The second document of the Soviet Government was the Foreign Commissar’s note, dated 27 April 1942. This note is submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR-51 (Document Number USSR-51). Section 3 of this note is entitled, “Installation of a Regime of Slavery and Bondage in the Occupied Territories of the Soviet Union and Deportation of Civilian Population as Prisoners of War.” This note states that:
“In the Ukraine and Bielorussia the Germans introduced a 14- or 16-hour workday, in most cases without any compensation and in some cases with ridiculously low wages.
“In the secret instructions entitled, ‘On Current Tasks in the Eastern Regions,’ captured by Red Army troops at the beginning of March 1942, the chief of the Military Economic Inspectorate Central Front, Lieutenant General Weigang, admits that:
“ ‘It has proved impossible to maintain industrial production with the labor of semi-starved and semi-clad people,’ that ‘the devaluation of money and the commodity crisis coincide with a dangerous lack of confidence in the German authorities on the part of the local population,’ and that ‘this constitutes a danger to the peace in the occupied regions which cannot be permitted in the rear of the combat troops.’ The German general in this document presumes to call these occupied regions ‘our new eastern colonial possession.’
“Acknowledging that the complete collapse of industrial production in the occupied districts has led to mass unemployment, the German General Weigang issued the following orders for speeding up the forcible dispatch of the Russian, Ukrainian, Bielorussian, and other workers to Germany.
“ ‘Only the shipping to Germany of some millions of Russian workers and only the inexhaustible reserves of healthy and strong people in the Occupied Eastern Territories . . . can solve the urgent problem of manpower shortage and therewith meet the lack of labor in Germany.’
“In an order . . . seized by units of the Red Army, recruiting the entire civilian population of the occupied districts for all kinds of heavy labor was ordered; and it was stated that this forced labor was not to be paid for; and it was insolently declared that by this unpaid labor the population would atone for its guilt for the acts of sabotage already committed as well as for the acts of sabotage which might be committed by them in the future.
“In Kaluga, on 20 November 1941, an announcement was posted, signed by the German commandant, Major Portatius, which ran as follows:
“ ‘1. Citizens who do poor work or do not work the specified number of hours will be subject to a monetary fine. In the event of nonpayment, delinquents will be subjected to corporal punishment.
“ ‘2. Citizens who have received a work assignment and who have not reported for work will be subject to corporal punishment and will receive no food rations from the municipality.