commonly used terms, whether English or Dutch, cannot adequately describe these wartime events: "theft" is too vague, "expropriation" too friendly, and "confiscation" suggests a legal basis for these robberies, a basis that existed only in the warped legal world created by National Socialism (p. xvi). Aalders has chosen to employ the word "looting," although, as he clearly demonstrates, the Dutch Jews were robbed of their possessions in an orderly, officious way, quite contrary to the free-for-all situation the word "looting" connotes. In fact, those familiar with the historiography concerning the plight of the Dutch Jews during the Holocaust will immediately recognize the parallels between the physical destruction of the Dutch Jews and the complete economic looting that preceded the deportations: both were enacted according to increasingly specific German decrees, both proceeded with a minimum of public disorder, and both were helped along immensely by the administrative assistance rendered by countless Dutch institutions and citizens.

This book is divided into two sections, with the first focusing on the general forms of looting seen in the occupied Netherlands. Here, Aalders details, for example, the indirect and direct "occupation costs" levied by the Germans to the tune of eighteen billion guilders. The Netherlands was made to pay for all services provided by the civilian and military occupation authorities, as well as for the German military efforts on the Eastern Front, while Dutch businesses and private citizens were forced to contribute to the ever-unpopular German "Winterhulp" organization. In this first section, Aalders also explores how German agencies profited from the liquidation of Dutch non-profit organizations, political associations, and foundations, all the while saddling Dutch banks with billions of inflated and therefore useless Reichsmark. The book's second section, entitled simply "The Looting of Jewish Property," concentrates solely upon the legislation and confiscation actions directed against the Jews and their possessions: whereas the average non-Jewish Dutch citizen suffered wartime damages of approximately 3,058 guilders, his Jewish countryman suffered an average loss of 7,142 guilders (p. 225). Aalders examines, in painstaking detail, the confiscation and subsequent trading of Jewish-owned stock; the seizure of property and assets abandoned by Jews who fled the country, the looting of the most precious cultural property to the most mundane of household objects; and the odious "Sperrstempel" scheme by which German agencies allowed prosperous Jews to buy temporary--but ultimately worthless--stays of deportation.

Aalders's detailed discussions of the "robber bank" of Lippmann, Rosenthal, and Co, referred to as "Liro," and the two major anti-Jewish decrees, which were known as the First and Second Liro Decrees, constitute the core of this second section. The Germans, borrowing the name of a well-known Jewish bank in Amsterdam, established the "Liro" bank in August 1941, which soon became the general clearinghouse for privately owned Jewish assets and property (the liquidation and/or Aryanization of Jewish businesses had already been set in motion by a separate decree issued in March 1941, with the profits from these operations going into separate German coffers). Importantly, the Liro bank functioned as the intermediary between, on the one hand, the Dutch Jews and the German authorities, and, on the other, the countless and often-competing German agencies that sought to lay their hands on Jewish property, preferably at rock-bottom prices. The directors of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange also granted Liro the right to sell shares, and in one of his most damning and frequently cited conclusions, Aalders states that nearly half of the 375 members of the Exchange bought these reduced-price shares from Liro, fully aware that they were trading stolen Jewish property (p. 165).

The First Liro Decree of August 8, 1941 required Jews to register all assets and private property; additionally, they were to turn over to the Liro Bank all credits, securities, and large sums of Dutch and foreign currency. Jewish "customers" were allowed to keep a thousand guilders in cash, which they could use at their discretion (p. 147). The Second Liro Decree of May 21, 1942 greatly expanded the scope of the registration and confiscation efforts, as Jews were now forced to declare all of their possessions, from the contents of safety deposit boxes to their dinnerware, and to surrender their valuable objects and collections to Liro. Aalders notes the nearly incomprehensible and utterly macabre specificity of this decree: although Jews were made to hand over their teaspoons, they were allowed, at least for now, to retain their dental fillings made of precious metal (p. 176). If the Jews were not fully robbed of their possessions by the time they were deported from their homes in 1942 and 1943, the German authorities saw no need to worry: the Liro bank branch established in the Westerbork transit camp would ensure that they boarded the cattle cars for the extermination camps in Poland with little other than the clothing they were wearing. Aalders has estimated that, in total, the Jews were robbed of at least one billion guilders worth of assets, property, and possessions (p. 224), the majority of which was handled by Liro.

Interspersed throughout these two major sections are portraits of the various Nazi organizations and individuals laying claim to valuable property of any sort. Readers familiar with Lynn Nicholas's The Rape of Europa or Jonathan Petropolous's Art as Politics in the Third Reich,[2] for example, will recognize the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), which specialized in the European-wide plunder of cultural artifacts, as well as the Zentralstelle für Judische Auswanderung, ceaselessly seeking to rob the Jews of their last possessions before they either fled the country or were deported. The usual cast of characters--headed by Reichsmarshall and art hoarder extraordinaire Göring, and Dr. Hans Posse, entrusted with purchasing works for the planned Führermuseum in Linz--appears here as well, flitting in and out of the country with loads of valuable artwork. In the occupied Netherlands, however, the ERR stood in a distinct second place to the Dienstelle Mühlmann, which was led by a personal friend of Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart. Katejan Mühlmann and his agency, therefore, retained first "rights" to any plundered paintings and works of art, and the ERR was made to concentrate upon the plunder of Jewish-owned household effects. The Zentralstelle, too, netted large sums of Jewish assets and property in the Netherlands, but, as Aalders demonstrates, so did countless other German-instituted agencies: two examples are the Omnia Treuhand, which was entrusted with liquidating less profitable Jewish-owned businesses and appointing Aryan administrators for the more viable ones, and the Devisenschutzkommando, charged with searching for all "enemy-owned" property and enforcing the Liro Decrees against the Jews. Since many plundered Jewish possessions traveled from Liro to other German agencies, and from these agencies to private individuals, it is no small wonder that any of the looted items could be returned to their original owners after the war.

Neither the Dutch nor the English versions of this book are without faults, quite a few of which greatly hinder Aalders's attempt at methodically documenting this monumental wartime plunder. This book was most certainly written with an educated Dutch audience in mind, but, to the detriment of those readers not familiar with the wartime Netherlands, esteemed translator Arnold Pomerans had rendered a fairly literal translation of the Dutch version. Relevant historiography is mentioned solely in the footnotes, although certain topics call for at least a brief discussion of the most important works that have appeared since the end of the war, while German officials are occasionally introduced with no explanation of their respective functions within the occupational structure instituted in the Netherlands. Further, although the Jews are obviously the focus of the Nazis' program of exploitation and extermination, their behavior finds little place in Aalders's account. The Jewish Council is briefly mentioned, but since this German-mandated body urged full Jewish compliance with all German measures, its role seems to merit a more in-depth analysis. Perhaps most surprising, however, is Aalders's confusing integration of the primary and archival material he has so extensively examined. The statements of Dutch and German officials cited here are accompanied by little or no contextual information, a rather troubling omission since many of these officials were speaking after the war, when they were reflecting upon their wartime activities with a view towards exonerating themselves in court. Other quotations (see, for example, p. 139) appear, inexplicably, with no identifying information at all, and thus do little to clarify the behavior and motivations of the men in question.

Since the book's original publication nearly six years ago, the various government-appointed commissions have released their findings and recommendations, nearly all of which have pointed to the inadequacy of the post-war recovery process and have urged reparations of one form or another. In January 2000, the Van Kemenade Commission released its highly anticipated final report, which concluded that although the precise monetary value of plundered Jewish stocks, assets, and property may never be determined, the current government would do well to offer to the Jewish community in the Netherlands a compensatory donation of 250 million guilders (this sum was eventually increased to 350 million guilders). Aalders's work has served as a vital reference tool for this and all other commissions charged with investigating the extent of the wartime looting and the effectiveness of the post-war recovery process. It has also proved invaluable for countless Dutch Survivors seeking to investigate the plight of their families' property during "the greatest looting in Dutch history." This English translation--even with its flaws--effectively complements the body of material concerning the Nazi plunder of Jewish possessions during the war, as well as the historiography specifically focused on the plight of the Dutch Jews during the Holocaust. Worldwide attention may no longer be focused on the Swiss bank accounts, but Aalders's work exemplifies why, and to what ends, scholarly efforts should now concentrate upon the particular national variants of the Nazi looting machine. After all, the Jewish population of the Netherlands was robbed bare by its local bank.

Notes

[1]. Gerald Aalders, Roof: De ontvreemding van joodse bezit tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Den Haag: SDU Uitgevers, 1999).

[2]. Lynn Nicholas, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War (New York: Knopf, 1994); Jonathan Petropolous, Art as Politics in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).

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Citation: Jennifer L. Foray. Review of Aalders, Gerald, Nazi Looting: The Plunder of Dutch Jewry during the Second World War. H-German, H-Net Reviews. April, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10459

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