“The soldiers are not satisfied with taking the articles they
can use, but they destroyed some of the remaining items;
valuable furniture was used for fires, although there was plenty
of wood.”
Now I shall read into the record an excerpt from a report of the German
District Commissioner of the town of Korostyshev to the Commissioner
General of Zhitomir. The members of the Tribunal will find this excerpt
on Page 94 of the document book.
“Unfortunately the German soldiers behaved badly. Unlike the
Russians they broke into the storehouses even when the front
line was still far away. Enormous quantities of grain were
stolen, including large quantities of seed. That might have been
tolerated in the case of combat units. . . . Upon the return of
our troops to Popelnaya, the warehouses were again broken into
immediately. The ‘Gebiets- und Kreislandwirt’ nailed up the
doors again, but the soldiers broke in once more.”