VON RIBBENTROP: No. According to what I heard, all these foreign workers are supposed to have been well treated in Germany. I think it is possible, of course, that other things might have happened, too; but on the whole, I believe that a good deal was done to treat these workers well. I know that on occasion departments of the Foreign Office co-operated in these matters with a view to preventing those possible things. Generally speaking, however, we had no influence in that sphere, as we were excluded from Eastern questions.
GEN. RUDENKO: Why were you informed that foreign laborers were treated well and why were you not informed that they were being treated as slaves?
VON RIBBENTROP: I do not think that this is correct. We in the Foreign Office—in the case of the French, for instance, and quite a number of other foreign workers—co-operated in getting musicians, et cetera, from France for them. We advised on questions concerning their welfare. And I know that the German Labor Front did everything in its power, at least with regard to the sector which we could view to some extent, to treat the workers well, to preserve their willingness to work, and to make their leisure pleasant. I know, at least, that those of its efforts in which we co-operated were on these lines.
GEN. RUDENKO: Well, I now present a penultimate group of questions in connection with the activities of the “Ribbentrop Battalion.” I must now request you to read the testimony of SS Obersturmbannführer Norman Paul Förster. This document is submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-445 (Document Number USSR-445). Please pay particular attention to Page 3 of Förster’s testimony. This passage is underlined. It is stated there:
“When in that same month, August 1941, I reported to the address given to me in Berlin, I learned that I had been transferred to Special Command SS of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A member of the Foreign Ministry, Baron von Kunsberg, was at the head of the SS Special Command... In this command there were about 80 to 100 men altogether and 300 or 400 men were added later. The special command was later rechristened the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Battalion ‘z.b.V.’ (for special employment).
“I was received by Baron von Kunsberg in a building belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the Sonderkommando was quartered. He explained to me that the Sonderkommando was created on instructions from the Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs Von Ribbentrop. According to Von Ribbentrop’s instructions, our Sonderkommando was to move forward with the front-line troops in occupied territory in order to protect the cultural treasures—museums, archives, scientific institutions, art galleries, and so forth—from ruin and destruction by the German soldiers, to confiscate them and transport them to Germany.”
Here I omit a few lines and then:
“On the evening of 5 August 1941, in the presence of Nietsch, Paulsen, Krallat, Remerssen, Lieben, and others, Von Kunsberg informed us of Von Ribbentrop’s verbal order according to which all scientific institutions, libraries, palaces, et cetera, in Russia were to be thoroughly ‘combed out’ and everything of definite value was to be carried off.”
Did you find that passage in the document?
VON RIBBENTROP: Yes. Shall I answer?