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The Reich Security Main Office of Germany's Third Reich, created in 1939, became one of the more significant agents of the looting of Jewish public and private library collections under the Nazi regime. The staff of the agency's library, which included SS men, were directly involved in creating the looting policy, in carrying out the looting itself, and in making decisions concerning the fate of the looted material. Research regarding the Reich's Jewish policy was conducted on the basis of these confiscated collections and ultimately contributed to the legitimization of the expulsion and extermination of the Jews.
From its beginnings in the early 1930s the German Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, or SD) operated as the intelligence branch of Hitler's bodyguards (the Schutzstaffel, or SS) and was responsible for the security of the Third Reich, the National Socialist Party, and Hitler himself. In 1939 the Reich security Main Office (the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or RSHA) was created, combining the SD, the secret police, and the criminal police under Reinhard Heydrich. This institution became one of the more significant agents of the looting of Jewish public and private library collections.1 Ideological research and analysis of the enemies of the Reich were assigned to Department VII of the RSHA, which became the major agent responsible for securing (sicherstelleri), plundering, and amassing the looted treasures in a central library.2 Nazi research regarding the Reich's Jewish policy was conducted on the basis of these confiscated collections of books. The purpose of this research was to build a case for a Jewish conspiracy against the state and thereby legitimize the expulsion and extermination of Jews.
This article focuses mainly on the goals of the RSHA library, the consequences of its activity, and the personnel who carried out the looting and handling of looted material. The library's mission and goals and its workers are discussed in the context of its organizational structure and the RSHA's bureaucratic framework. The RSHA staff, which included SS men, were directly involved in creating the looting policy, in carrying out the looting itself, and in making decisions concerning the fate of the looted material. Under their control Jewish forced laborers worked in inhuman conditions-in effect, concentration camp conditions-classifying, cataloging, packaging, and loading looted books.
The article is largely based...