<P> The Nazi Party headed by Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany in 1933 after the country's crippling defeat, and its socioeconomic distress during the years following World War I. World War II was aimed at reclaiming the glory of the once great Germanic state . Nothing was safe from Nazi Germany's glare, with the first victim being cultural property of the European nations and the cultural property of significant groups located within them . The Nazi party through the "Third Reich confiscated close to 20% of all Western European art during the war . "By the end of the Second World War, the Nazi party looted at least one - third of all private art in France". </P> <P> Inherent within the Nazi's ideology was the idea of supremacy of the Aryan Race and all that it produced; as such the Nazi campaign's aims were to neutralize non-Germanic cultures and this was done through the destruction of culturally significant art and artifacts . This is illustrated greatest in the Jewish communities throughout Europe; by "devising a series of laws that allowed them to justify and regulate the legal confiscation of cultural and personal property . Within Germany the looting of German Jewish cultural property began with the confiscation of non-Germanic artwork in the German state collection . Degenerate art as it was known under the Nazi regime was deemed to be art which was not innately Germanic and which did not speak to Germanic culture, as such it was deemed to be worthless and slated for confiscation and destruction . Degenerate works of art were those whose subject, artist, or art was Jewish and as such offensive to the Third Reich . </P> <P> Jewish collections were looted the most throughout the war . German Jews were ordered to report their personal assets, which were then privatized by the country . Jewish owned art galleries were forced to sell the works of art they housed . "The Nazis concentrated their efforts on ensuring that all art within Germany would be Aryan in nature, speaking to the might of the Germanic state rather than Jewish art which was deemed as a blight on society . Confiscation committees seized approximately 16,000 items, within Germany wherein following the purge, German museums were declared purified". The remaining unexploited art was destroyed in massive bonfires . As the war progressed, the Nazi party elite ordered the confiscation of cultural property throughout various European countries . </P> <P> In the Soviet Union, Nazi plunder of cultural significant art is best illustrated in the Third Reich's pillage of the Catherine Palace near St Petersburg and its famous Amber Room dating to the early 1700s . In October 1941, the Nazis had occupied the western portion of the Soviet Union, and began removing art treasures back to the west . The entirety of the Amber Room was removed to Königsberg and reconstructed there . In January 1945, with the Russian army advancing on the city, the Amber Room was order edto be moved again but its fate is thereafter unclear . A post-war Russian report concluded that' summarizing all the facts, we can say that the Amber Room was destroyed between 9 and 11 April 1945' during the battle to take the city . However, in the absence of definitive proof, other theories about its fate continue to be entertained to the present day . With financial assistance from German donors, Russian craftsmen reconstructed a new Amber Room during the 1990s . The new room was dedicated by Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at the 300th anniversary of the city of Saint Petersburg . </P>

Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict of 1954