10 Dec. 45
products of that surplus territory. We
know that this is a harsh necessity, bare of any feelings. A very
extensive evacuation will be necessary, without any doubt, and it is
sure that the future will hold very hard years in store for the
Russians. A later decision will have to determine to what extent
industries can still be maintained there (wagon factories, et cetera).
The consideration and execution of this policy in the Russian area
proper is for the German Reich and its future a tremendous and by no
means negative task, as might appear, if one takes only the harsh
necessity of the evacuation into consideration. The conversion of
Russian dynamics towards the East is a task which requires the
strongest characters. Perhaps this decision will also be approved by a
coming Russia later, not in 30 but in a 100 years."
As I have indicated, the failure of the Nazi conspirators to defeat
Great Britain had served to strengthen them further in their belief of
the political necessity of eliminating the Soviet Union as a European
factor before Germany could completely achieve her role as the master of
Europe.
The economic motive for the aggression was brought out clearly in our
discussion of the organization set up under Göring and General
Thomas to carry out the economic exploitation of the territories they
occupied. The purely materialistic basis for the attack was
unmistakable; and if any doubt existed that at least one of the main
purposes of the invasion was to steal the food and raw material needed
for the Nazi war machine regardless of the horrible consequences such
robbery would entail, that doubt is dispelled by a memorandum, which
bears our Number 2718-PS and which I introduced earlier during my
opening statement as Exhibit USA-32, showing clear and conscious
recognition that these Nazi plans would no doubt result in starving to
death millions of people by robbing them of their food.
Along the similar line, on June 20, 1941 General Thomas wrote a
memorandum in which he stated that General Keitel had confirmed to him
Hitler's present conception of the German economic policy concerning raw
material. This policy expressed the almost unbelievably heartless theory
that less manpower would be used in the conquest of sources of raw
materials than would be necessary to produce synthetics in lieu of such
raw materials. This is our Document Number 1456-PS, and I offer it in
evidence as Exhibit USA-148. I should like to read the first two
paragraphs.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps we better do that after the adjournment.
[A recess was taken until 1400 hours.]