20 Nov. 45
villages and hamlets, more than 6 million buildings and rendered
homeless about 25 million persons.
Among the cities which suffered most destruction are Stalingrad,
Sevastopol, Kiev, Minsk, Odessa, Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov, Orel,
Kharkov, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, Stalino, and Leningrad.
As is evident from an official memorandum of the German Command,
the Nazi conspirators planned the complete annihilation of entire
Soviet cities. In a completely secret order of the Chief of the Naval
Staff (SKL Ia No. 1601/41, dated 29 September 1941) addressed only to
Staff officers, it was said:
"The Führer has decided to
erase Petersburg from the face of the earth. The existence of this
large city will have no further interest after Soviet Russia is
destroyed. Finland has also said that the existence of this city on
her new border is not desirable from her point of view. The original
request of the Navy that docks, harbor, et cetera, necessary
for the fleet be preserved is known to the Supreme Command of the
German Armed Forces, but the basic principles of carrying out
operations against Petersburg do not make it possible to satisfy this
request.
"It is proposed to approach near to the city and to destroy
it with the aid of an artillery barrage from weapons of different
calibers and with long air attacks...
"The problem of the lives of the population and of their
provisioning is a problem which cannot and must not be decided by us.
"In this war . . . we are not interested in preserving even
a part of the population of this large city."
The Germans destroyed 427 museums, among them the
wealthy museums of Leningrad, Smolensk, Stalingrad, Novgorod,
Poltava, and others.
In Pyatigorsk the art objects brought there from the Rostov
museum were seized.
The losses suffered by the coal mining industry alone in the
Stalin region amount to 2 billion rubles. There was colossal
destruction of industrial establishments in Makerevka, Carlovka,
Yenakievo, Konstantinovka, Mariupol, from which most of the machinery
and factories were removed.
Stealing of huge dimensions and the destruction of industrial,
cultural, and other property was typified in Kiev. More than 4
million books, magazines, and manuscripts (many of which were very
valuable and even unique) and a large number of artistic productions
and divers valuables were stolen and carried away.
Many valuable art productions were taken away from Riga.