Sixty-third Day, Wednesday, 20 February 1946,
Morning Session 1
Afternoon Session 31
Sixty-fourth Day, Thursday, 21 February 1946,
Morning Session 53
Afternoon Session 81
Sixty-fifth Day, Friday, 22 February 1946,
Morning Session 105
Afternoon Session 125
Sixty-sixth Day, Saturday, 23 February 1946,
Morning Session 159
Afternoon Session 186
Sixty-seventh Day, Monday, 25 February 1946,
Morning Session 202
Afternoon Session 230
Sixty-eighth Day, Tuesday, 26 February 1946,
Morning Session 251
Afternoon Session 281
Sixty-ninth Day, Wednesday, 27 February 1946,
Morning Session 300
Afternoon Session 324
Seventieth Day, Thursday, 28 February 1946,
Morning Session 353
Afternoon Session 383
Seventy-first Day, Friday, 1 March 1946,
Morning Session 409
Afternoon Session 431
Seventy-second Day, Saturday, 2 March 1946,
Morning Session 468
Seventy-third Day, Monday, 4 March 1946,
Morning Session 489
Afternoon Session 517
Seventy-fourth Day, Tuesday, 5 March 1946,
Morning Session 532
Seventy-fifth Day, Wednesday, 6 March 1946,
Morning Session 554
Afternoon Session 578
Seventy-sixth Day, Thursday, 7 March 1946,
Morning Session 597
Afternoon Session 621
SIXTY-THIRD DAY
Wednesday, 20 February 1946
_Morning Session_
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Mr.
President, with the permission of the Tribunal, evidence on the count
“Despoliation and Plunder of Private, Public, and National Property”
will be presented by the State Counsellor of Justice, Second Class, L.
R. Shenin.
STATE COUNSELLOR OF JUSTICE OF THE SECOND CLASS L. R. SHENIN (Assistant
Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): May it please Your Honors, my task
consists in presenting to the Tribunal evidence of the criminal and
predatory motives of Hitlerite aggression and of the monstrous
plundering of the peoples of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece,
and the U.S.S.R.
My colleagues have already proved that the attack on the U.S.S.R., as
well as on other European countries, was planned and prepared beforehand
by the criminal Hitlerite Government.
I shall submit to the Tribunal a number of the conspirators’ original
documents, statements, and speeches, which in the aggregate will prove
that the despoliation and plunder of private, public, and national
property in the occupied territories was also premeditated, planned, and
prepared on a large scale, and that thus, simultaneously with the
development of their purely military and strategic plans of attack, the
Hitlerites with the cold-blooded deliberateness of professional robbers
and murderers also developed and prepared beforehand the plan of
organized plunder and marauding, after having minutely and accurately
calculated their future profits, their criminal gains, their robbers’
spoils.
The official report of the Czechoslovak Government on the crimes
committed by the Hitlerites on the territory of Czechoslovakia, the
first victim of German aggression, has already been submitted to the
Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-60 (Document Number USSR-60).
In the third section of this report there is a short extract from an
article by Ley, published on 30 January 1940 in the _Angriff_. I quote:
“It is our destiny to belong to a superior race. A lower race
needs less room, less clothing, less food, and less culture,
than a superior race.”
This promise, this program of action, found its concrete expression in
the fact that the Hitlerite conspirators subjected all territories
occupied by them to unrestrained plunder, highly varied in form and
method and entirely shameless in its devastating results. The report of
the Czechoslovak Government contains a large number of examples
corroborating the corresponding counts of the Indictment.
I shall read this section into the record starting with the first
paragraph on Page 72 of the Russian translation. I read:
“The German plan of campaign against Czechoslovakia was aimed
not only against the republic as a political and military unit,
but also against the very existence of the Czechoslovak people,
who were to be robbed not only of all political rights and
cultural life, but of their wealth and their financial and
industrial resources.
“(1) Immediate Plunder.
“(a) After Munich.
“Immediately after Munich the Germans seized all the industrial
and commercial concerns belonging to the Czechs and Jews in the
seized areas of the republic; this was done without any
compensation. Czechs and Jews were robbed of their property and
of their office and plant equipment, usually by violence and
bloodshed.”
The following characteristic fact is mentioned in the report, namely,
the way in which Hitler became acquainted with Czechoslovakia, which he
had just seized. I shall read into the record Subparagraph B of this
section, entitled, “After the Invasion of 15 March 1939.” The Tribunal
will find this excerpt on Pages 3 and 4 of the document book. I quote:
“Hitler entered Prague at nightfall on 15 March 1939, and spent
the night there in the famous Hradschin castle. He left on the
following day, taking with him a number of valuable tapestries.
We mention this robbery not because of the value of the stolen
objects, but as an example set by the head of the Party and of
the German State on the very first day of invasion.
“The German troops who invaded Prague brought with them a staff
of German economic experts, that is, experts in economic
looting.
“Everything that could be of some value to Germany was seized,
especially large stocks of raw materials, such as copper, tin,
iron, cotton, wool, great stocks of food, _et cetera_.
“Rolling stock, carriages, engines, and so on were removed to
the Reich. All the rails in the Protectorate which were in good
condition were lifted and sent to Germany; later they were
replaced by old rails brought from Germany. New cars fresh from
the factory which were on order for the Prague municipal
tramways and had just been completed were deflected from their
purpose and sent to the Reich.
