It is proposed to approach near to the city and to destroy it with the aid of an artillery barrage from weapons of different calibres and with long air attacks.
The problem of the life of the population and the provisioning of them 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 2,000,000,000 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 4,000,000 books, magazines and manuscripts (many of which were very valuable and even unique) and a large number of artistic productions and valuables of different kinds were stolen and carried away.
Many valuable art productions were taken away from Riga.
The extent of the plunder of cultural valuables is evidenced by the fact that 100,000 valuable volumes and 70 cases of ancient periodicals and precious monographs were carried away by Rosenberg’s staff alone.
Among further examples of these crimes are: