“2. The order of Major General Kuebler”—which has already been submitted to the Tribunal by the Soviet Prosecution as Document Number USSR-132—“contains the following passage:
“ ‘Troops must treat these members of the population who maintain an unfriendly attitude toward the occupation forces in a brutal and ruthless manner, depriving the enemy of every means of existence by the destruction of localities which have been abandoned and by seizing all available stocks.’
“On the basis of this and similar orders, the Germans ceaselessly looted the country under the pretext of so-called ‘control of existing stocks,’ using the opportunities afforded by the ‘destruction of localities which had been abandoned.’
“3. Punitive expeditions, which became an everyday event during the occupation, were, naturally, always accompanied by the looting of the victims’ property. In the same way they robbed their prisoners and the bodies of those who had fallen fighting in the Free National Army, as well as all the internees in the concentration camps.
“4. Not even churches were spared. Thus, for example, the German unit ‘Konrad-Einheit,’ which operated in the vicinity of Sibenik, looted the Church of St. John in Zablad.”
There are numerous examples of the same kind.
“During the 4 years the whole of Yugoslavia was systematically looted. This was carried out either through numerous so-called ‘legal measures,’ or through mass looting on the part of the Germans. The Nazi occupation forces showed great inventive ability and applied to Yugoslavia the experience which they had gained in other occupied countries.
“These criminal measures damaged the Yugoslav State and its citizens to such an extent that one can consider it simply as economic destruction of the country.”
From this Your Honors may see that the plunder of public and private property in Yugoslavia was conducted by the Hitlerites according to a preconceived plan, that it affected every class and every branch of the country’s economy, and caused enormous material loss to the Yugoslav State and to its citizens.
THE PRESIDENT (Lord Justice Sir Geoffrey Lawrence): I believe this would be a convenient time to recess.