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"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
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