GEN. RUDENKO: You have answered already the first part of my question. Now the following part: You admit that as chief of the German Air Force and Reich Marshal you participated in preparations for the attack on the Soviet Union?
GÖRING: I once more repeat that I prepared for the possibility of an attack, mainly because of Hitler’s assumption that Soviet Russia was adopting a dangerous attitude. In the beginning the certainty of an attack was not discussed, and that is stated clearly in the directive of November 1940.
Secondly, I want to emphasize that my position as Reich Marshal is of no importance here. That is a title and a rank.
GEN. RUDENKO: But you do not deny—rather, you agree—that the plan was already prepared in November 1940?
GÖRING: Yes.
GEN. RUDENKO: It appears to me that the question has already been covered in such detail before the Tribunal that we need not talk too much about Case Barbarossa, which is quite clear. I shall go on to the next question:
Do you admit that the objectives of the war against the Soviet Union consisted of invading and seizing Soviet territory up to the Ural Mountains and joining it to the German Reich, including the Baltic territories, the Crimea, the Caucasus; also the subjugation by Germany of the Ukraine, of Bielorussia, and of other regions of the Soviet Union? Do you admit that such were the objectives of that plan?
GÖRING: That I certainly do not admit.
GEN. RUDENKO: You do not admit that! Do you not remember that during the conference at Hitler’s headquarters on the 16th of June 1941, at which you were present, as well as Bormann, Keitel, Rosenberg, and others, Hitler stated the objectives of the attack against the Soviet Union exactly as I have stated them? This was shown by the document submitted to the Tribunal. Have you forgotten that document? Have you forgotten about that?
GÖRING: I can remember the document exactly, and I have a fair recollection of the discussion at the conference. I said the first time that this document, as recorded by Bormann, appears to me extremely exaggerated as far as the demands are concerned. At any rate, at the beginning of the war, such demands were not discussed; nor had they been discussed previously.