Recent data indicates that Nazi Germany prepared for looting of cultural goods even before the outbreak of war. The focus was on the most valuable pieces - both in private collections and museums. The list of such objects was compiled by German art historians who had studied Polish collections before the war. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, planned, systematic confiscation was started by specialized agencies. Soon, the looting was joined in by German troops and occupation authorities. Toward the end of the occupation that activity degenerated into uncontrolled pillage. After liberation, large-scale removal of cultural goods from the former German territories in the West and North was conducted by special units of the military Soviet administration.

Assessment of Poland´s cultural losses

Poland 's war-time losses of cultural goods were vast and, at the same time, exceptionally difficult to assess accurately. It should be noted that much of the original documentation, which this assessment is normally based on, such as inventory books and other museum documentary material, was removed or intentionally destroyed by the German occupiers or Soviet troops. As a result of the destruction of the documentation, it is not possible to recreate the pre-war inventory of many collections. Therefore, the often quoted number of 516 thousand lost works of art, though based on archive materials, does not illustrate the true enormity of the losses sustained for it covers only objects registered during and after the war, with attention primarily focused on works of old masters and old handicraft. Libraries and private book collections are estimated to have lost over 22 million volumes from 37.5 thousand libraries.

Registration of war losses

The registration of losses sustained by Poland was started already in September 1939 and continued throughout the occupation. In 1944, historians, librarians and archivists engaged in underground activity prepared the first list of objects destroyed and removed from public and private collections. This material was then smuggled to London to the Polish Government in Exile. On its basis, in 1944 Professor Charles Estreicher, who headed the whole project, published a book entitled Cultural Losses of Poland . Considering war conditions, it was a highly accurate and detailed compilation of losses, listed by locality, including losses suffered by Catholic churches and synagogues, art societies, museums and private collections. The author also provided data on the destruction of church buildings, architectural monuments and cemeteries - particularly many Jewish ones.

After the war, the material served as the basis for a register of losses compiled by the Bureau for Restitution and Compensation located at the Ministry of Culture and Art. It was also used by the Polish restitution missions searching for works of art looted from Poland in the occupation zones of Germany and Austria. In 1951, the Bureau was dissolved.

It was only in 1991 that the work was resumed by the Bureau of the Government Plenipotentiary for Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad located at the Ministry of Culture and Art (presently - the Department of National Heritage).