Stalin's Decrees and Soviet Trophy Brigades: Compensation, Restitution in Kind, or “Trophies” of War?

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the official decrees issued by Joseph Stalin in 1945 ordering the Soviet removal of cultural property from Eastern European and German territories occupied by the Red Army. As opposed to popular belief dominant today in Russia, such decrees were few. Preparation for the removal of cultural property from enemy countries had started before the fate of the war was decided. In 1943 on the request of academician Igor Grabar, the Bureau of Experts was established with the task of composing lists of so-called “eventual equivalents,” which Soviet officials wanted to receive after the war as “restitution in kind,” to compensate for the cultural losses of the USSR. The listed equivalents included art works from museums and private collections in the Axis countries. However, the projected provisions for “restitution in kind” were never approved by the Allies, in large part because during the last months of the war and immediately thereafter, the Soviet Union had already begun massive removal of cultural property from territories occupied by the Red Army. Different trophy brigades sent to the front lines were authorized or ordered to send back home whole collections of German museums and libraries. Only rarely were any of the ‘trophies’ labeled “compensation.”