commandos, groups) was created under the supervision
of the Defendant Göring. In conjunction with the military
command, these units were to achieve the most complete and efficient
economic exploitation of the occupied territories in the interest of
Germany.
The framework of the future political and economic organization
of the occupied territories was designed by the Defendant Rosenberg
over a period of three months, after conferences with and assistance
by the Defendants Keitel, Jodl, Raeder, Funk, Göring, Von
Ribbentrop, and Frick, or their representatives. It was made the
subject of a most detailed report immediately after the invasion.
These plans outlined the destruction of the Soviet Union as an
independent State, and its partition, the creation of so-called Reich
Commissariats, and the conversion of Estonia, Latvia, Bielorussia,
and other territories into German colonies.
At the same time Germany drew Hungary, Rumania, and Finland into
the war against the U.S.S.R. In December 1940 Hungary agreed to
participate on the promise of Germany that she should have certain
territories at the expense of Yugoslavia.
In May 1941 a final agreement was concluded with Antonescu, the
Prime Minister of Rumania, regarding the attack on the U.S.S.R., in
which Germany promised to Rumania, Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and
the right to occupy Soviet territory up to the Dnieper.
On 22 June 1941, without any declaration of war, Germany invaded
Soviet territory in accordance with the plans so long made.
The evidence which has been given before this Tribunal proves
that Germany had the design carefully thought out, to crush the
U.S.S.R. as a political and military power, so that Germany might
expand to the east according to her own desire. In Mein Kampf, Hitler
had written: "If new territory were to be acquired in Europe, it
must have been mainly at Russia's cost, and once again the new German
Empire should have set out on its march along the same road as was
formerly trodden by the Teutonic Knights, this time to acquire soil
for the German plough by means of the German sword and thus provide
the Nation with its daily bread." But there was a more immediate
purpose, and in one of the memoranda of the OKW, that immediate
purpose was stated to be to feed the German Armies from Soviet
territory in the third year of the war, even if "as a result
many millions of people will be starved to death if we take out of
the country the things necessary for us."
The final aims of the attack on the Soviet Union were formulated
at a conference with Hitler on 16 July 1941, in which the Defendants
Göring, Keitel, Rosenberg, and Bormann participated:
"There can be no talk of the
creation of a military power west of the Urals, even if we should
have to fight 100 years to