This is the evidence I have to show regarding the looting and marauding perpetrated by the Hitlerite hordes in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. But they plundered not only the living, they also plundered the dead. My colleague, Colonel Smirnov, has already presented comprehensive evidence on this question. I do not wish to quote it again, but I refer to it only to show how closely interlocked and all-embracing was the circle of their crimes. As Rauschning testifies in his book, which has already been presented by the Soviet Prosecution to the Tribunal, Hitler once said:
“I need people with strong fists whose principles will not prevent them from taking human life if necessary; and if on occasion they swipe a watch or a jewel, I don’t care a tinker’s damn.”
And Hitler actually found these men in the persons of the defendants and their numerous accomplices.
As the documents which I have just presented show, the Defendant Göring, on account of his position in Hitler’s Government as Reich Marshal and Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan and as head of the whole criminal system for the plundering of the occupied territories, was guilty of these crimes.
For this reason the stenographic record of a secret conference of German administrative leaders (Reich Commissioners) for the occupied countries, which took place on 6 August 1942, is of particular interest. Göring presided over the meeting. This document, like many other original documents which I had the honor of presenting today to the Tribunal, was found by Soviet military authorities in September 1945 in one of the municipal buildings of the town of Jena, in Thuringia.
This extraordinary document contains a long speech by Göring and the replies of the Hitlerite rulers of the occupied countries. And, Your Honors, many of the people who are sitting in the dock now took part in this conference. The contents of this document are such that any comment on my part is unnecessary. Therefore, if it pleases the Tribunal, I shall proceed to read from this document.
“Stenographic notes; Thursday, 6 August 1942, 4 p. m., in the Hermann Göring Hall in the Air Ministry.
“Reich Marshal Göring: ‘The Gauleiter stated their views here yesterday. Although they may have differed in tone and manner, it was evident that they all feel that the German people have too little to eat. Gentlemen, the Führer has given me general powers exceeding any hitherto granted within the Four Year Plan.
“ ‘At this moment Germany commands the richest granaries that ever existed in the European area, stretching from the Atlantic to the Volga and the Caucasus, lands more highly developed and fruitful than ever before, even if a few of them cannot be described as granaries. I need only remind you of the fabulous fertility of the Netherlands, the unique paradise that is France. Belgium too is extraordinarily fruitful and so is the province of Posen. Then, above all, the Government General has to a great extent the rye and wheat granary of Europe, and along with it the amazingly fertile districts of Lemberg (Lvov) and Galicia, where the harvest is exceptionally good. Then there comes Russia, the black earth of the Ukraine on both shores of the Dnieper, the Don region, with its remarkably fertile districts which have scarcely been destroyed. Our troops have now occupied, or are in process of occupying, the excessively fertile districts between the Don and the Caucasus.’ ”
Göring then goes on to say: