Plunder

In 2014, a private individual gave this elegant pewter tea service to the Oldenburg City Museum. It is presumed to be looted Jewish property from the Netherlands, so-called “Dutch goods”. From 1942, the National Socialists in systematically looted furniture and household goods from Jews who had fled or been deported from France, the Netherlands and Belgium. The possessions were then sold or auctioned off to “resettlers” in the annexed territories of Poland or “bomb victims” in the Reich.

Looting and plundering were integral to German war and occupation policy. Everything that was useful for the war economy and for supplying the Wehrmacht or the German population was looted: food, raw materials, mineral resources, gold reserves, state assets, infrastructure, works of art, land and people. To this day, claims for restitution and reparation still exist in many formerly occupied countries.