“. . . in the interest of smooth working and economy of staff, I would request that the Economic Staff East and its subordinate agencies be abolished and that the economic administration in the Occupied Eastern Territories and even in those districts where fighting is still going on, be transferred to my sphere of authority.”
Göring replied to this in a letter dated 14 February, which I offer in evidence as part of the same Exhibit Number USSR-179. I quote:
“Dear Party Member Rosenberg:
“I received your letter of 24 January 1944 regarding economic administration in the Occupied Eastern Territories. Since the Reich Commissariat Ukraine is now almost entirely army administrative territory”—this is a reference to the Red Army offensive—“I consider it advisable to postpone our conference on the future organization of the economic administration until the military situation is completely clarified.”
Thus, Your Honors, Rosenberg’s claims met with resistance on the part of other German authorities who stubbornly refused to give up such a choice “economic activity.”
Rosenberg in his turn refused to yield and continued to press his demands. I now offer in evidence the following document, Exhibit Number USSR-173 (Document Number USSR-173)—this is a letter from Rosenberg to Göring dated 6 March 1944. In this letter, Rosenberg refers to his experience in Bielorussia and again urges his proposals. It is a long document and I shall not read it, as it is presented to the Tribunal in toto. But Göring still had his doubts and decided against Rosenberg.
On 6 April 1944, a month after the above-mentioned letter was sent off, Rosenberg again wrote to Göring. This document I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-176 (Document Number USSR-176). May I omit reading it into the record, since in substance it is like the last; and the arguments advanced in it are not such as to interest us greatly now. I omit Page 65 and pass on to Page 66.
Thus, Your Honors, even when the Red Army was delivering its last crippling blows against the German fascist hordes, the Hitlerite brigands went on quarreling about the spoils. I think there is no need to prove that while this haggling continued, the occupied territories were looted in feverish haste by the German authorities, both military and civil.
Now, Your Honors, I shall read some brief excerpts from the report made by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union on the crimes committed by the Hitlerite invaders in the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian Soviet Socialist Republics, which were also mercilessly plundered by the German fascist aggressors.
All these reports have been already presented to the Tribunal by the Soviet Prosecution. The report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes of the Hitlerites in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic contains the following statement:
“As the result of the way in which the Hitlerite invaders managed affairs, even according to incomplete data, the number of livestock and poultry in all the 14 districts of the Lithuanian S.S.R. decreases in comparison with the year 1940-41 by 136,140 horses, 565,995 cattle, 463,340 pigs. . . .”
I shall now quote excerpts from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes committed by the German invaders in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. For the information of the interpreters—this quotation is on Page 68, second paragraph:
“The Germans plundered the depots of tractors and agricultural machinery throughout Latvia; and according to figures which are far from complete, they sent to Germany 700 tractors, 180 motor vehicles, 4,057 ploughs, 2,815 cultivators, 3,532 harrows.”
Second quotation:
“In consequence of the despoliation of Latvian rural economy by the German invaders, the livestock in Latvia was decreased by 127,300 horses, 443,700 head of cattle, 318,200 pigs, and 593,800 sheep.”
Further, I shall read a short excerpt from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Estonian S.S.R.: I quote:
“The German invaders plundered the rural population of Estonia without restraint. This plunder took the form of forcing the peasants to hand over various kinds of farm produce.
“The quantities of farm produce to be delivered as ordered by the Germans were very high.”
I omit part of the quotation and I read the second paragraph on the next page:
“The Germans confiscated and drove to Germany 107,000 horses, 31,000 cows, 214,000 pigs, 790,000 head of poultry. They plundered about 50,000 beehives.”
I omit one more paragraph and I read the last quotation from this report:
“The Hitlerites took away 1,000 threshing machines, 600 threshing machine motors, 700 motors for driving belts, 350 tractors, and 24,781 other agricultural machines which were the personal property of individual peasants.”
Your Honors, a similar policy of plundering private, public, and national property was also carried out by the German fascist invaders in the occupied territories of Bielorussia, Moldavia, the Karelo-Finnish S.S.R. and the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic.
Various military units and organizations in different districts of the U.S.S.R. employed the same methods of plunder at all stages of the war in accordance with the same criminal plan and in pursuit of the same criminal aims. This plan was worked out, these aims were determined, these crimes were organized by the major war criminals who are now in the dock.
The U.S.S.R. Prosecution has at its disposal tens of thousands of documents on this subject. The presentation of all these numerous documents to the Tribunal would require such a long time that it would only complicate the Trial. For this reason, with the Tribunal’s permission, I shall not quote any further documents or reports of the Extraordinary State Commission on separate regions and republics, but I shall read into the record the statistical report of the Extraordinary State Commission relative to the material damage done by the German fascists to state enterprises and establishments, collective farms, public organizations, and individual citizens of the U.S.S.R.
This document is being presented to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-35 (Document Number USSR-35). I shall read into the record only those extracts from the report which have a direct bearing on the subject of my presentation. They are stated as follows—Page 71 of the statement:
“The German fascist aggressors destroyed and pillaged 98,000 collective farms, 1,876 State farms, and 2,890 machine and tractor stations. Seven million horses, 17 million head of cattle, 20 million pigs, 27 million sheep and goats, and 110 million poultry were slaughtered or shipped to Germany.”
The Extraordinary State Commission calculates the damage done to the national economy of the Soviet Union and to individual villagers and townspeople at 679,000 millions of rubles reckoned at the official prices current in 1941 as follows:
“1. State concerns and institutions, 287,000 million rubles; 2. collective farms, 181,000 million rubles; 3. villagers and townspeople, 192,000 million rubles; 4. co-operatives, trade unions, and other public organizations, 19,000 million rubles.”
I omit the following sections of this report, which describe how this damage is divided among separate Soviet Republics, and I pass on to the fourth paragraph, which describes the destruction of collective farms, State farms, and machine tractor stations. In order to save time, I shall confine myself to a few separate excerpts:
“While burning the villages and hamlets, the German fascists plundered completely the inhabitants of these villages. Those of the peasants who offered resistance were brutally murdered.”
Further, some concrete data are given on the plundering in the Kamenetz-Podolsk and the Kursk region, the collective farm “For Peace and Work” in the region of Krasnodar, the collective farms “For the Times” in the Stalino region, as well as collective farms in Mogilev and Zhitomir