18 Dec. 45
offer in evidence as Exhibit USA-385. The last
paragraph of this letter states as follows:
" ... On the other hand I also
support personally the work of your Einsatzstab wherever I can do so,
and a great part of the seized cultural objects can be accounted for
by the fact that I was able to assist the Einsatzstab with my
organizations."
If I have
tried the patience of the Tribunal with numerous details as to the
origin, the growth, and the operation of the art-looting organization,
it is because I feel that it will be impossible for me to convey to you
a full conception as to the magnitude of the plunder without conveying
to you first, information as to the vast organizational work that was
necessary in order to enable the defendants to collect in Germany
cultural treasures of staggering proportions.
Nothing of value was safe from the grasp of the Einsatzstab. In view of
the great experience of the Einsatzstab in the complex business of the
organized plunder of a continent, its facilities were well suited to the
looting of material other than cultural objects. Thus, when Rosenberg
required equipment for the furnishing of the offices of the
administration in the East, his Einsatzstab was pressed into action to
confiscate Jewish homes in the West. Document Number L-188, which is
Exhibit USA-386 and which I now offer in evidence, is a copy of a report
submitted by the director of Rosenberg's Office West, operating under
the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. I wish to quote at
some length from this document and I call the Tribunal's attention to
the third paragraph on Page 3 of the translation:
"The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter
Rosenberg was charged with the carrying out of this task" —
that is, the seizure of art properties — " in the course of
this seizure of property. At the suggestion of the Director West of
the Special Section of the Einsatzstab, it was proposed to the
Reichsleiter that the furniture and other contents of the unguarded
Jewish homes should also be secured and dispatched to the Minister for
the Occupied Eastern Territories for use in the Eastern Territories."
The last paragraph on the same page states:
"At first all the confiscated
furniture and goods were dispatched to the administrations of the
Occupied Eastern Territories. Owing to the terror attacks on German
cities which then began and in the knowledge that the bombed-out
persons in Germany ought to have preference over the Eastern people,
Reich Minister and Reichsleiter Rosenberg obtained a new order from
the Führer according to which