. NMT05-T0976
Volume V · Page 976
| LOOTING OF PUBLIC AND
PRIVATE PROPERTY |
| The story of systematic pillage of occupied countries is related in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal (pp. 238-243, Official Edition), which this Tribunal adopts as findings of fact in this case. It is a tale of ruthless depravity unequalled in history. It was not confined to looting by individuals or isolated detachments. It was the carrying out of a general military policy, announced by the top command at the outset of the war. As early as October 1939, Goering issued the following directive: |
"The task for the economic treatment of the various administrative regions is different, depending on whether the country which is involved will be incorporated politically into the German Reich, or whether we will deal with the Government General, which in all probabilty 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. * * *" |
| In pursuance of this policy of deliberate plunder, Poland, the Ukraine, and the occupied parts of Russia were stripped of agricultural supplies, food, raw materials, manufactured articles and such machinery as could not be used for German purposes where it stood. Obviously, this left large numbers of the population of these countries to starve, a fact which did not concern the German forces in the least. Alfred Rosenberg, Reich Minister for the occupied Eastern territories, bluntly stated in 1941 that the produce of Southern Russian and the Northern Caucasus should be taken to the Reich to feed the German people. He said: |
"We see absolutely no reason for any obligation on our part to feed also the Russian people with the products of that surplus territory. We know that this is a harsh necessity, bare of any feelings." |
| To call such inhuman policy, "a harsh necessity," is the acme of understatement. It was deliberate murder by starvation, nothing less. To show that the policy of plunder was not prompted by economic needs alone or the necessity of supplying the German Army and population with necessities, we find that churches, libraries, art galleries, and museums, not only in the East but in |
