“This war is not a war for a throne nor an altar; this is a war for grain and bread, a war for a well-laden breakfast, dinner, and supper table . . . a war for raw materials, for rubber, iron, and ore.” (Goebbels, Joseph, Das eherne Herz, Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Munich, 1943, Pages 334-336.)
Göring in his turn in an address at the Harvest Festival in the Berlin Sports Palace, 5 October 1942, published in the Völkischer Beobachter of 6 October 1942, exclaimed greedily:
“Don’t forget we have taken away from the Russians their best regions. . . . Eggs, butter, and flour are there in such quantities as you can hardly imagine. . . . We will have to see that everything is properly collected and properly processed on the spot. . . .”
The Defendant Rosenberg worked feverishly at inventing new names for Soviet cities, such as “Gotenburg” for Simferopol and “Theodorichshafen” for Sevastopol. This occupation Rosenberg combined with the leadership of a special staff concerned with the collection from the Caucasus. All that shows very clearly the real predatory plans and schemes of the Hitlerite aggressors against the Soviet Union. Above all, those criminal designs aimed at plundering the Soviet Union and the enslavement and exploitation of the Soviet people.
At the same time these were all steps on the road to establishing Hitlerite domination in Europe and in the whole world. It was precisely for this reason that, in a document submitted in the case, published by the High Command of the Navy, dealing with the plans for an invasion of North Africa, Gibraltar, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, the Hitlerite Government stated that the realization of the above plan would depend entirely on the results of the war against the Soviet Union.
In its attempt to conceal its imperialistic aims the Hitlerite clique hysterically shrieked, as usual, about a danger alleged to be forthcoming from the U.S.S.R. and proclaimed that the predatory war which it started against the Soviet Union with aggressive purposes was a “preventive” war.
A pitiful effort!
What “preventive” war can we speak of, when documents prove that long in advance Germany worked out and prepared a plan for an attack on the U.S.S.R., formulated the predatory aims of this attack, earmarked the territories of the Soviet Union which she intended to seize, established the methods for pillaging of these territories and for the extermination of their population, mobilized her army in good time, and moved to the borders of the U.S.S.R. 170 fully equipped divisions only waiting for the signal to advance?
The fact of aggression committed by fascist Germany against the U.S.S.R., as well as the original documents of the Hitlerite Government which now have been made public, definitely show to the whole world and to history how untrue and laughable was the assertion of the Hitlerite propaganda about the “preventive” character of the war against the U.S.S.R.
Much as the fascist wolf might disguise himself in a sheep’s skin, he cannot hide his teeth!