To these economic groups were attached experts on manpower, food production and agriculture, industrial economy and general economic questions; the economic section, attached to the army command, with special technical battalions and platoons as well as special intelligence subsections for industrial research, particularly in the field of raw materials and crude oil, and subsections for discovering and securing agricultural produce and machines, including tractors.
This same plan also provides for special technical units for crude oil—battalions and companies—and also the so-called mining battalions.
Thus, under the direct control of the Defendant Göring, a whole army of plunderers of all ranks and branches was provided, prepared, trained, and drilled in advance for the organized pillage and looting of the national property of the U.S.S.R.
Your Honors, I will not take up your time by reading the whole text of the Green File; I shall limit myself to enumerating its remaining sections, which bear the following titles—Page 77 in the document book:
“Execution of individual economic tasks; Economic transport; Problems of military protection of economy; Procuring of supplies for the troops out of the resources of the country; Utilization of manpower, particularly of the local population; War booty, paid labor, captured material, prize courts; Economic objectives of war industries; Raw materials and utilization of goods available; Finance and credit; Foreign trade and clearings; Price control.”
Thus the plunder of all branches of the U.S.S.R.’s national economy was foreseen.
To conclude I shall read into the record Keitel’s order, dated 16 June 1941, 6 days before the attack on the U.S.S.R., in which he instructed all military units of the German Army to be ready to execute all the directives of the Green File. I shall now read this order—you will find this, Your Honors, at the back of Page 89 of the document book:
“By the Führer’s order, the Reich Marshal has issued ‘Directives for the Guidance of the Economic Administration of the Territories To Be Occupied.’
“These directives (Green File) are intended for the guidance of the military command and economic authorities in the economic tasks within the territories to be occupied in the immediate future. They contain directives for supplying the army from the resources of the country and give orders to army units to assist the economic authorities. Army units must comply with these directions and orders.
“The immediate and thorough exploitation of the territories to be occupied in the immediate future in the interest of Germany’s war economy, especially in the field of fuel and food supply, is of the highest importance for the further conduct of the war.”