dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. ALDERMAN: Timetable: "a) 1100 hours, "Silver Fox"; b) 1200 hours-1400 hours, Army Group South; c) 1400 hours-1530 hours, lunch party for all participants in conference; d) from 1530 hours, Baltic, Army Group North, Army Group Center, in this order." It is signed by Schmundt. There is attached a list of participants and the order in which they will report which I shall not read. The list includes, however, a large number of the members of the Defendant High Command and General Staff group as of that date. Among those to participate were, of course, the Defendants Goering, Keitel, Jodl, and Raeder. I believe that the documents which I have introduced and quoted from are more than sufficient to establish conclusively the premeditation and cold-blooded calculation which marked the military preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Starting almost a full year before the commission of the crime, the Nazi conspirators planned and prepared every military detail of their aggression against the Soviet Union with all of that thoroughness and meticulousness which has come to be associated with the German character. Although several of these defendants played specific parts in this military phase of the planning and preparation for the attack, it is natural enough that the leading roles were performed, as we have seen, by the military figures: the Defendants Goering, Keitel, Jodl, and Raeder. Next, preparation for plunder-plans for the economic exploitation and spoliation of the Soviet Union. Not only was there detailed preparation for the invasion from a purely military standpoint, but equally elaborate and detailed planning and preparation was undertaken by the Nazi conspirators to ensure that their aggression would prove economically profitable. A little later in my presentation I shall discuss with the Tribunal the motives which led these conspirators to attack, without provocation, a neighboring power. I shall at that time show that the crime was motivated by both political and economic considerations.
MR. ALDERMAN: The economic basis, however, may be simply summarized at this point as the greed of the Nazi conspirators for the raw material, food, and other supplies which their neighbor possessed and which they conceived of themselves as needing for the maintenance of their war machine. To these defendants such a need was translated indubitably as a right, and they early began planning and preparing with typical care and detail to ensure that every bit of the plunder which it would be possible to reap in the course of their aggression would be exploited to their utmost benefit. I have already put into the record evidence showing that as early as August of 1940 General Thomas, the chief of the B Group Army, received a hint from the Defendant Goering about a possible attack on the U.S.S.R. which prompted him to begin considering the Soviet war economy. I also said at that time that I would later introduce evidence that in November 1940-8 months before the attack-Thomas was categorically informed by Goering of the planned operation in the East and preliminary preparations were commenced for the economic plundering of the territories to be occupied in the course of such operation. Goering, of course, played the overall leading role in this activity by virtue of his position at the head of the Four Year Plan. Thomas describes his receipt of the knowledge and this early planning at Page 369 of his draft, which is our Document 2353-PS Introduced earlier as Exhibit USA-35; the part I shall read is at Pages 10 and 11 of the English translation: "In November 1940 the Chief of Wi Ru together with Secretaries of State Korner, Neumann, Backe, and General Von Hanneken were informed by the Reich Marshal of the action planned in the East. "By reason of these directives the preliminary preparations for the action in the East were commenced by the office of Wi Ru at the end of 1940. "The preliminary preparations for the action in the East included first of all the following tasks: "1.
MR. ALDERMAN: Obtaining of a detailed survey of the Russian armament industry, its location, its capacity, and its associate industries. "2. Investigation of the capacities of the different big armament centers and their dependency one on the other. "3. Determining the power and transport system for the industry of the Soviet Union. "4. Investigation of sources of raw materials and petroleum (crude oil). "5. Preparation of a survey of industries other than armament industries in the Soviet Union. "These points were concentrated in one big compilation, 'War Economy of the Soviet Union,' and illustrated with detailed maps."-I am still quoting.-"Furthermore a card index was made containing all the important factories in Soviet Russia and a lexicon of economy in the German-Russian language for the use of the German war economy organization. "For the processing of these problems a task staff, 'Russia,' was created, first in charge of Lieutenant Colonel Luther and later on in charge of Major General Schubert. The work was carried out according to the directives from the chief of the office, respectively"-I suppose-"by the group of departments for foreign territories"-Ausland-"with the co-operation of all departments, economy offices, and any other persons possessing information on Russia. Through these intensive preparative activities an excellent collection of material was made which proved of the utmost value later on for carrying out the operations and for administering the territories." That ends the quotation. By the end of February 1941 this preliminary planning had proceeded to a point where a broader plan of organization was needed, and so General Thomas held a conference with his subordinates on 28 February 1941 to call for such a plan. A memorandum of this conference, classified top secret and dated 1 March 1941, was captured, and is our Document 1317-PS. I now offer it in evidence as Exhibit USA-140. The text of this memorandum reads as follows: "The general ordered that a broader plan of organization be drafted for the Reich Marshal.
MR. ALDERMAN: "Essential Points: "1. The whole organization to be subordinate to the Reich Marshall Purpose: Support and extension of the measures of the Four Year Plan. "2. The organization must include everything concerning war economy, excepting only food which is said to be made already a special mission of State Secretary Backe. "3. Clear statement that the organization is to be independent of the military or civil administration. Close co-ordination, but instructions direct from the central office in Berlin. "4. Scope of activities to be divided into two steps: a) Accompanying the advancing troops directly behind the front lines in order to avoid the destruction of supplies and to secure the removal of important goods; b) Administration of the occupied industrial districts and exploitation of economically complementary districts." I And then, on the bottom of Page 1: "5. In view of the extended field of activity the term 'war economy inspection' is to be used in preference to armament inspection. "6. In view of the great field of activity the organization must be generously equipped and personnel must be correspondingly numerous. The main mission of the organization will consist of seizing raw materials and taking over all important exploitations. For the latter mission reliable persons from German concerns will be interposed suitably from the beginning, since successful operation from the beginning can only be performed by the aid of their experience. (For example: lignite, ore, chemistry, petroleum). "After the discussion of further details Lieutenant Colonel Luther was instructed to make an initial draft of such an organization within a week. "Close co-operation with the individual sections in the building is essential. An officer must still be appointed for the Wi and Ru with whom the operational staff can remain in constant contact. Wi is to give each section chief and Lieutenant Colonel Luther a copy of the new plan regarding Russia. "Lieutenant General Schubert is to be asked to be in Berlin the second half of next week.
MR. ALDERMAN: Also, the four officers who are ordered to draw up the individual armament inspections are to report to the office chief at the end of the week. signed- Hamann." Hamann, who signed the report, is listed among those attending as a captain and apparently the junior officer present, so presumably it fell naturally enough to Hamann to prepare the notes on the conference. The authority and mission of this organization which Thomas was organizing at the direction of Goering was clearly recognized by Keitel in his operational order of 13 March 1941. This order is Number 447-PS, and I have already offered it in evidence earlier as Exhibit USA-135. At that time I quoted the paragraph in The order in which it was stated that the Fuehrer had entrusted the uniform direction of the administration of economy in the areas of operation and political administration to the Reich Marshal who in turn had delegated his authority to the Chief of the Wi Ru Amt. The organizational work called for by General Thomas at the meeting on 28 February apparently proceeded apace, and on 29 April 1941 a conference was held with various branches d the Armed Forces to explain the organizational set-up of the Economic Staff "Oldenburg.', Oldenburg was the code name given to this economic counterpart of Plan Barbarossa. A report of this conference is captured Document Number 1157-PS, and I now offer it in evidence as Exhibit USA-141. Section 1 of this memorandum deals with the general organization of Economic Staff Oldenburg as it had developed by this time, and I should like to read most of that section into the record. The report begins: "Conference with the Branches of the Armed Forces at 1000 hours on Tuesday, 29th April 1941. "1. Welcome. Purpose of the meting: Introduction to the organizational structure of the economic section of the undertaking Barbarossa-Oldenburg.
MR. ALDERMAN: "As already known, the Fuehrer, contrary to previous procedure, has ordered for this drive the uniform concentration in one hand of all economic operations and has entrusted the Reich Marshal with the overall direction of the economic administration in the area of operations and in the areas under political administration. "The Reich Marshal has delegated this function to an Economic General Staff working under the director of the Economic Armament Office (Chief, Wi Ru Amt). "Under the Reich Marshal and the Economic General Staff the supreme central authority in the area of the drive itself is the"-and then a heading-"Economic Staff Oldenburg for special duties under the command of Lieutenant General Schubert. His subordinate authorities, geographically subdivided, are: 5 economic inspectorates, 23 economic commands, and 12 district offices which are distributed among important places within the area of the economic command. "These offices are used in the military rear area. The idea is that in the territory of each army group an economic inspectorate is to be established at the seat of the commander of the military rear area, and that this inspectorate will supervise the economic exploitation of the territory. "A distinction must be made between the military rear area and the bathe area proper on the one hand, and the rear area of the army on the other hand. In the latter, economic matters are dealt with by the Group IV Economy"-IV Wi- "of the Army Headquarters Command, that is, the liaison officer of the Economic Armament Office within the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces assigned to the Army Headquarters Command. For the battle area he has attached to him technical battalions, reconnaissance and recovery troops for raw materials, mineral oil, agricultural machinery, in particular, tractors and means of production.
MR. ALDERMAN: "In the rear area of the Army situated between the battle and the military rear area, Group IV Economy with the various field commands are placed at the disposal of the liaison officer of the Economic Armament Office for the support of the specialists of the Army Headquarters Command, who are responsible for supplying the troops from the country's resources and for preparing the subsequent general economic exploitation. "While these units move with the troops, economic inspectorates, economic commands and their sub-offices remain established in the locality. "The new feature inherent in the organization under the command of the Economic Staff Oldenburg is that it does not only deal with military industry but comprises the entire economic field. Consequently all offices are no longer to be designated as offices of the military industries or armaments but quite generally as economic inspectorates, economic commands, et cetera . "This also corresponds with the internal organization of the individual offices which, from the Economic Staff Oldenburg down to the economic commands, requires a standard subdivision into three large groups, i. e. Group M, dealing with troop requirements, armaments, industrial transport organization; Group L, which concerns itself with all questions of feeding and agriculture, and Group W. which is in charge of the entire field of trade and industry, including raw materials and supplies; further, questions of forestry, finance and banking, enemy property, commerce and exchange of commodities, and manpower allocation. "Secretary of State Backe is appointed Commissioner for Food and Agriculture in the General Stab; the problems falling within the field of activities of Group W are dealt with by General Von Hanneken." The remainder of the document deals with local subdivisions, personnel and planing problems, and similar details, which I think it unnecessary to put into the record.
MR. ALDERMAN: These documents portray vividly the coldly calculated method with which those Nazis prepared months in advance to rob and loot their intended victim. They show that the conspirators not only planned to stage a wanton attack on a neighbor to whom they had pledged security, but they also intended to strip that neighbor of his food, his factories, and all his means of livelihood. As I shall point out more fully later when I discuss the question of motivation, these men made their plans for plunder being fully aware that to carry them out would necessarily involve ruin and starvation for millions of the inhabitants of the Soviet Union.
THE PRESIDENT: This would be a good time to adjourn. [A recess was taken.]
MR. ALDERMAN: May the Tribunal please, I have been informed by the interpreters that I have been speaking at a great speed this morning, so I shall try to temper the speed. Next, the politics of destruction; preparation for the political phase of the aggression. As I have already indicated and as I shall develop more fully later in this discussion, there were both economic and political reasons motivating the action of the conspirators in invading the Soviet Union. I have already discussed the extent of the planning and preparations for the economic side of the aggression. Equally elaborate planning and preparation were engaged in by the conspirators to ensure the effectuation of the political aims of their aggression. It is, I believe, sufficient at this point to describe that political aim as the elimination of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a powerful political factor in Europe and the acquisition of Lebensraum. For the accomplishment of this purpose the Nazi conspirators selected as their agent the Defendant Rosenberg. As early as the 2d of April 1941 Rosenberg or a member of his staff prepared a memorandum on the U.S.S.R. This memorandum speculates on the possibility of a disagreement with the U.S.S.R. which would result in a quick occupation of an important part of that country. This memorandum then considers what the political goal of such occupation should be and suggests ways for reaching such a goat The memorandum is Number 1017-PS in our series, and I offer it in evidence now as Exhibit USA-142. Beginning with the second paragraph it reads, under the subject "U.S.S.R.": "A military conflict with the U.S.S.R. will result in an extraordinarily rapid occupation of an important and large section of me U.S.S.R. It is very probable that military action on our part will very soon be followed by the military collapse of me U.S.S.R. The occupation of these areas would then present not so many military as administrative and economic difficulties.
MR. ALDERMAN: Thus arises the first question: "Is the occupation to be determined by purely military or economic needs respectively, or is the laying of political foundations for a future organization of the area also a factor in determining how far the occupation shall be extended? If so, it is a matter of urgency to fix the political goal which is to be attained, for it will without doubt also have an effect on military operations. "If the political overthrow of the eastern empire, in the weak condition it would be at the time, is set as the goal of military operations, one may conclude that: "1) The occupation must comprise areas of vast proportions. "2) From the very beginning the treatment of individual sections of territory should, in regard to administration as well as economics and ideology, be adapted to the political ends we are striving to attain. "3) Again, extraordinary questions concerning these vast areas such as, in particular, the ensuring of essential supplies for the continuation of war against England, the maintenance of production which this necessitates, and the great directives for the completely separate areas, should best be dealt with all together in one place. "It should again be stressed here that, in addition, all the arguments which follow only hold good, of course, once the supplies from the area to be occupied, which are essential to Greater Germany for the continuance of the war, have been assured. "Anyone who knows the East sees in a map of Russia's population the following national or geographical units: "(a) Greater Russia, with Moscow as its center; (b) White Russia, with Minsk or Smolensk as its capital; (c) Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; (d) The Ukraine and the Crimea, with Kiev as its center; (e) The Don area, with Rostov as its capital; (I) The area of the Caucasus; (g) Russian Central Asia or Russian Turkestan." The memorandum then proceeds to discuss each of the areas or geographical units in some detail, and I shall not read those pages.
MR. ALDERMAN: At the end of the paper, however, the writer sums up his thoughts and briefly outlines his plan. I should like to read that portion into the record. It is at the bottom of Page 4 of the English translation under the heading "Summary": "The following systematic constructional plan is evolved from the points briefly outlined here: "(1) The creation of a central department for the occupied areas of the U.S.S.R. to be confined more or less to war time. Working in agreement with the higher and supreme Reich authorities, it would be the task of this department: "(a), To issue binding political instructions to the separate administration areas, having in mind the situation existing at the time and the goal which is to be achieved; "(b) To secure for the Reich supplies essential to the war from all the occupied areas; "(c) To make preparations for, and to supervise the carrying out in main outline of, the primarily important questions for all areas, as for instance, those of finance and funds, transport, and the production of oil, coal, and food. "(2) The carrying out of sharply defined decentralization in the separate administration areas, grouped together by race or by reason of political economy for the carrying out of the totally dissimilar tasks assigned to them. "As against this, an administrative department regulating matters in principle and to be set up on a purely economic basis, as is at present envisaged, might very soon prove to be inadequate and fail in its purpose. Such a central office would be compelled to carry out a common policy for all areas, dictated only by economic considerations, and this might impede the carrying out of the political task and, in view of its being run on purely bureaucratic lines, might possibly even prevent it. "The question therefore arises whether the opinions which have been set forth should not, purely for reasons of expediency, be taken into consideration from the very beginning when organizing the administration of the territory on a basis of war economy.
MR. ALDERMAN: In view of the vast spaces and the difficulties of administration which arise from that alone, and also in view of the living conditions created by Bolshevism, which are totally different from those of Western Europe, the whole question of the U.S.S.R. would require different treatment from that which has been applied in the individual countries of Western Europe."
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Is that signed?
MR. ALDERMAN: It is not signed. No, Sir.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Is it in the Defendant Rosenberg's handwriting?
MR. ALDERMAN: It was in the Rosenberg file.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Is there anything to indicate that he wrote it?
MR. ALDERMAN: No. I said it was evidently prepared by Rosenberg or under his authority. We captured the whole set of Rosenberg files, which constitutes really a large library. It is evident that the "presently envisaged administration operating on a purely economic basis" to which this memorandum described as having been set up under Goering and General Thomas. Rosenberg's statement-if this be his statement-of the political purpose of the invasion and his analysis of the achieving of it apparently did not fall on deaf ears. By a Fuehrer order, dated 20 April 1941, Rosenberg was named commissioner for the central control of questions connected with the east European region. This order is part of the correspondence regarding Rosenberg's appointment, which has been given the Number 865-PS in our series. I ask that this file, ad relating to the same subject and consisting of four letters, all of which I shall read or refer to, be admitted in evidence as Exhibit USA-143. The order itself reads as follows-it is the first item on the English translation of 865-PS: "I name Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg as my commissioner for the central control of questions connected with the east European region. An office, which is to be furnished in accordance with his orders, is at the disposal of Reichsleiter Rosenberg for the carrying out of the duties thereby entrusted to him. The necessary money for this office is to be taken out of the Reich Chancellery Treasury in a lump sum. "Fuehrer's headquarters, 20th April 1941. The Fuehrer, signed, Adolf Hitler; Reich Minister and Head of Reich Chancellery, signed, Dr. Lammers." This particular copy of the Fuehrer's order was enclosed in a letter which Dr. Lammers wrote to the Defendant Keitel requesting his co-operation for Rosenberg and asking that Keitel appoint a deputy to work with Rosenberg. This letter reads as follows-it is on the stationery of the Reich Minister and the Head of the Reich Chancellery, Berlin, 21 April 1941.