“1. To General Staff of the Army: Attention General Quartermaster, Office of Chief of Staff, (Anna).
“2. To General Staff of the Army: Attention General Quartermaster, Army Administration Office, (Anna-Bu).
“3. To Commanding General, Army Group North.
“4. To Commanding General, Army Group Center.
“5. To Economic Staff East.
“6. To Military District H.Q.I.”
I read this text as follows:
“1. The Führer has entrusted Gauleiter Koch with the utilization of local resources in the parts of Reichskommissariat Ostland occupied by troops of Army Group Center. Furthermore, the Führer has ordered that all German and local administrative authorities be subordinated to Gauleiter Koch. In securing economic resources, Gauleiter Koch is to maintain contact with competent Supreme Reich agencies.
“2. All authorities of the Armed Forces will give Gauleiter Koch every assistance in their power in executing this order.”
Thus, Your Honors, even at the end of 1944, when under the blows of the Red Army and its allies Hitlerite Germany was precipitated towards its final defeat and only a few months before its final military and political collapse, Hitler, Keitel, Koch, and many others were still stretching out their already stiffening fingers to grab the property and wealth of others.