DECREE
[Rubber stamp] SECRET
1. To the Reichs Minister
Via Chief of the Political Directorate Staff, in the Building
Subject: Works of art shipped back from Ukraine.
The Reichs Commissar for the Ukraine has stored the works of art and paintings shipped in from Kiev and Charkow in the following storage places in East Prussia:
1. Domain Richau bei Wehlau.
2. Manor House Wildenhoff (Owner Count Schwerin).
Concerned are 65 chests whose contents will be given completely in the enclosure. There is as yet no inventory of some further 20 chests, 57 folios and one role of engravings. There are great many of the oldest icons, works of famous masters of the German, Dutch and Italian schools of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, as well as works of the best Russian artists of the 18th and 19th centuries. On the whole the contents include the most valuable works of the known Ukrainian art possession, which in themselves represent a value of many millions after a cursory appraisal. Beyond that they have a high ethic and cultural-political meaning as the only collections of this sort in the German orbit with international repute with which the Reich wishes to carry out a collaboration at present or in the future.
I request an acknowledgement.
In accordance with the decree of the Reichs Chancellory of 18 Nov. 1940—RK. 15 666 B—a list of the contents was presented to the Fuehrer.