Having committed the perfidious attack on the U.S.S.R., the Hitlerite Government calculated that lengthy preparation for this attack, the concentration of all the armed forces of Germany for this thrust, the participation of Romanian and Finnish armies, as well as of Italian and Hungarian units in this operation, and, finally, the advantage of surprise would assure a rapid defeat of the U.S.S.R.
However, all these calculations of the aggressors were frustrated by the heroic resistance of the Red Army, which with self-denial defended the honor and the independence of its country. The German plans of attack were broken up one after another. I shall not describe all the phases of the patriotic war of the Soviet People against the German fascist invaders and the great and courageous struggle of the Red Army with German, Romanian, Finnish, and other armies that invaded the soil of the Soviet. The whole world watched this struggle with admiration, and it will never be forgotten by history.
The Soviet people, in battles the scale and ferocity of which were unmatched in history, steadfastly defended and saved the freedom and independence of their country and, together with the Allied armies, liberated the freedom-loving nations throughout the whole world from the terrible menace of Nazi enslavement.
Having prepared and carried out the perfidious assault against the freedom-loving nations, fascist Germany turned the war into a system of militarized banditry. The murder of war prisoners, extermination of civilian populations, plunder of occupied territories, and other war crimes were committed as part of a totalitarian lightning war program projected by the fascists. In particular the terrorism practiced by the fascists on the temporarily occupied Soviet territories reached fabulous proportions and was carried out with an outspoken cruelty.
“We shall”—said Hitler to Rauschning—“have to develop a technique of systematic depopulation. If you ask me what I mean by ‘depopulation,’ I mean removal of entire racial units. And that is what I intend to carry out—that, roughly, is my task. Nature is cruel; therefore we, too, may be cruel. If I can send the flower of the German nation into the hell of war without the smallest pity for the spilling of precious German blood, then surely I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin!” (Rauschning, Hermann, The Voice of Destruction, New York, 1940, Pages 137, 138.)
The Soviet Prosecution has at its disposal numerous documents, collected by the Extraordinary State Commission for the Soviet Union for the prosecution and investigation of crimes committed by the German fascist aggressors and their accomplices, which constitute irrefutable evidence of countless crimes perpetrated by German authorities.
We have at our disposal a document, known as the “Appendix Number 2 to the Operational Order Number 8 of the Chief of the Sipo and SD,” dated Berlin, 17 June 1941, and signed by Heydrich, who at that time held the office of Himmler’s deputy. This document was worked out in collaboration with the High Command of the German Armed Forces. The appendices to Order Number 8, as well as Orders Number 9 and 14 and the appendices thereto, make it evident that the systematic extermination of Soviet people in fascist concentration camps in the territories of U.S.S.R. and other countries occupied by the fascist aggressors was carried out under the form of “filtration,” “cleansing measures,” “purges,” “extraordinary measures,” “special treatment,” “liquidation,” “execution,” and so on.
The perpetration of these crimes was entrusted to the Sonderkommandos especially formed for this purpose by agreement between the Chief of Police and the SD and the High Command of the German Armed Forces. The Appendix Number 1 to Order Number 14 shows that these Sonderkommandos acted independently “on the basis of their special powers and in accordance with general directives given to them within the scope of camp regulations,” maintaining close contact with the camp commanders and counterintelligence officers.
It is to be noted that during the German offensive aimed at Moscow the fascists created a special Sonderkommando Moscow, which was supposed to carry out the mass killings of the inhabitants of Moscow.
Hitler’s Government and the German Military Command were afraid that these monstrous Orders Number 8 and Number 14 might fall into the hands of the Red Army and the Soviet Government, and they took all possible measures to keep these orders completely secret. In Order Number 14, Heydrich declared: