How Did Germany Overtake Russia

After Hitler’s plans of conquering the Ukraine, Poland, Austria, and other Eastern countries went according to plan, his special forces unit devised a plan to overtake Russia. The plan was carried out by the Einsatzgruppen picked by Himmler and Rossenburg. The Nazi’s plan resulted in the takeover of Russians cities, looting of art, burring of churches, museums, and historic sites. After the ending of the war, the soviet union sought out vengeance for the stolen artwork and destroyed cities. The controversy between Russia and Germany lasts till the present day and remains heavily unsolved. The actions first endorsed by the Nazis resulted in the loss of historic buildings, churches, and artworks that have lasting effects between Russia and Germany.

This plan as Hitler states was to “stop the eternal Germanic migration to the south and west Europe we have seen in the past and look toward the land in the east. (Russia and Austria-Hungry territory.) We will finally end the colonial and trade policy of pre-war time and move forward into the land policy of the future.” Germany in Hitler’s words needed to conquer land in the east to receive German ethnical artifacts and to cleanse the land from Jews and Bolshevists. Goering now added exploitation of the USSR to his plan. Alan Rosenberg was appointed to head of the administration of the Eastern Territories and once was given the task, he immediately was overjoyed and planed the Germanization for the area. Germans were eager to volunteer because of the promise of a short conquering time and war spoils. The invasion began in the early morning hours on June 22, 1941. By June 14th Hitler’s troops had taken most of Latvia and Lithuania, advancing into the Ukraine, and only one-hundred miles away from Leningrad. The news did not reach Leningrad until the following day on the 23rd in which the Hermitage museum had just

The Nazi were pushed back, and in return the Soviets were capturing once claimed German land. Just as the Nazis, the Soviets all took many war trophies and claimed artworks as their own. The issue of art theft remains under debate today as many pieces of art are still missing. In 1991 events started to look promising for the first time since the end of world war II. The Soviet Union was finally willing to negotiate with Germany about stolen artworks as its exclaimed “A special commission has been set up by the Soviet Ministry of Culture to study the matter, the report says. For the first time since the end of World War II, it says, high-ranking cultural officials are discussing the possibility of opening the secret depositories” This breakthrough was the start of negotiations between Russia and Germany over stolen art. While it was just a start it paved the way for the possibility of friendly negotiations between both sides. By 1995 many negotiations still had not taken place and as the New York time put it, “The Russian point of view, however, is that Germany lost the war after looting many thousands of art treasures from the Soviet Union, which won the war and looted in return. It's a big question for us, said the Deputy Culture Minister, Mikhail Shvydkoi. Our whole country was destroyed: 20 million people, 500 museums and so on.” Russians would like some of their artwork to be returned but