“The vessels belonging to the Czechoslovak Danube Steam
Navigation Company (the majority of shares belonged to the
Czechoslovak State) were divided between the Reich and Hungary.
“Valuable objects of art and furniture disappeared from public
buildings, without even an attempt at any legal justification of
such robbery; pictures, statues, tapestries were taken to
Germany. The Czech National Museum, the Modern Art Gallery, and
public and private collections were plundered.
“The German Reich Commissioner of the Czechoslovak National Bank
stopped all payments of currency abroad and seized all the gold
reserve and foreign currency in the Protectorate. Thus the
Germans took 23,000 kilograms of gold of a nominal value of
737,000 million crowns (5,265,000 pounds sterling) and
transferred the gold from the Bank of International Settlement
to the Reichsbank.”
One of the methods of thorough—I should say total—plunder was the
so-called economic Germanization. I submit to the Tribunal as evidence
of these crimes the following extract from the official Czechoslovak
report. This extract the Tribunal will find on Pages 4 and 5 of the
document book:
“(2) Economic Germanization.
“A. Rural. Expropriation.
“(aa) After Munich.
“In the areas occupied by the German Army in October 1938
Germany began to settle her nationals on all the farms formerly
belonging to Czechs or Jews who had fled for political or racial
reasons.
“The Czechoslovak Land Reform Act of 1919, insofar as it
benefited Czech nationals, was declared invalid; Czech farmers
were expelled from their land and compelled to relinquish their
cattle, agricultural implements, and furniture.
“On paper the Czechs received compensation; in fact, however,
they were burdened with taxes in order to make good the
so-called ‘deliberate damage’ they were alleged to have caused
by their flight. These taxes far exceeded the compensation.
“The large agricultural and government estates of the
Czechoslovak Republic automatically became Reich property and
came under the jurisdiction of the Reich ministries concerned.
“(bb) After the invasion of 15 March 1939.
“After the invasion, German directors, supervisors, and foremen
replaced Czech nationals in state-owned enterprises of the
Czechoslovak Republic.
“Germanization of private property began, of course, under the
slogan ‘Aryanization.’
“The Germanization of rural Bohemia and Moravia was entrusted to
a special body called ‘Deutsche Siedlungsgesellschaft’ located
in Prague.
“Czech peasants were offered compensation for their food
products but at entirely inadequate prices.
“Rural Germanization, apart from Germanization pure and simple,
aimed at pauperizing as many well-to-do Czech nationals as
possible.
“The Nazis did their utmost to squeeze as much as possible out
of Czech agriculture. Here too their aim was twofold: On the one
hand to obtain as much foodstuffs as possible, and on the other,
to carry the process of Germanization as far as possible.
“Farmers were turned out of their farms to make way for German
settlers—entire agricultural districts were in this way cleared
of Czechs. Agricultural co-operative societies in control of
production were transformed into auxiliary organizations and
were gradually germanized.
“The looting of property and wealth was followed by the
pillaging of products of the soil. Heavy fines and frequently
even the death penalty were imposed on Czech peasants for
intentional failure to comply with orders regarding production,
delivery, and rationing.
“B. Expropriation of banks and their funds.
“In Czechoslovakia industrial undertakings were directly
financed by the banks, which often owned or controlled the
majority of shares. Having obtained control of the banks, the
Nazis thus secured control of industry.
“(a) After Munich.
“After Munich, two important German banks, the Dresdner Bank and
the Deutsche Bank took over the branches of Prague banks,
situated in the ceded territory. Thus among the enterprises
taken over by the Dresdner Bank were 32 branches of the Bohemian
Discount Bank and among those taken over by the Deutsche Bank
were 25 branches of Bohemian Union Bank.
“As soon as these two banks obtained control of the branch banks
in the Sudetenland they also endeavored to gain influence on the
respective head offices of these banks in Prague.
“The Czechoslovak banks were joint stock companies. Every joint
stock company with even one Jewish director was considered to be
Jewish. In this manner the non-Jewish property was also taken
over.
“(b) After the invasion of 15 March 1939.
“After the invasion several Czechoslovak banks in Bohemia, in
consequence of their Aryanization, became the property of the
Dresdner Bank. Among other enterprises, this German bank took
over the Union Bank of Bohemia. In this way all the financial
interests which these banks had in Czech industry, as well as
the entire share capital, fell into German hands.
“From that time on German capital began to infiltrate into the
Czech banks; their expropriation and incorporation into the
German bank system began. The Dresdner Bank (the establishment
which administered the funds of the National Socialist Party)
and the Deutsche Bank were officially entrusted with the task of
expropriating the funds belonging to the Czechoslovak banking
concerns.
“By means of various ‘transactions,’ by gaining influence
through the branch banks in the Sudetenland over their
respective head offices in Prague, by reducing the share
capital, which was later increased with German assistance, by
appropriating industrial holdings and in this way acquiring
influence over the controlling banks which were thus deprived of
their industrial interests, _et cetera_, the two Berlin banks
achieved complete control of the banks of the Protectorate.
Gestapo terror helped them.”