Third quotation:
“All raw materials, semi-manufactured, and finished goods must be withdrawn from the markets by means of orders, requisitions, and confiscations. Platinum, magnesium, and rubber should be collected immediately and removed to Germany. Foodstuffs, as well as articles of domestic and personal use, and clothing discovered in the combat zone and in the rear areas, are to be placed, in the first instance, at the disposal of the economic detachments to satisfy the needs of the armies. . . . What is rejected by them will be passed on to the next highest war economy agency.”
As I have already said at the beginning, the main objective of the German aggression against the Soviet Union was to plunder the Soviet country and to obtain the economic resources necessary for Hitlerite Germany, without which she could not carry out her imperialistic plans of aggression.
Göring’s Green File represented the extensive program, developed beforehand by the fascist conspirators, for the organized plunder of the Soviet Union.
This program laid down in advance concrete plans for plunder: The forcible confiscation of valuables, the organization of slave labor in our cities and villages, the abolition of wages in industrial establishments, the uncontrolled issue of completely insecure currency, et cetera. To materialize this program of plunder, the creation of special machinery was provided with its own economic command, economic staffs, its own intelligence, inspectorate, army units, detachments for collecting means of production, detachments for collecting raw materials, military agronomists, agricultural officers, et cetera.
Together with the advancing German armies, there also moved detachments of the economic departments of the Army, whose task was to determine the available supplies of grain, cattle, fuel, and other property. These detachments were subordinated to a special economic inspectorate which had its seat in the rear areas.
Soon after the attack on the U.S.S.R. Hitler’s decree of 29 June 1941 placed the entire control of the loot of occupied territories in the hands of the Defendant Göring. By this decree Göring was given the right to take “all measures necessary for the maximum utilization of all stocks discovered and of the country’s economic capacity in the interests of German war economy.” The Defendant Göring directed the predatory activities of the German military and economic detachments with the greatest zeal.
At a conference held on 6 August 1942 with the Reich commissioners and representatives of the military command, Göring demanded that the plunder of occupied territories be intensified:
“You are sent there”—Göring pointed out—“not to work for the benefit of the peoples entrusted to you, but in order to pump out of them all that is possible.”—And further on—“I intend to plunder and to plunder effectively.”
As established by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, these directives of Göring were carried out by the Reich ministers and representatives of German firms, under whose control were various kinds of economic groups, technical battalions, economic staffs, and economic inspectorates. Particularly active in the plunder of property of the Soviet Union were the German firms Friedrich Krupp A.G.; Hermann Göring; Siemens-Schuckert; the Mining and Metallurgical Company “Ost”; the Corporation “Nord”; Heinrich Lanz; Landmaschinenbauindustrie; I. G. Farbenindustrie, and many others.