“Those of you who are sent to work in the East must adopt as your guiding principle the rule that output alone is decisive. I must ask you to devote your hardest and most unsparing efforts to this end.”
What sort of “work” is meant is clearly shown by the following commandments. I quote extracts from this document:
“5th commandment: It is essential that you should always bear in mind the end to be attained. You must pursue this aim with the utmost stubbornness; but the methods used may be elastic to a degree. The methods employed are left to the discretion of the individual. . . .
“6th commandment: Since the newly incorporated territories must be secured permanently to Germany and Europe, much will depend on how you establish yourself there. . . . Lack of character in individuals will constitute a definite ground for removing them from their work. Anyone recalled for this reason can never again occupy a responsible position in the Reich proper.”
In this way the future “agricultural leaders” were not only ordered to be implacable, merciless, and cruel in their plundering activities, but were also warned of what would happen to them if they were not implacable enough or if they showed “lack of character.”
The following commandments develop the same idea:
“7th commandment: Do not ask, ‘How will this benefit the peasants?’ but ‘How will it benefit Germany?’
“8th commandment: Do not talk—act! You can never talk a Russian around or persuade him with words. He can talk better than you can, for he is a born ‘dialectic’. . . .
“Only your will must decide, but this will must be directed to the execution of great tasks. Only in this case will it be ethical even in its cruelty. Keep away from the Russians—they are not Germans, they are Slavs.
“9th commandment: We do not wish to convert the Russians to National Socialism; we wish only to make them a tool in our hands. You must win the youth of Russia by assigning their task to them—by taking them firmly in hand and administering ruthless punishment to those who practice sabotage or fail to accomplish the work expected of them.