The library was confiscated by the Nazis in 1941. The bookcases were broken up and the ruined spaces turned into the communal latrines for the SS training centre that occupied the castle. The books themselves passed to the administrative care of the University Library of Prague. After the Communist takeover in 1948, the collections remained in a state depository, from which volumes and manuscripts were dispersed to different depositories and libraries throughout Bohemia over the next decades. During this time only a very limited number of volumes were available to the public or academic researchers.