“During their stay in Rovno and the district, Hitlerite officers and soldiers unrestrainedly plundered the peaceful Soviet citizens and thoroughly looted the property of cultural and educational institutions.”
I shall not quote all the data mentioned in this report of the Extraordinary State Commission. The report made by the Extraordinary State Commission on the atrocities committed by the Hitlerites in Kiev, and submitted to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-9, emphasizes the fact that the Hitlerites plundered the peaceful population of Kiev. I quote a brief extract, “The German occupation forces in the city of Kiev looted factory equipment and carried it off to Germany.”
Following the directives of the criminal German Government and the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces, the satellite states also joined in plundering and other crimes. Romanian troops who temporarily occupied Odessa along with German Armed Forces plundered this flourishing city in accordance with instructions from their German masters. The report of the Extraordinary State Commission concerning the crimes committed by German and Romanian invaders in Odessa reads in part as follows:
“. . . The Romanians damaged Odessa considerably from the economic and industrial point of view during the occupation.
“German-Romanian aggressors have confiscated and removed to Romania 1,042,013 centners of grain, 45,227 horses, 87,646 head of cattle, 31,821 pigs, et cetera, belonging to co-operative farms and co-operative farmers.”
The report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the damages inflicted by the German fascist invaders on industry, urban economy, and cultural and educational institutions in the Stalino region, already presented to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-2, also gives a good deal of data on the looting and removal to Germany of the factory equipment of this important industrial region.
I have quoted only a few of the reports compiled by the Extraordinary State Commission on certain districts of the Ukraine. This flourishing Soviet republic was subjected to unrestrained looting by the Hitlerites. The Hitlerite conspirators considered the Ukraine a tidbit and plundered her with exceptional voracity. I should like to read several documents in proof of the above.
Rosenberg’s letter to Reichsleiter Bormann dated 17 October 1944. This document which has already been submitted on 17 December by the United States Prosecution under Exhibit Number USA-338 (Document Number 327-PS) states that the Central Trading Company for the East for marketing of agricultural produce sent the following goods to Germany in the period between 1943 and 31 March 1944 only:
“Cereals, 9,200,000 tons; meat and meat products, 622,000 tons; oil seed, 950,000 tons; butter, 208,000 tons; sugar, 400,000 tons; fodder, 2,500,000 tons; potatoes, 3,200,000 tons, and so forth.”
The Defendant Rosenberg reported his “agricultural achievements” to Hitler’s closest assistant in these terms.
It should be noted that during the first year of the war the voracity shown by the Hitlerites in plundering the Ukraine was so great, that it awakened certain misgivings even in themselves.
I shall read an excerpt from a letter addressed by the Inspector of Armaments in the Ukraine to the Infantry General Thomas, Chief of the Economic Armament Office of the OKW. The letter is dated 2 December 1941. This document was submitted to the Tribunal by the United States Prosecution on 14 December as Document Number 3257-PS. I read a short excerpt:
“The export of agricultural surpluses from the Ukraine for the purpose of feeding the Reich is only possible if the internal trade in the Ukraine is reduced to a minimum. This can be attained by the following measures:
“1. Elimination of unwanted consumers (Jews; the populations of the large Ukrainian towns, which, like Kiev, receive no food allocation whatsoever).
“2. Reduction as far as possible of food rations allocated to the Ukrainians in other towns.
“3. Reduction of food consumption by the peasant population.”
Having outlined this program, the author explains further:
“If the Ukrainian is to be made to work, we must look after his physical existence, not for sentimental motives, but for purely business reasons.”
I omit the next paragraphs of this quotation.
However, the Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine, Koch, went steadily on with his policy of ruthlessly plundering the Ukraine. In due course I shall submit to you numerous further documents, also in the original, in confirmation of the above. Koch’s policy met with the approbation of the Hitlerite Government.
It is worthy of note that at the beginning of the war the plundering of the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R. was organized in accordance with the directives contained in the Green File, already mentioned. I submit to the Tribunal, as Exhibit Number USSR-13 (Document Number USSR-13), a letter by Göring dated 6 September 1941 on the subject of inspection for the seizure and utilization of raw materials, in which, among other things, the following passage occurs—the Tribunal will find this excerpt on Page 131 of the document book:
“The war emergency demands that the supplies of raw materials found in the recently captured eastern territories be put at the disposal of the German war economy as quickly as possible. The Directives for the Economic Management of the Occupied Eastern Territories (Green File) are to be taken as authoritative.”
I omit the last part of the quotation.
Later however, when the Germans set up their so-called civil administration and organized a number of special economic bodies in various occupied territories including the Ukraine, in particular, disputes arose among the numerous German military and civil bodies and organizations, all of whom were engaged in plundering the occupied territories. Rosenberg, as Reich Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories, began to insist that all military and economic organizations in the Ukraine were to be liquidated and their functions transferred to German civil administrations.
I submit to the Tribunal a draft report for State Secretary Körner on this subject, dated 3 December 1943, as Exhibit Number USSR-180 (Document Number USSR-180). I read from it:
“Subject, 1. Economic administration in the Occupied Eastern Territories; 2. General economic staff for the occupied territories.
“In a letter to the Reich Marshal, dated 20 November 1943, copies of which were sent to the Chief of Staff of the OKW, and the Leader of the Party Chancellery, Minister Rosenberg made the following demands:
“1. For the Ukraine,
“a. Military economic establishment still in existence to be dissolved.
“b. The office of Chief of the Army Group Economic Departments to be abolished and the military functions of the latter to be taken over again by the Chief Quartermaster.
“c. In case of the retention of the office of the Chief of the Army Group Economic Departments the practice of the same specialists working both in the Reich Commissariat and under the Chief of the Army Group Economic Departments to be discontinued.”
I omit the rest. In the same draft are detailed objections made by General Stapf and submitted by him to Keitel. He criticizes Rosenberg’s suggestion and advises the retention of the Economic Staff East.
And now, with the permission of the Tribunal, I present as Exhibit Number USSR-174 (Document Number USSR-174), another original document which is a covering letter from the Permanent Deputy of the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories to State Secretary Körner on the same subject.
Written suggestions by Rosenberg were appended to this letter in which Rosenberg insists that the entire economic activities be placed under the control of his ministry once more. As this is a rather long document and I am presenting it in the original, I ask your permission not to read it since it is mainly concerned with Rosenberg’s proposal, which I have already described to the Tribunal. For the information of the interpreters—I omit two pages of my presentation and pass to