“During their stay in Rovno and the district, Hitlerite officers and soldiers unrestrainedly plundered the peaceful Soviet citizens and thoroughly looted the property of cultural and educational institutions.”
I shall not quote all the data mentioned in this report of the Extraordinary State Commission. The report made by the Extraordinary State Commission on the atrocities committed by the Hitlerites in Kiev, and submitted to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-9, emphasizes the fact that the Hitlerites plundered the peaceful population of Kiev. I quote a brief extract, “The German occupation forces in the city of Kiev looted factory equipment and carried it off to Germany.”
Following the directives of the criminal German Government and the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces, the satellite states also joined in plundering and other crimes. Romanian troops who temporarily occupied Odessa along with German Armed Forces plundered this flourishing city in accordance with instructions from their German masters. The report of the Extraordinary State Commission concerning the crimes committed by German and Romanian invaders in Odessa reads in part as follows:
“. . . The Romanians damaged Odessa considerably from the economic and industrial point of view during the occupation.
“German-Romanian aggressors have confiscated and removed to Romania 1,042,013 centners of grain, 45,227 horses, 87,646 head of cattle, 31,821 pigs, et cetera, belonging to co-operative farms and co-operative farmers.”
The report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the damages inflicted by the German fascist invaders on industry, urban economy, and cultural and educational institutions in the Stalino region, already presented to the Tribunal as Document Number USSR-2, also gives a good deal of data on the looting and removal to Germany of the factory equipment of this important industrial region.
I have quoted only a few of the reports compiled by the Extraordinary State Commission on certain districts of the Ukraine. This flourishing Soviet republic was subjected to unrestrained looting by the Hitlerites. The Hitlerite conspirators considered the Ukraine a tidbit and plundered her with exceptional voracity. I should like to read several documents in proof of the above.
Rosenberg’s letter to Reichsleiter Bormann dated 17 October 1944. This document which has already been submitted on 17 December by the United States Prosecution under Exhibit Number USA-338 (Document Number 327-PS) states that the Central Trading Company for the East for marketing of agricultural produce sent the following goods to Germany in the period between 1943 and 31 March 1944 only:
“Cereals, 9,200,000 tons; meat and meat products, 622,000 tons; oil seed, 950,000 tons; butter, 208,000 tons; sugar, 400,000 tons; fodder, 2,500,000 tons; potatoes, 3,200,000 tons, and so forth.”
The Defendant Rosenberg reported his “agricultural achievements” to Hitler’s closest assistant in these terms.