“All raw materials, semi-manufactured, or finished products of which we can make use are to be withdrawn from commerce. This will be done by IV Wi and by the economic authorities by means of appeals and orders, by ordering confiscation or by military supervision, or both.”
Page 88—from the section “Raw Material and the Exploitation of Commercial Resources”:
“Platinum, magnesium, and rubber are to be secured at once and transported to Germany as soon as possible.”
Back of Page 87:
“Food products, articles for personal use, and clothing discovered in combat and rear zones are to be placed at the disposal of IV A for immediate military requirements.”
Back of Page 83—in the section of the directives entitled “Economic Organization” we find a project of an apparatus with wide ramifications which was to carry out this organized plunder of the U.S.S.R. I shall read a series of excerpts from this section, which the members of the Tribunal will find on Page 79 of the document book:
“A. General questions.
“To guarantee undivided economic leadership in the theater of military activities, as well as in the administrative areas to be established at a later date, the Reich Marshal has organized the ‘Staff for Economic Leadership East’ directly under himself and headed by his representative, State Secretary Körner.”
Second excerpt:
“The orders of the Reich Marshal apply to all economic spheres, including food supply and rural economy.”
In directing your attention to these two excerpts, Your Honors, I consider it definitively proved that the Defendant Göring not only had personal charge of the preparations for the plunder of private, public, and state property, but later on directed personally the vast apparatus specially set up for these criminal purposes. You can judge of the projected organization of this apparatus, by the following extracts from the Green File. I read:
“Organization of Economic Administration in the operational area.
“1. The economic establishments, subordinated to the Economic Staff East, insofar as their activities cover the theater of military activities, are incorporated in the army staffs and are subordinate to them in military matters, namely:
“A. In the rear area: One economic inspectorate at each of the chief commands of the rear area; one or several mobile units of the economic section with the security divisions; one IV Wi group at each of the field command headquarters.
“B. In the army administration district: One IV Wi group (liaison officer Wi Rü Amt) with the army commander. One IV Wi group for each of the field commands attached to the army of the region; in addition, as and when necessary, economic units are sent forward to the armies in the field. These units are subordinate in military matters to the army command.”
Further on, in Paragraph 4 of this same section, under the title “Structure of the Individual Economic Institutions” the whole plan of construction of the Economic Staff East is described. I shall cite it in my own words in order to save time. The members of the Tribunal will find the document to which I refer at the back of Page 79 in the document book.
Chief of the Economic Staff with the leadership group (field of activity, leadership questions, also manpower); Group IA, in charge of food and agriculture, running the entire agricultural production and also the assembling of supplies for the army; Group W, in charge of industry, raw materials, forestry, finance, banking property, and trade; Group M, in charge of troop requirements, armaments, and transport; economic inspectorates attached to army groups, in charge of the economic exploitation of the rear area. Economic task forces organized in the zone of each security division and consisting of one officer as commander, and several specialists in different branches of the work. Economic groups attached to the field commands, who are responsible for supplying the immediate requirements of the troops stationed within the sphere of activity of the field command and for preparing the economic exploitation of the country in the interests of war economy.
To these economic groups were attached experts on manpower, food production and agriculture, industrial economy and general economic questions; the economic section, attached to the army command, with special technical battalions and platoons as well as special intelligence subsections for industrial research, particularly in the field of raw materials and crude oil, and subsections for discovering and securing agricultural produce and machines, including tractors.
This same plan also provides for special technical units for crude oil—battalions and companies—and also the so-called mining battalions.
Thus, under the direct control of the Defendant Göring, a whole army of plunderers of all ranks and branches was provided, prepared, trained, and drilled in advance for the organized pillage and looting of the national property of the U.S.S.R.
Your Honors, I will not take up your time by reading the whole text of the Green File; I shall limit myself to enumerating its remaining sections, which bear the following titles—Page 77 in the document book:
“Execution of individual economic tasks; Economic transport; Problems of military protection of economy; Procuring of supplies for the troops out of the resources of the country; Utilization of manpower, particularly of the local population; War booty, paid labor, captured material, prize courts; Economic objectives of war industries; Raw materials and utilization of goods available; Finance and credit; Foreign trade and clearings; Price control.”
Thus the plunder of all branches of the U.S.S.R.’s national economy was foreseen.
To conclude I shall read into the record Keitel’s order, dated 16 June 1941, 6 days before the attack on the U.S.S.R., in which he instructed all military units of the German Army to be ready to execute all the directives of the Green File. I shall now read this order—you will find this, Your Honors, at the back of Page 89 of the document book:
“By the Führer’s order, the Reich Marshal has issued ‘Directives for the Guidance of the Economic Administration of the Territories To Be Occupied.’
“These directives (Green File) are intended for the guidance of the military command and economic authorities in the economic tasks within the territories to be occupied in the immediate future. They contain directives for supplying the army from the resources of the country and give orders to army units to assist the economic authorities. Army units must comply with these directions and orders.
“The immediate and thorough exploitation of the territories to be occupied in the immediate future in the interest of Germany’s war economy, especially in the field of fuel and food supply, is of the highest importance for the further conduct of the war.”
I omit the second part of this order which contains detailed instructions as to how the directives of the Green File should be executed, and I read only the last paragraph of Keitel’s order:
“The exploitation of the country must be carried out on a wide scale, with the help of field and local headquarters, in the most important agricultural and oil-producing districts.
“Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, Keitel.”
The concluding provision of this document, which says that “the exploitation of the country must be carried out on a wide scale” was strictly observed by units of the German Army; and the occupied regions of the U.S.S.R., from the very first day of the war, were subjected to the most merciless plunder. In confirmation of this, I shall later present to the Tribunal a series of original German documents, orders, directives, instructions, decrees, and so forth, issued by German military authorities.
Meanwhile, to finish with the Green File, I may state in conclusion that this striking