During the Second World War, there were regrettable losses, partly due to damage to the museum building and partly to the removal of a large number of artifacts to Russia. After the war, the Red Army took about 90 percent of the distributed collections to the Soviet Union as war booty. There they were taken to the Hermitage in St Petersburg where they have remained until today. Only a few pieces were returned to Berlin. The almost complete loss necessitated recreating the collection but this could only be achieved gradually. From 1952, it was the Pergamon Museum that exhibited East Asian Art. At the instigation of the first director, Herbert Härtel, the collections were presented as part of an independent "Indian Art Department", later called the "Museum of Indian Art" (from 1 January 1963 to 4 December 2006).