THE PRESIDENT: Owing to the delay the Tribunal will sit until half past 5 tonight without further adjournment.
Yes, Colonel.
MR. COUNSELLOR SHENIN: I am reading into the record excerpts from the note by the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs dated 27 April 1942, and in order to save time I shall, with your permission, quote only a few of the most necessary excerpts from this note. They are very short. In this note, attention was drawn to the fact that the documents captured by the Soviet authorities and put at the disposal of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs are evidence of the premeditated nature of the plunder carried out by the Hitlerites.
I read the following excerpts; last paragraph on Page 44 of my statement, Russian text.
“The appendix to Special Order Number 43761/41 of the Operations Department of the General Staff of the German Army, states:
“ ‘It is urgently necessary that articles of clothing be acquired by means of forced levies on the population of the occupied regions enforced by every possible means. It is necessary above all to confiscate woolen and leather gloves, coats, vests, and scarves, padded vests and trousers, leather and felt boots, and puttees.’
“In several places liberated in the districts of Kursk and Orel, the following orders have been found:
“ ‘Property such as scales, sacks, grain, salt, kerosene, benzine, lamps, pots and pans, oilcloth, window blinds, curtains, rugs, phonographs, and records must be turned in to the commandant’s office. Anyone violating this order will be shot.’
“In the town of Istra, in the Moscow region, the invaders confiscated decorations for Christmas trees and toys. In the Shakhovskaya railway station they organized the ‘delivery’ by the inhabitants of children’s underwear, wall clocks, and samovars. In districts still under the rule of the invaders, these searches are still going on; and the population, already reduced to the utmost poverty by the thefts which have been perpetrated continually since the first appearance of the German troops, is still being robbed.”
I omit the rest of the quotation from Mr. Molotov’s note and conclude with the last paragraph: