Cultural Looting and Restitution at the Dawn of the Cold War: The French Recovery Missions in Eastern Europe

Abstract

France was massively affected by Nazi looting and plundering, and was also probably one of the most successful countries in securing the return of cultural property. Drawing on recently opened Archives, this article reflects on the entangled history of the ‘recovery’ of works of art in Soviet occupation zones, in Poland, Czechoslovakia and in the GDR, focusing on the French investigations in the East. The micro history of this fieldwork allows for an interpretation of looting and restitution as a transnational moment of political and memory construction. The article first presents the organization of missions in the changing landscape of Europe, leading to the beginning of an East-West relationship on the ground. Then it analyses French and Soviet visions of the notion of looting, restitution and cultural property and finally concludes by attempting to interpret a loss of memory.