dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
GEN. RUDENKO: The first quotation is: "Pursuant to the Fuehrer's"-HiMer's-"orders, it is necessary to take all measures for the immediate and full exploitation of the occupied territories for Germany's benefit. To obtain for Germany the largest possible amount of food supplies and crude oil-such is the main economic objective of the campaign. At the same time German industry must also be supplied with other kinds of raw materials from the occupied territories. The first task is to supply the German armies with the utmost speed entirely from the resources of the occupied territories." Second quotation: "The opinion that the occupied territories should be restored to order as soon as possible, and their economy re-established, is quite out of place.... The ... restoration of order must take place only in those areas from which we can obtain considerable supplies of agricultural products and crude oil; in others . . . economic activity must be limited to the exploitation of such stocks as are discovered." Third quotation: "All raw materials, semi-manufactured, and finished goods must be withdrawn from the markets by means of orders, requisitions, and confiscations. Platinum, magnesium, and rubber should be collected immediately and removed to Germany. Foodstuffs, as well as articles of domestic and personal use, and clothing discovered in the combat zone and in the rear areas, are to he placed, in the first instance, at the disposal of the economic detachments to satisfy the needs of the armies.... What is rejected by them will be passed on to the next highest war economy agency." As I have already said at the beginning, the main objective of the German aggression against the Soviet Union was to plunder the Soviet country and to obtain the economic resources necessary for Hitlerite Germany, without which she could not carry out her imperialistic plans of aggression. Goering's Green File represented the extensive program, developed beforehand by the fascist conspirators, for the organized plunder of the Soviet Union.
GEN. RUDENKO: This program laid down in advance concrete plans for plunder: The forcible confiscation of valuables, the organization of slave labor in our cities and villages, the abolition of ages in industrial establishments, the uncontrolled issue of completely insecure currency, et cetera. To materialize this program of plunder, the creation of special machinery was provided with its own economic command, economic staffs, its own intelligence, inspectorate, army units, detachments for collecting means of production, detachments for collecting raw materials, military agronomists, agricultural officers, et cetera. Together with the advancing German armies, there also moved detachments of the economic departments of the Army, whose task was to determine the available supplies of grain, cattle, fuel, and other property. These detachments were subordinated to a special economic inspectorate which had its seat in the rear areas. Soon after the attack on the U.S.S.R. Hitler's decree of 29 June 1941 placed the entire control of the loot of occupied territories in the hands of the Defendant Goering. By this decree Goering was given the right to take "all measures necessary for the maximum utilization of all stocks discovered and of the country's economic capacity in the interests of German war economy." The Defendant Goering directed the predatory activities of the German military and economic detachments with the greatest zeal.
GEN. RUDENKO: At a conference held on 6 August 1942 with the Reich commissioners and representatives of the military command, Goering demanded that the plunder of occupied territories be intensified: "You are sent there"-Goering pointed out-"not to work for the benefit of the peoples entrusted to you, but in order to pump out of them all that is possible."-And further on-"I intend to plunder and to plunder effectively." As established by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, these directives of Goering were carried out by the Reich ministers and representatives of German firms, under whose control were various kinds of economic groups, technical battalions, economic staffs, and economic inspectorates. Particularly active in the plunder of property of the Soviet Union were the German firms Friedrich Krupp A.G.; Hermann Goering; Siemens-Schuckert; the Mining and Metallurgical Company "Ost"; the Corporation "Nord"; Heinrich Lanz; Landmaschinenbauindustrie; I. G. Farbenindustrie, and many others. While they plundered and pillaged state and private property, the Hitlerite invaders doomed to starvation and death the population of the districts thus plundered. Field Marshal Reichenau's order of 10 October 1941, which was distributed as a model among all German units together with a note saying that Hitler considered it an excellent order, contained the following incitement to plunder and exterminate the population, "To supply local inhabitants and prisoners of war with food is an act of unnecessary humanity." The notes on the conference held in Rovno, from 26 to 28 August 1942, which were discovered in Defendant Rosenberg's files, state: "The object of our work is to make the Ukrainians work for Germany; we are not here to make these people happy. The Ukraine can give us what is lacking in Germany. This object must be achieved irrespective of losses." Following the directives of the Defendant Goering, the local authorities mercilessly and completely plundered the population of the occupied territories.
GEN. RUDENKO: An order discovered at a number of places in the Kursk and Orel districts by units of the Red Army contains a list of property to be handed over to the military authorities. Things like scales, sacks, salt, lamps, saucepans, oilcloth, blinds, and gramophones with records are mentioned in the order. "All this property," the order states, "must be delivered to the commander. Those guilty of infringing this order will be shot." In their fierce hatred of the Soviet people and their culture, the German invaders destroyed scientific and artistic institutions, historical and cultural monuments, schools and hospitals, clubs and theaters. "No historic or artistic treasures in the East", Field Marshal Reichenau decreed in his order, "are of importance." The destruction of historical and cultural treasures carried out by the Hitlerites assumed vast proportions. Thus, in a letter of 29 September 1941 from the Plenipotentiary General for Bielorussia to Rosenberg, it is stated: "According to the report of the major of the 707th Division, who today handed over to me the remaining treasures, the SS men left the rest of the pictures and works of art to be plundered by the armed forces; these included extremely valuable pictures and furniture dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, vases, marble sculptures, et cetera.... ". . .the museum of history was also completely destroyed. From the geographical section, valuable precious and semiprecious stones were looted. In the university, scientific instruments to a total value of hundreds of thousands of marks were senselessly smashed or stolen." In the territory of those districts of the Moscow province which were temporarily occupied by the fascists, the occupants destroyed and looted 112 libraries, 4 museums, and 54 theaters and cinemas. The Hitlerites looted and burnt the famous museum at Borodino, whose historical relics pertaining to the patriotic war of 1812 are particularly dear to the Russian people.
GEN. RUDENKO: In the small village of Polotayanny Zavod the occupants looted and burnt Pushkin's house, which had been turned into a museum. The Germans destroyed manuscripts, books and pictures which had belonged to Leo Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana. The German barbarians desecrated the grave of the great author The occupants looted the Bielorussian Academy of Science housing extremely rare collections of historic documents and books, and destroyed hundreds of schools, clubs, and theaters in Bielorussia (White Russia). From the Pevlovsk Palace in the town of Slutzk the extremely valuable palace furniture, made by outstanding craftsmen of the, 18th century, was removed to Germany. From the Peterhof palaces the Germans removed all the remaining sculptured and carved ornaments, carpets, pictures, and statues. The Great Palace of Peterhof, constructed in the reign of Peter I, was barbarously burnt after it had been looted. The German vandals destroyed the State Public Library at Odessa, containing over 2 million volumes. At Tchernigov a famous collection of Ukrainian antiquities was looted. At the Kievo-Petchersk Monastery the Germans seized documents from the archives of the metropolitans of Kiev and books from the private library of Peter Mogila, who had collected extremely valuable works on world literature. They looted the precious collections of the Lvov and Odessa museums and removed to Germany or partially destroyed the treasures of the libraries of Vinnitza and Poltava, where extremely rare copies of medieval literary manuscripts, the first printed editions of the 16th and the 17th centuries, and ancient missals were kept. The wholesale plunder in the occupied regions of the U.S.S.R., carried out on direct orders of the German Government, was not only directed by the Defendants Goering and Rosenberg and by the various staffs and detachments subordinated to them, but the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, with the Defendant Ribbentrop at its head, also took part in the looting through a special organization. The statement by Obersturmfuehrer, Dr.
GEN. RUDENKO: Norman Forster of the 4th Company, Special Task Battalion of the SS Troops (Waffen SS), published by the press at that time, bears witness of the fact. Forster stated in his deposition: "In August 1941, while I was in Berlin, I was detached from the 87th Antitank Division and assigned to the Special Task Battalion of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, through the help of Dr. Focke, an old acquaintance of mine at Berlin University, who was then working in the Press Division of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. This battalion was formed on the initiative of Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, and acted under his direction. . . 7, The task of this Special  Task Battalion consisted in seizing, immediately after the fall of large cities, their cultural and historical treasures, libraries of scientific institutions, selecting valuable editions of books and films, and then sending all these to Germany." And further: "We obtained rich trophies in the library of the Ukrainian Academy of Science, treasuring the rarest Persian, Abyssinian, and Chinese manuscripts, Russian and Ukrainian chronicles, the initial copies of books printed by the first Russian printer, Ivan Fyodorov, and rare editions of works by Shevtchenko, Mitzkevitch, and Ivan Franko." Side by side with the barbarous destruction and looting of villages, towns, and national cultural monuments, the Hitlerites also mocked the religious feelings of the believers among the Soviet population. They burnt, looted, destroyed, and desecrated on Soviet territory 1,670 Greek Orthodox churches, 237 Roman Catholic churches, 69 chapels, 532 synagogues, and 258 other buildings belonging to religious institutions. They destroyed the Uspensky Church of the famous Kievo-Petchersky Monastery, built in 1073, and with it eight monastery buildings.
GEN. RUDENKO: At Tchernigov, the Germano-fascist armies destroyed the ancient Borisoglebsky Cathedral, built at the beginning of the 12th century, the Cathedral of the Efrosiniev Monastery of Polotzk, built in 1160, and the Church of Paraskeva-Piatniza-in-the-Market, an extremely valuable monument of 12th century Russian architecture. At Novgorod the Hitlerites destroyed the Antoniev, Khutynsky, Zverin, Derevyanitzky and other ancient monasteries, the famous church of Spas-Nereditza, and a series of other churches. The German soldiers scoffed at the religious feelings of the people. They dressed up in church vestments, kept horses and dogs in the churches, and made bunks out of the icons. In the ancient Staritzky Monastery, units of the Red Army found the naked bodies of tortured Red Army prisoners of war, stacked in piles. The damage inflicted on the Soviet Union as a result of the destructive and predatory activities of German army units is extremely great. The German armies and occupational authorities, carrying out the orders of the criminal Hitlerite Government and of the High Command of the Armed Forces, destroyed and looted Soviet towns and villages and industrial establishments and collective farms seized by them; destroyed works of art, demolished, stole, and removed to Germany machinery, stocks of raw and other materials and finished goods, art and historic treasures, and carried out the general plundering of the urban and rural population. In the occupied territories of the Soviet Union 88 million persons lived before the war; gross industrial production amounted to 46 million rubles (at the fixed Government prices of 1926-27); there were 109 million head of livestock, including 31 million head of horned cattle and 12 million horses; 71 million hectares of cultivated land, and 122,000 kilometers of railway lines. The German fascist invaders completely or partially destroyed or burned 1,710 cities and more than 70,000 villages and hamlets; they burned or destroyed over 6 million buildings and rendered some 25 million persons homeless.
GEN. RUDENKO: Among the damaged cities which suffered most were the big industrial and cultural centers of Stalingrad, Sevastopol, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Odessa, Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov, Orel, Kharkov, Voronezh, Rostov- on-D on, and many others. B Feb. 46 The Germano-fascist invaders destroyed 31,850 industrial establishments employing some 4 million workers; they destroyed or removed from the country 239,000 electric motors and 175,000 metal cutting machines. The Germans destroyed 65,000 kilometers of railway tracks, 4,100 railway stations, 36,000 post and telegraph offices, telephone exchanges, and other installations for communications. The Germans destroyed or devastated 40,000 hospitals and other medical institutions, 84,000 schools, technical colleges, universities, institutes for scientific research, and 43,000 public libraries. The Hitlerites destroyed and looted 98,000 collective farms, 1,876 state farms, and 2,890 machine and tractor stations; they slaughtered, seized or drove into Germany 7 million horses, 17 million head of horned cattle, 20 million pigs, 27 million sheep and goats, and 110 million head of poultry. The total damage caused to the Soviet Union by the criminal acts of the Hitlerite armies has been estimated at 679,000 million rubles at the Government prices of 1941. All the defendants prepared, organized, and perpetrated indescribable and blasphemous crimes, such as have never before been committed in history, against humanity and against the principles of human ethics and of international law. In the statement of the offense in Count Four of the Indictment, it is rightly pointed out that the very plan or conspiracy was organized also for committing Crimes against Humanity. The fascist conspirators started committing Crimes against Humanity from the moment of the formation of the Hitler Party. These crimes attained vast proportions after the coming into power of the Hitlerites.
GEN. RUDENKO: The concentration camp of Buchenwald, set up in 1938, and the camp at Dachau, established in 1934, turned out to be only the anemic prototypes of Maidanek, Auschwitz, Slavuta, and numerous death camps, set up by the Hitlerites in the territories of Latvia, Bielorussia, and the Ukraine. The very coming into power of the Hitlerites was marked by many provocations which served as an excuse for committing grave Crimes against Humanity. Inflicting punishments without due process of law by the Hitlerites upon all who did not share the ideology of the fascist clique became widespread. "We deny the protection of law to the enemies of the people. We National Socialists knowingly take a stand against false soft-heartedness and false humaneness. We do not recognize the sophistry of tricky lawyers and cunning juridical subtleties"-wrote Goering, as early as 1934, in an article published overseas in the Hearst press. (Goering, Hermann, Reden and Aufsatze, Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Munich, 1940, Page 159.) In one of the articles, dated 1933, Goering regarded it as his special merit that he had reorganized the entire management of the Gestapo, having placed the Secret Police under his immediate control and organized concentration camps to be used in fighting political opponents. "Thus"-spoke Goering-"arose the concentration camps in which we soon had to stick thousands of people belonging to the Communist and Social Democratic Party machines." At the disposal of the Soviet Prosecution are the notes of Martin Bormann, found in the archives of the German Foreign Office and captured by the Soviet troops in Berlin, on the conference held by Hitler on 2 October 1940. This document refers to occupied Poland. It will be submitted to the Tribunal. At the moment I shall only quote from it a few points of the Hitlerite leadership program. The conference started with the statement by Frank that his activities as Governor General could be considered very successful: The Jews in Warsaw and other cities were locked up in ghettos.
GEN. RUDENKO: Very soon Krak6w would be entirely cleared of Jews. "There must be no Polish gentry"-the document went on to state-"wherever they may be, they must be exterminated, no matter how brutal this may sound. ". . . all representatives of the Polish intelligentsia must be exterminated. This sounds brutal, but such is the law of life.... Priests will be paid by us and, as a result, they will preach what we want. If we find a priest acting otherwise short work is to be made of him. The task of the priest consists in keeping the Poles quiet, stupid, and dull-witted. This is entirely in our interests. The lowest German workman and the lowest German peasant must always stand above any Pole economically." A special place among the unheard-of crimes of the Hitlerites is occupied by the bloody butchery of the Slavic and Jewish peoples. Hitler said to Rauschning: "After all these centuries of whining about the protection of the poor and the lowly, it is about time we decided to protect the strong against the inferior., It will be one of the chief tasks of German statesmanship for all times to prevent, by every means in our power, the further increase of the Slav races. Natural instincts bid all living beings not merely to conquer their enemies but to destroy them. In former days it was the victor's prerogative to destroy entire tribes, entire peoples." (Rauschning, H., The Voice of Destruction , New York, 1940, Page 138.) If Your Honors please, you have already heard the testimony of the witness, Eric Von dem Bach-Zelewski, about Himmler's aims, as given by him in his speech at the beginning of 1941. In answer to a question by a representative of the Soviet Prosecution, the witness declared, "Himmler mentioned in his speech that it was necessary to cut down the number of Slavs by 30 million." The Tribunal will see by this what monstrous proportions the criminal ideas of the Hitlerite fanatics attained. The Hitlerites vented their ferocity particularly on the Soviet intelligentsia.
GEN. RUDENKO: Even before the attack on the U.S.S.R., directives were prepared regarding the merciless annihilation of Soviet people for political and racial reasons. In Appendix 2 to Operational Order Number 8 of the Chief of the Security Police and SD, dated 17 June 1941, it was stated: "It is above all essential to ascertain the identity of all prominent Government and party officials, particularly professional revolutionaries, persons working for the Comintern, all influential members of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. and the affiliated organizations in the Central Committee and the district and regional committees, all people's commissars and their deputies, all former political commissars in the Red Army, leading personalities of the state institutions of the central and middle administrative levels, leading personalities in economic life, the Soviet Russian intelligentsia, and all . Jews." In a directive of 17 June 1941 for Security Police and SD detachments it is pointed out that it is necessary to take such measures, not only against the Russian people, but also against the Ukrainians, Bielorussians, Azerbaidahanians, Armenians, Georgians, Turks, and other nationalities. The Soviet Prosecution will present to the Tribunal actual documents and facts in this connection. The fascist conspirators planned the extermination to the last man of the Jewish population of the world and carried out this extermination throughout the whole of their conspiratorial activity from 1933 onwards. My American colleague has already quoted Hitler's statement of 24 February 1942, that "the Jews will be annihilated." In a speech by the Defendant Frank, published in the Krakow Gazette on 18 August 1942, it is stated: "Anyone who passes through Krakow, Lvov, Warsaw, Radom, or Lublin today must in all fairness admit that the efforts of the German administration have been crowned with real success, as one now sees hardly any Jews." The bestial annihilation of the Jewish population took place in the Ukraine, in Bielorussia, and in the Baltic States.
GEN. RUDENKO: In the town of Riga some 80,000 Jews lived before the German occupation. At the moment of the liberation of Riga by the Red Army there were 140 Jews left there. It is impossible to enumerate in an opening statement the crimes committed by the defendants against humanity. The Soviet Prosecution has at its disposal considerable documentary material which will be presented to the Tribunal.' If Your Honors please, I here appear as the representative of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, which bore the main brunt of the blows of the fascist invaders and which vastly contributed to the smashing of Hitlerite Germany and its satellites. On behalf of the Soviet Union, I charge the defendants on all the counts enumerated in Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal. Together with the Chief Prosecutors of the United States of America, Great Britain, and France, I charge the defendants with having prepared and carried out a perfidious attack on the peoples of my country and on all freedom-loving nations. I accuse them of the fact that, having initiated a world war, they, in violation of the fundamental rules of international law and of the treaties to which they were signatories, turned war into an instrument of extermination of peaceful citizens-an instrument of plunder, violence, and pillage. I accuse the defendants of the fact that, having proclaimed themselves to be the representatives of the "master race," a thing which they have invented, they set up, wherever their domination spread, an arbitrary regime of tyranny; a regime founded on the disregard' for the elementary principles of humanity. Now, when as a result of the heroic struggle of the Red Arms and of the Allied forces, Hitlerite Germany is broken and overwhelmed, we have no right to forget the victims who have suffered We have no right to leave unpunished those who organized and were guilty of monstrous crimes.