The occupants looted the Bielorussian Academy of Science housing extremely rare collections of historic documents and books, and destroyed hundreds of schools, clubs, and theaters in Bielorussia (White Russia).
From the Pevlovsk Palace in the town of Slutzk the extremely valuable palace furniture, made by outstanding craftsmen of the 18th century, was removed to Germany. From the Peterhof palaces the Germans removed all the remaining sculptured and carved ornaments, carpets, pictures, and statues. The Great Palace of Peterhof, constructed in the reign of Peter I, was barbarously burnt after it had been looted. The German vandals destroyed the State Public Library at Odessa, containing over 2 million volumes.
At Tchernigov a famous collection of Ukrainian antiquities was looted. At the Kievo-Petchersk Monastery the Germans seized documents from the archives of the metropolitans of Kiev and books from the private library of Peter Mogila, who had collected extremely valuable works on world literature. They looted the precious collections of the Lvov and Odessa museums and removed to Germany or partially destroyed the treasures of the libraries of Vinnitza and Poltava, where extremely rare copies of medieval literary manuscripts, the first printed editions of the 16th and the 17th centuries, and ancient missals were kept.
The wholesale plunder in the occupied regions of the U.S.S.R., carried out on direct orders of the German Government, was not only directed by the Defendants Göring and Rosenberg and by the various staffs and detachments subordinated to them, but the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, with the Defendant Ribbentrop at its head, also took part in the looting through a special organization.
The statement by Obersturmführer, Dr. Norman Förster of the 4th Company, Special Task Battalion of the SS Troops (Waffen-SS), published by the press at that time, bears witness of the fact. Förster stated in his deposition:
“In August 1941, while I was in Berlin, I was detached from the 87th Antitank Division and assigned to the Special Task Battalion of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, through the help of Dr. Focke, an old acquaintance of mine at Berlin University, who was then working in the Press Division of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. This battalion was formed on the initiative of Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, and acted under his direction. . . . The task of this Special Task Battalion consisted in seizing, immediately after the fall of large cities, their cultural and historical treasures, libraries of scientific institutions, selecting valuable editions of books and films, and then sending all these to Germany.”
And further:
“We obtained rich trophies in the library of the Ukrainian Academy of Science, treasuring the rarest Persian, Abyssinian, and Chinese manuscripts, Russian and Ukrainian chronicles, the initial copies of books printed by the first Russian printer, Ivan Fyodorov, and rare editions of works by Shevtchenko, Mitzkevitch, and Ivan Franko.”
Side by side with the barbarous destruction and looting of villages, towns, and national cultural monuments, the Hitlerites also mocked the religious feelings of the believers among the Soviet population. They burnt, looted, destroyed, and desecrated on Soviet territory 1,670 Greek Orthodox churches, 237 Roman Catholic churches, 69 chapels, 532 synagogues, and 258 other buildings belonging to religious institutions.
They destroyed the Uspensky Church of the famous Kievo-Petchersky Monastery, built in 1073, and with it eight monastery buildings. At Tchernigov, the Germano-fascist armies destroyed the ancient Borisoglebsky Cathedral, built at the beginning of the 12th century, the Cathedral of the Efrosiniev Monastery of Polotzk, built in 1160, and the Church of Paraskeva-Piatniza-in-the-Market, an extremely valuable monument of 12th century Russian architecture. At Novgorod the Hitlerites destroyed the Antoniev, Khutynsky, Zverin, Derevyanitzky and other ancient monasteries, the famous church of Spas-Nereditza, and a series of other churches.