“Group W which is in charge of the entire field of trade and industry, including raw materials and suppliers; further questions of forestry, finance and banking, enemy property, commerce and exchange of commodities and manpower allocation.
“Secretary of State Backe is appointed Commissioner for Food and Agriculture in the General Staff; the problems falling within the field of activities of Group W are dealt with by General v. Hanneken.” (1157-PS)
The remainder of the document deals with local subdivisions, personnel and staffing problems, and similar details.
These documents portray the calculated method with which the Nazi conspirators prepared months in advance to rob and loot their intended victim. They show that the conspirators not only planned to stage an attack on a neighbor they had pledged to security, but that they also intended to strip that neighbor of its food, its factories, and all its means of livelihood. The Nazi conspirators made these plans for plunder being fully aware that to carry them out would necessarily involve ruin and starvation for millions of the inhabitants of the Soviet Union. (The story of how this plot was executed forms a part of the case to be presented by the Soviet prosecuting staff.)
E. Preparation for the Political Phase of the Aggression.
As has already been indicated, and as will be later more fully developed, there were both economic and political motives for the action of the Nazi conspirators in invading the Soviet Union. The economic aspects have been discussed. Equally elaborate planning was engaged in by the Nazi conspirators to insure the effectuation of the political aim of their aggression. That political aim may be described as the elimination of the U.S.S.R. as a powerful political factor in Europe, and the acquisition of Lebensraum. For the accomplishment of these purposes the Nazi conspirators selected as their agent Rosenberg.
As early as 2 April 1941 Rosenberg, or a member of his staff, prepared a memorandum on the U.S.S.R. (1017-PS). This memorandum speculates on the possibility of a disagreement with the U.S.S.R. which would result in a quick occupation of an important part of that country. The memorandum then considers what the political goal of such occupation should be and suggests ways for reaching such a goal. This memorandum begins:
“Subject: The U.S.S.R.
“Bolshevik Russia, just as the one-time Czarist Russia, is a conglomeration of peoples of very different types, which has come into being through the annexation of states of a related or even of an essentially alien character.
“A military conflict with the U.S.S.R. will result in an extraordinarily rapid occupation of an important and large section of the U.S.S.R. It is very probable that military action on our part will very soon be followed by the military collapse of the U.S.S.R. The occupation of these areas would then present not so many military as administrative and economic difficulties. Thus arises the first question: