The German soldiers scoffed at the religious feelings of the people. They dressed up in church vestments, kept horses and dogs in the churches, and made bunks out of the icons. In the ancient Staritzky Monastery, units of the Red Army found the naked bodies of tortured Red Army prisoners of war, stacked in piles.
The damage inflicted on the Soviet Union as a result of the destructive and predatory activities of German army units is extremely great.
The German armies and occupational authorities, carrying out the orders of the criminal Hitlerite Government and of the High Command of the Armed Forces, destroyed and looted Soviet towns and villages and industrial establishments and collective farms seized by them; destroyed works of art, demolished, stole, and removed to Germany machinery, stocks of raw and other materials and finished goods, art and historic treasures, and carried out the general plundering of the urban and rural population. In the occupied territories of the Soviet Union 88 million persons lived before the war; gross industrial production amounted to 46 million rubles (at the fixed Government prices of 1926-27); there were 109 million head of livestock, including 31 million head of horned cattle and 12 million horses; 71 million hectares of cultivated land, and 122,000 kilometers of railway lines.
The German fascist invaders completely or partially destroyed or burned 1,710 cities and more than 70,000 villages and hamlets; they burned or destroyed over 6 million buildings and rendered some 25 million persons homeless. Among the damaged cities which suffered most were the big industrial and cultural centers of Stalingrad, Sevastopol, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Odessa, Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov, Orel, Kharkov, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, and many others.
The Germano-fascist invaders destroyed 31,850 industrial establishments employing some 4 million workers; they destroyed or removed from the country 239,000 electric motors and 175,000 metal cutting machines.
The Germans destroyed 65,000 kilometers of railway tracks, 4,100 railway stations, 36,000 post and telegraph offices, telephone exchanges, and other installations for communications.
The Germans destroyed or devastated 40,000 hospitals and other medical institutions, 84,000 schools, technical colleges, universities, institutes for scientific research, and 43,000 public libraries.
The Hitlerites destroyed and looted 98,000 collective farms, 1,876 state farms, and 2,890 machine and tractor stations; they slaughtered, seized or drove into Germany 7 million horses, 17 million head of horned cattle, 20 million pigs, 27 million sheep and goats, and 110 million head of poultry.
The total damage caused to the Soviet Union by the criminal acts of the Hitlerite armies has been estimated at 679,000 million rubles at the Government prices of 1941.
All the defendants prepared, organized, and perpetrated indescribable and blasphemous crimes, such as have never before been committed in history, against humanity and against the principles of human ethics and of international law.