Again, at page 654 of the same edition:
“And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-war period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the east. At long last we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-war period and shift to the soil policy of the future.
“If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states.”
The political portion of this dichotomy of purpose is clearly reflected in the stated purposes, previously discussed, of the organization which Rosenberg set up to administer the occupied Eastern Territories. In a speech which Rosenberg delivered, two days before the attack, to the people most interested in the problem of the East, he restated in his usual somewhat mystic fashion the political basis for the campaign and its interrelationship with the economic goal (1058-PS). A short extract from that speech reads as follows:
“The job of feeding the German people stands, this year, without a doubt, at the top of the list of Germany’s claims on the East; and here the southern territories and the northern Caucasus will have to serve as a balance for the feeding of the German people. 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. A very extensive evacuation will be necessary, without any doubt, and it is sure that the future will hold very hard years in store for the Russians. A later decision will have to determine to which extent industries can still be maintained there (Wagon Factories, etc.). The consideration and execution of this policy in the Russian area proper is for the German Reich and its future a tremendous and by no means negative task, as might appear, if one takes only the harsh necessity of the evacuation into consideration. The conversion of Russian dynamics towards the East is a task which requires the strongest characters. Perhaps, this decision will also be approved by a coming Russia later, not in 30 but maybe in a 100 years. For the Russian soul has been torn in the struggle of the last 200 years. The original Russians are excellent artistic craftsmen, dancers and musicians. They have certain hereditary talents, but these talents are different from these of the Western people. The fight between Turgenjew and Dostejewsky was symbolic for the nation. The Russian soul found no outlet, either way. If we now close the West to the Russians, they might become conscious of their own inborn, proper forces and of the area to which they belong. An historian will maybe see this decision in a different light, in hundreds of years than it might appear to a Russian today.” (1058-PS)
As has been indicated, the failure of the Nazi conspirators to defeat Britain had served further to strengthen them in their belief in the political necessity of eliminating the Soviet Union as a European factor before Germany could completely achieve her role as the master of Europe.
The economic motive for the aggression was disclosed in the previous discussion of the organization set up under Goering and General Thomas to carry out the economic exploitation of the territory to be occupied. The purely materialistic basis for the attack was unmistakable. If any doubt existed that at least one of the main purposes of the invasion was to steal the food and raw material needed for the Nazi war machine, regardless of the consequences to the Russian people which such robbery would entail, that doubt is dispelled by a memorandum showing clear and conscious recognition by the Nazis that their plans would no doubt result in starving to death millions of people. (2718-PS)
On 20 June 1941 General Thomas wrote a memorandum along a similar line, in which he stated that Keitel had confirmed to him Hitler’s present conception of the German economic policy concerning raw materials (1456-PS). This policy expressed the theory that less manpower would be used in the conquest of sources of raw materials than would be necessary to produce synthetics in lieu of such raw materials. This memorandum reads, in part:
“The following is the new conception of the Fuehrer, which Minister Todt has explained to me and which has been confirmed later on by Field Marshal Keitel:
“1. The course of the war shows that we went too far in our autarchical endeavors. It is impossible to try and manufacture everything we lack, by synthetic procedures, or other measures. For instance, it is impossible to develop our motor fuel economy to a point where we can entirely depend on it. All these autarchical endeavors ask for a tremendous amount of manpower, and it is simply impossible to provide it. One has to choose another way. What one does not have, but needs, one must conquer. The commitment of men which is necessary one single time, will not be as great as the one that is currently needed for the running of the synthetic factories in question. The aim must also be to secure all territories, which are of special interest to us for the war economy, by conquering them.