Paragraph 4 of this letter:
“In order to maintain order and to control the economic exploitation of the occupied territory, and foreseeing the continuation of the war, I consider it absolutely necessary that unity of command should be established.
“I therefore beg Your Excellency to give precise instructions defining my rights and responsibilities for the administration and economic exploitation of the territory between the Rivers Dniester and Bug, as well as for the guarding, the maintenance of order and the security of the whole territory between the Rivers Dniester and Dnieper.
“I beg you, Your Excellency, to accept the best assurances from your devoted Marshal Antonescu.”
Two days after this letter was written Antonescu appointed a governor of the occupied regions of the Soviet Union, to which he gave the name of the “Transnistrian” regions.
I present to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-295 (Document Number USSR-295), the testimony of this “governor,” George Alexianu, who was taken prisoner by the Red Army, and beg you to accept it as evidence.
Alexianu, giving details of his nomination, testifies as follows—Page 2, Paragraph 2, of the Russian text, Page 79 in the document book which is in your possession. I quote:
“Antonescu said that, in connection with the successful advance of the German Army, Hitler wrote him a personal letter in which he offered to annex to Romania the Soviet territories extending from the Dniester to the Dnieper which had been captured by the German troops and to establish there their own occupational authorities.”
On Page 80 of the document book at the top of Page 3 of the Russian text of the testimony, Alexianu states that in the summer of 1942 he was present at the Council of Romanian Ministers at which Marshal Antonescu, referring to the successes of the German and the Romanian armies on the Eastern Front, stated:
“It is now evident for us all that I acted rightly when, as early as November 1940 I came to an agreement with Hitler on the joint attack against the Soviet Union.”