dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: 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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: 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 Goering 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 Korner 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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: 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 Korner 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 Page 62. Evidently Rosenberg did not receive the answer he wanted, so on 24 January 1944 he again wrote to Goering on the same subject. I submit this letter as Exhibit Number USSR-179 (Document Number USSR-179).
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: In this letter Rosenberg suggests -- I shall read into the record a short quotation, which the Tribunal will find on Page 151 of the document book: ". . . 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." Goering 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 Goering 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 Goering 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 Goering. This document I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-176 (Document Number USSR-176).
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: 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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: 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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: 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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: 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 districts and others. The German fascist invaders inflicted great damage on the state farms of the U.S.S.R. They shipped out of collective farms all stocks of agricultural products and destroyed farm and other buildings belonging to the state farms. Another excerpt: "Horse Farm Number 62 in the Poltava district lost its stock of Russo-American trotting brood mares through the German occupation. Up to the war, this stud farm had 670 brood mares. The Germans acted in the same way in regard to other breeding farms." I omit the remaining excerpt of this section; and I pass on to Paragraph 6, which deals with the mass looting of Soviet citizens' property by the Germans: "In all the republics, districts, and territories of the Soviet Union which were occupied, the fascist German invaders looted the property of the rural and urban population, stealing valuables, property, clothing, and household articles, and imposing fines, taxes, and contributions on the peaceful population." The same section contains a whole series of concrete facts of the plunder of Soviet citizens in Smolensk, Orel and Leningrad Provinces; the Dniepropetrovsk and Sumsky Provinces, et cetera .
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: With the Tribunal's permission, I omit two pages of my presentation, and I read the following paragraph at the bottom of Page 76: "The plundering of the Soviet population was being carried out by the German aggressors throughout the whole of the occupied Soviet territory. "The Extraordinary State Commission has undertaken the task of estimating the damage done to the Soviet citizens by the occupation authorities and has established that the German fascist invaders burned down and destroyed approximately four million dwelling houses which were the personal property of collective farmers, workers, and employees; confiscated 1 1/2 million horses, 9 million head of cattle, 12 million pigs, 13 million sheep and goats; and took away an enormous quantity of household goods and chattel of all kinds." The above documents and reports of the Extraordinary State Commission depict the crimes committed by the Hitlerites in the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R. These crimes had been organized by the defendants. The fact that Goering, in his capacity as Reich Marshal and Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan of the Hitlerite Government, was directly in charge of all the operations of the German military and civil authorities for the preparation and execution of despoliation of the occupied territories, is clearly shown by the documents which I have already presented. Nevertheless, I beg the indulgence of the Tribunal to read the final document on this matter, that is, the decree issued by Hitler on 29 June 1941. A copy of this decree was kindly put at our disposal by the American Prosecution, and it has not yet been presented. I, therefore, present it to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-287 (Document Number USSR-287). This decree reads as follows: "1.
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: Reich Marshal Hermann Goering, as Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, will employ, within the scope of the power allotted to him for the purpose, all means necessary for exploiting to the fullest extent supplies and economic resources discovered in the newly occupied eastern territories and for developing all their economic possibilities for the benefit of the German war economy. "2. For this purpose he is also authorized to give direct orders to military authorities in the newly occupied eastern territories. "3. This decree will become effective as from today. It must first be made public by special order." However, Your Honors, the granting of extraordinary powers to Goering does not, in any way, mean that the other defendants took only a passive interest in organizing the looting of the occupied territories. All of them, jointly and separately, worked feverishly in this direction. Frank robbed the Poles; Rosenberg managed affairs in the Ukraine and in the other occupied territories of the U.S.S.R.; Sauckel and Seyss-Inquart were busy here and there; Speer and Funk made schemes for and carried out predatory measures within the scope of the Ministry of Economics and the Ministry for Armament and War Production, while Keitel acted in the field of the Armed Forces. In this connection I should like to submit to the Tribunal two more documents relating to Keitel's economic activities. These documents, Your Honors, are presented to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-175 (Document Number USSR-175). On 29 August 1942 Keitel, in his capacity of Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, issued the following order under "Number 002865/42-g.Kdos. regarding securing of supplies for the Armed Forces." I shall read only two short excerpts from this order. Your Honors will find them on Page 181 of the document book. I read: "The food situation of the German people is such that it is necessary for the Armed Forces to contribute as far as possible towards alleviating it.
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: All the necessary means of doing so exist in the combat zones and in the occupied territories both in the East and in the West. "It is essential, above all, that much greater quantities of supplies and forage . . . should be secured in the occupied territories of the East than has been the case up to now." The second excerpt: "All establishments should consider it their pride as well as their duty to attain this goal at all costs so that in this field, too, they may play a decisive part in achieving victory." "By order of the Fuehrer, the Chief of the OKW has decreed in the attached order of 29 August 1942 that the Armed Forces must, as far as possible, contribute towards the task of ensuring food supplies for the German people and that they must themselves make every effort, not only to obtain sufficient food supplies locally to cover the needs of the armies, but also to ensure that the quantities required by the Reich are secured in addition. "As the result of this order co-operation between the Army and the economic authorities has fortunately grown closer." Now with Your Honor's permission, I shall read into the record one more document, namely, a telegram sent by Keitel on 8 September 1944. This document was kindly put at our disposal by the American Prosecution and registered as Document Number 743-PS. It was not presented to the Tribunal before; I therefore submit it now as Exhibit Number USSR-286, and I quote: "1. To General Staff of the Army: Attention General Quartermaster, Office of Chief of Staff, (Anna). "2. To General Staff of the Army: Attention General Quartermaster, Army Administration Office, (Anna-Bu). "3. To Commanding General, Army Group North. "4. To Commanding General, Army Group Center. "5. To Economic Staff East. "6. To Military District H.Q.I." I read this text as follows: "1. The Fuehrer has entrusted Gauleiter Koch with the utilization of local resources in the parts of Reichskommissariat Ostland occupied by troops of Army Group Center.
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: Furthermore, the Fuehrer has ordered that all German and local administrative authorities be subordinated to Gauleiter Koch. In securing economic resources, Gauleiter Koch is to maintain contact with competent Supreme Reich agencies. "2. All authorities of the Armed Forces will give Gauleiter Koch every assistance in their power in executing this order." Thus, Your Honors, even at the end of 1944, when under the blows of the Red Army and its allies Hitlerite Germany was precipitated towards its final defeat and only a few months before its final military and political collapse, Hitler, Keitel, Koch, and many others were still stretching out their already stiffening fingers to grab the property and wealth of others. This is the evidence I have to show regarding the looting and marauding perpetrated by the Hitlerite hordes in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. But they plundered not only the living, they also plundered the dead. My colleague, Colonel Smirnov, has already presented comprehensive evidence on this question. I do not wish to quote it again, but I refer to it only to show how closely interlocked and all-embracing was the circle of their crimes. As Rauschning testifies in his book, which has already been presented by the Soviet Prosecution to the Tribunal, Hitler once said: "I need people with strong fists whose principles will not prevent them from taking human life if necessary; and if on occasion they swipe a watch or a jewel, I don't care a tinker's damn." And Hitler actually found these men in the persons of the defendants and their numerous accomplices. As the documents which I have just presented show, the Defendant Goering, on account of his position in Hitler's Government as Reich Marshal and Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan and as head of the whole criminal system for the plundering of the occupied territories, was guilty of these crimes.