From 1942, the library was stored in safe rooms in Elisabethenburg Castle in Meiningen for air-raid protection reasons. Southwest Thuringia was first occupied by American troops and from 1 July 1945 by Soviet occupying forces. Looting and removal of library holdings by occupying troops or third parties cannot be ruled out. Almost all of the library's holdings were taken from Meiningen to the former USSR in 1946 as so-called looted art.
