Wehrmacht Adjutant to the Fuehrer”.
(C-78)
There is attached a list of participants and the order in which they will report. The list includes a large number of the members of the High Command and General Staff Group as of that date. Among those to participate were Goering, Keitel, Jodl, and Raeder.
The foregoing documents are sufficient to establish the premeditation and calculation which marked the military preparations for the invasion of the U.S.S.R. Starting almost a full year before the launching of the attack, the Nazi conspirators planned and prepared every military detail of their aggression against the Soviet Union with all that thoroughness and meticulousness which has come to be associated with the German character. The leading roles were performed in this preparation by the military figures—Goering, Keitel, Jodl, and Raeder.
D. Plans for the Economic Exploitation and Spoliation of the U.S.S.R.
Not only was there detailed preparation for the invasion from a purely military standpoint, but equally elaborate and detailed planning was undertaken by the Nazi conspirators to insure that their aggression would prove economically profitable. The motives which led the conspirators to plan and launch attack were both political and economic. The economic basis may be simply summarized as the greed of the Nazi conspirators for the raw material, food, and other supplies which their neighbor possessed and which they conceived of themselves as needing for the maintenance of their war machine. To the Nazi conspirators a need was translated as a right, and they early began planning and preparing with typical care and detail to insure that every bit of the plunder which it would be possible to reap in the course of their aggression would be exploited to their utmost benefit.
As early as August 1940 General Thomas, Chief of the Wi Rue Amt, received a hint from Goering about a possible attack on the U.S.S.R., which prompted him to begin considering the Soviet war economy. In November 1940—8 months before the attack—Thomas was categorically informed by Goering of the planned operation in the East, and preliminary preparations were commenced for the economic plundering of the territories to be occupied in the course of such operation (2353-PS). Goering played the overall leading role in this activity by virtue of his position at the head of the Four Year Plan. Thomas describes his receipt of the knowledge and this early planning in these terms:
“* * * In November, 1940, the Chief of the Wi Rue together with Secretaries of state Koerner, Neumann, Backe and General von Hanneken were informed by the Reichmarshal of the action planned in the East.
“By reason of these directives the preliminary preparations for the action in the East were commenced by the office of Wi Rue at the end of 1940.
“The preliminary preparations for the action in the East included first of all the following tasks: