"The task for the economic treatment
of the various administrative regions is different, depending on
whether the country is involved which will be incorporated
politically into the German Reich, or whether we will deal with the
Government-General, which in all probability will not be made a part
of Germany. In the first mentioned territories, the... safeguarding
of all their productive facilities and supplies must be aimed at, as
well as a complete incorporation into the Greater German economic
system, at the earliest possible time. On the other hand, there must
be removed from the territories of the Government-General all raw
materials, scrap materials, machines, etc., which are of use for the
German war economy. Enterprises which are not absolutely necessary
for the meager maintenance of the naked existence of the population
must be transferred to Germany, unless such transfer would require an
unreasonably long period of time, and would make it more practicable
to exploit those enterprises by giving them German orders, to be
executed at their present location."
As a consequence of this order, agricultural
products, raw materials needed by German factories, machine tools,
transportation equipment, other finished products, and even foreign
securities and holdings of foreign exchange were all requisitioned
and sent to Germany. These resources were requisitioned in a manner
out of all proportion to the economic resources of those countries,
and resulted in famine, inflation, and an active black market. At
first the German occupation authorities attempted to suppress the
black market, because it was a channel of distribution keeping local
products out of German hands. When attempts at suppression failed, a
German purchasing agency was organized to make purchases for Germany
on the black market, thus carrying out the assurance made by the
Defendant Göring that it was "necessary that all should
know that if there is to be famine anywhere, it shall in no case be
in Germany."
In many of the occupied countries of the East and
the West, the authorities maintained the pretense of paying for all
the property which they seized. This elaborate pretense of payment
merely disguised the fact that the goods sent to Germany from these
occupied countries were paid for by the occupied countries
themselves, either by the device of excessive occupation costs or by
forced loans in return for a credit balance on a "clearing
account" which was an account merely in name.
In most of the occupied countries of the East even this pretense
of legality was not maintained; economic exploitation became
deliberate plunder. This policy was first put into effect in the