During the occupation of the Eastern Countries the German Government and
the German High Command carried out, as a systematic policy, a
continuous course of plunder and destruction including:
On the territory of the Soviet Union the Nazi conspirators destroyed or
severely damaged 1,710 cities and more than 70,000 villages and hamlets,
more than 6,000,000 buildings and made homeless about 25,000,000
persons.
Among the cities which suffered most destruction are Stalingrad,
Sevastopol, Kiev, Minsk, Odessa, Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov, Orel,
Kharkov, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, Stalino, and Leningrad.
As is evident from an official memorandum of the German command, the
Nazi conspirators planned the complete annihilation of entire Soviet
cities. In a completely secret order of the Chief of the Naval Staff
(Staff Ia No. 1601/41, dated 29. IX. 1941) addressed only to Staff
officers, it was said:
“The Führer has decided to erase from the face of the earth St.
Petersburg. The existence of this large city will have no further
interest after Soviet Russia is destroyed. Finland has also said that
the existence of this city on her new border is not desirable from her
point of view. The original request of the Navy that docks, harbor, etc.
necessary for the fleet be preserved—is known to the Supreme Commander
of the Military Forces, but the basic principles of carrying out
operations against St. Petersburg do not make it possible to satisfy
this request.
“It is proposed to approach near to the city and to destroy it with the
aid of an artillery barrage from weapons of different calibers and with
long air attacks . . . .
“The problem of the life of the population and the provisioning of them
is a problem which cannot and must not be decided by us.
“In this war . . . we are not interested in preserving even a part of
the population of this large city.”
The Germans destroyed 427 museums, among them the wealthy museums of
Leningrad, Smolensk, Stalingrad, Novgorod, Poltava, and others.
In Pyatigorsk the art objects brought there from the Rostov museum were
seized.
The losses suffered by the coal mining industry alone in the Stalin
region amount to 2,000,000,000 rubles. There was colossal destruction of
industrial establishments in Makerevka, Carlovka, Yenakievo,
Konstantinovka, Mariupol, from which most of the machinery and factories
were removed.
Stealing of huge dimensions and the destruction of industrial, cultural,
and other property was typified in Kiev. More than 4,000,000 books,
magazines, and manuscripts (many of which were very valuable and even
unique) and a large number of artistic productions and valuables of
different kinds were stolen and carried away.
Many valuable art productions were taken away from Riga.
The extent of the plunder of cultural valuables is evidenced by the fact
that 100,000 valuable volumes and 70 cases of ancient periodicals and
precious monographs were carried away by ROSENBERG’S staff alone.
Among further examples of these crimes are:
Wanton devastation of the city of Novgorod and of many historical and
artistic monuments there. Wanton devastation and plunder of the city of
Rovno and of its province. The destruction of the industrial, cultural,
and other property in Odessa. The destruction of cities and villages in
Soviet Karelia. The destruction in Estonia of cultural, industrial, and
other buildings.
The destruction of medical and prophylactic institutes, the destruction
of agriculture and industry in Lithuania, the destruction of cities in
Latvia.
The Germans approached monuments of culture, dear to the Soviet people,
with special hatred. They broke up the estate of the poet Pushkin in
Mikhailovskoye, desecrating his grave, and destroying the neighboring
villages and the Svyatogor monastery.
They destroyed the estate and museum of Leo Tolstoy, “Yasnaya Polyana,”
and desecrated the grave of the great writer. They destroyed in Klin the
museum of Tchaikovsky and in Penaty, the museum of the painter Repin and
many others.
The Nazi conspirators destroyed 1,670 Greek Orthodox churches, 237 Roman
Catholic churches, 67 chapels, 532 synagogues, etc. They broke up,
desecrated, and senselessly destroyed also the most valuable monuments
of the Christian Church, such as Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra, Novy Jerusalem
in the Istrin region, and the most ancient monasteries and churches.
Destruction in Estonia of cultural, industrial, and other premises:
burning down of many thousands of residential buildings; removal of
10,000 works of art; destruction of medical and prophylactic
institutions; plunder and removal to Germany of immense quantities of
agricultural stock including horses, cows, pigs, poultry, beehives, and
agricultural machines of all kinds.
Destruction of agriculture, enslavement of peasants, and looting of
stock and produce in Lithuania.
In the Latvian Republic destruction of the agriculture by the looting of
all stock, machinery, and produce.
The result of this policy of plunder and destruction was to lay waste
the land and cause utter desolation.
The overall value of the material loss which the U.S.S.R. has borne, is
computed to be 679,000,000,000 rubles, in state prices of 1941.
Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939 the
defendants seized and stole large stocks of raw materials, copper, tin,
iron, cotton, and food; caused to be taken to Germany large amounts of
railway rolling stock, and many engines, carriages, steam vessels, and
trolley buses; plundered libraries, laboratories, and art museums of
books, pictures, objects of art, scientific apparatus, and furniture;
stole all gold reserves and foreign exchange of Czechoslovakia,
including 23,000 kilograms of gold of a nominal value of £5,265,000;
fraudulently acquired control and thereafter looted the Czech banks and
many Czech industrial enterprises; and otherwise stole, looted, and
misappropriated Czechoslovak public and private property. The total sum
of defendants’ economic spoliation of Czechoslovakia from 1938 to 1945
is estimated at 200,000,000,000 Czechoslovak crowns.
(F) THE EXACTION OF COLLECTIVE PENALTIES
The Germans pursued a systematic policy of inflicting, in all the
occupied countries, collective penalties, pecuniary and otherwise, upon
the population for acts of individuals for which it could not be
regarded as collectively responsible; this was done at many places,
including Oslo, Stavanger, Trondheim, and Rogaland.
Similar instances occurred in France, among others in Dijon, Nantes, and
as regards the Jewish population in the occupied territories. The total
amount of fines imposed on French communities add up to 1,157,179,484
francs made up as follows:
A fine on the Jewish population 1,000,000,000
Various fines 157,179,484
These acts violated Article 50, Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and
customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from
the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of
the countries in which such crimes were committed, and Article 6 (_b_)
of the Charter.
(G) WANTON DESTRUCTION OF CITIES, TOWNS, AND
VILLAGES AND DEVASTATION NOT JUSTIFIED BY
MILITARY NECESSITY
The defendants wantonly destroyed cities, towns, and villages and
committed other acts of devastation without military justification or
necessity. These acts violated Articles 46 and 50 of the Hague
Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles
of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized
nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes
were committed, and Article 6 (_b_) of the Charter.
Particulars by way of example only and without prejudice to the
production of evidence of other cases are as follows: