I submit to the Tribunal, as Exhibit Number USSR-195 (Document Number USSR-195), the minutes of a conference held on 4 June 1941 at the German Legation in Zagreb and presided over by SA Obergruppenführer Siegfried Kasche, German Minister in Zagreb. These minutes, in the Serbian translation, were seized in the archives of the Refugee Commission of the so-called Government of Milan Neditch. They give the subject matter of the conference, that is, “The Expulsion of the Slovenes from Germany to Croatia and Serbia, as well as of the Serbs from Croatia to Serbia.” The Tribunal will find this document on Page 120 of the document book. The passage in question literally reads as follows:
“The conference was approved by the Reich Ministry for Foreign Affairs by Telegram Number 389, dated 31 May. The Führer’s approval for the deportation was received by Telegram Number 344, dated 25 May.”
We are thus able to prove that the direct responsibility for this crime against humanity rests on the Defendant Von Ribbentrop.
We gather, at the same time, from the report of the Yugoslav Government, that the deportation of a considerable number of Slovenes to Germany was put into effect. I quote a paragraph from the report of the Yugoslav Government, which Your Honors will find on Page 70, last paragraph of the document book. I begin the quotation:
“Shortly afterwards the deportation itself began. In the morning German trucks would arrive in the villages. Soldiers and Gestapo men, armed with machine guns and rifles, broke into the houses and ordered the inhabitants to leave, each man being allowed to take with him only as much as he could carry. The unfortunate people were given only a few minutes in which to quit and they were forced to leave all their property behind them. The trucks drove them to the Roman Catholic Trappist monastery of Reichenberg. The transports started from the monastery. Each transport consisted of 600 to 1,200 persons to be taken to Germany. The district of Bregiza was almost completely depopulated, the district of Krshko up to 90 percent; 56,000 inhabitants were deported from these two districts. Over and above this 4,000 were deported from the communities of Zirkovsky and Ptuya.”
I omit one paragraph and continue:
“They were forced to perform the very hardest tasks and to live under the most horrible conditions. The mortality rate assumed enormous proportions in consequence. The harshest penalties were applied for the slightest offense.”
I shall not enumerate other passages in the report of the Yugoslav Government in connection with the same subject. I do not quote this document; I merely ask the Tribunal to accept as evidence the supplementary official report of the Yugoslav Government which I am submitting as Document Number USSR-357.
Similar crimes were committed by the German criminals on the territory of occupied Poland. I quote a few excerpts from the official report of the Polish Republic. Your Honors will find the passage I wish to quote on Page 3, Paragraph 3 of the document book. The passage is in Subparagraph A and is entitled, “The Germanization of Poland”:
“Clear indications concerning the program are found in a publication distributed among members of the National Socialist Party in Germany in 1940. It contained the principles of German policy in the East. Here are some quotations from this document: