Marshal German Goering during his interview by the press at Augsburg, Germany on May 11, 1945, following his surrender to Brig. Gen. Stack, Assistant Commander of the U.S. 36th division in Austria. (AP Images)
(JTA) — A comprehensive catalog listing the more than 1,000 major stolen artworks in Nazi leader Hermann Goering’s collection has been published for the first time.
The handwritten catalog, which had been stored in France’s diplomatic archives and accessible only to scholars, was published Wednesday by the French publisher Flammarion, the UK Telegraph reported.
With notes detailing from whom each work was stolen, the catalog is expected to help restore the looted art to its rightful owners and heirs. The art was confiscated primarily from Jews throughout Nazi-occupied Europe.
Goering was Hitler’s second in command, and much of his plundered art collection, which included works by Botticelli, Van Gogh, Renoir and Monet, was displayed at Carinhall, Goering’s country retreat near Berlin.
The catalog, which the Telegraph compared to a “simple bookkeepers log,” was kept on Goering’s office desk and notes in which room each work was hung.
Goering was convicted in the Nuremberg trials for crimes against humanity. He committed suicide the day before he was to be hanged in 1946. His art collection was confiscated by the Allies.
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