“The job of feeding the German people stands this year, without a doubt, at the top of the list of Germany’s claims in 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 what extent industries can still be maintained there (wagon factories, et cetera). 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 in a 100 years.”
As I have indicated, the failure of the Nazi conspirators to defeat Great Britain had served to strengthen them further in their belief of 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 brought out clearly in our discussion of the organization set up under Göring and General Thomas to carry out the economic exploitation of the territories they occupied. The purely materialistic basis for the attack was unmistakable; and 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 horrible consequences such robbery would entail, that doubt is dispelled by a memorandum, which bears our Number 2718-PS and which I introduced earlier during my opening statement as Exhibit USA-32, showing clear and conscious recognition that these Nazi plans would no doubt result in starving to death millions of people by robbing them of their food.
Along the similar line, on June 20, 1941 General Thomas wrote a memorandum in which he stated that General Keitel had confirmed to him Hitler’s present conception of the German economic policy concerning raw material. This policy expressed the almost unbelievably heartless 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 is our Document Number 1456-PS, and I offer it in evidence as Exhibit USA-148. I should like to read the first two paragraphs.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps we better do that after the adjournment.
[A recess was taken until 1400 hours.]
Afternoon Session
THE PRESIDENT: I understand that the Defendant Kaltenbrunner is now in court. Will you stand up, please?
[The Defendant Kaltenbrunner rose in the dock.]