In 1939 the German government confiscated the palace as a national treasure during the taking of "Jewish property" throughout Austria. During the same year, Hermann Göring assigned the palace to Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe, an Austrian who had been spying for the Nazis in Britain and Europe and who had many influential contacts. She was charged with transforming it into a guest house for prominent artists of the Reich, and to serve as a reception facility to Hitler's Berghof home. Von Hohenlohe, who knew Reinhardt before the annexation of Austria, was able to secure from the Nazi's sixteen crates of Reinhardt's books, porcelain, silver, and furniture and had them shipped to California, though the consolation of his tangible possessions were little comfort against the loss of the Leopoldskron. Once it came to light that Stephanie von Hohenlohe may have been a double agent, she fled to England, then America, returning the palace to Nazi hands until the end of the war.