beg Your Honors to note that Dr. Förster, SS Obersturmführer, who served in the special purpose battalion, established on the initiative of the Defendant Ribbentrop and acting under his orders, testified to the plunder of the library of the Ukrainian S.S.R., Academy of Science, in his deposition of 10 November 1942, which I have already read into the record.
I omit one paragraph and pass on to a further reading from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission:
“On 5 September 1943 the Germans burned and blew up one of the most ancient centers of Ukrainian culture, the T. G. Shevtchenko State University in Kiev, founded in 1834. In the fire perished the greatest of cultural treasures which for centuries had represented the scientific and educational bases on which the work of the university was founded; perished, the priceless documents from the historical archives of ancient manuscripts; perished, the library containing over 1,300,000 books; destroyed, the zoological museum of the university with over 2 million exhibits, together with a whole series of other museums. . . .
“. . . The German occupiers also destroyed other institutions of higher learning in Kiev; they burned and looted the majority of the medical institutions.
“In Kiev the fascist barbarians burned down the building of the Red Army Dramatic Theater . . . , the Theatrical Institute, the Academy of Music, where the instruments were burned together with the very wealthy library and all the equipment; they blew up the beautiful circus building; they burned down, with its entire equipment, the M. Gorki Theater for Juvenile Audiences; they destroyed the Jewish theater. . . .
“In the Museum of Western European and Eastern Art only some large canvases were left; the robbers had not had time to remove them from the high walls of the stairway shafts. From the Museum of Russian Art the Hitlerites carried off, together with all the other exhibits, a collection of Russian icons of inestimable value. They looted the Museum of Ukrainian Art; only 1,900 exhibits of the National Art Section of this museum were left of the original 41,000.”
I omit the remainder of this page and pass to Page 62 of my report:
“The Hitlerites plundered the T. G. Shevtchenko Museum and the historical museum. They looted the greatest monument to the Slav peoples—the Cathedral of Saint Sophia—from which they removed 14 12th century frescoes.”
I omit one paragraph.
“By order of the German Command the troops plundered, blew up, and destroyed a very ancient cultural monument—the Kievo-Pecherskaya Abbey. . . .
“The Uspenski Cathedral, built in 1075-89 by the order of Grand Duke Svjatoslav, with murals painted in 1897 by the famous painter V. V. Vereshchiagin, was blown up by the Germans on 3 November 1941.”
I omit the remainder of Page 62 and pass on to Page 63 of the report:
“We cannot gaze without sorrow”—states Nicholas, Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia, and member of the Extraordinary State Commission—“on the heaps of rubble of the Uspenski Cathedral, founded in the 11th century by the genius of its immortal builders. The explosions formed several huge craters in the area surrounding the cathedral, and, beholding them, it would appear that the very earth had shuddered at the sight of the atrocities committed by those who no longer had a right to be called human beings. It was as if a terrible hurricane had passed over the abbey, overturning everything, scattering and destroying the mighty buildings of the abbey. For over 2 years Kiev lay shackled in the German chains. Hitler’s executioners brought death to Kiev, together with ruins, famine, and executions. In time all this will pass from the near present to the far distant past; but never will the people of Russia and the Ukraine, or honest men all the world over, forget these crimes.”
Mr. President, may I dwell on two more documents?
The first, Document Number 035-PS, is entitled, “A Brief Report on Security Measures of the Chief Labor Group in the Ukraine during the Withdrawal of the Armed Forces.” It was presented to the Tribunal by our American colleagues on 18 December 1945. A characteristic peculiarity of this document is that it openly testifies to the looting. It is quite clear to all that reference is made to a gang of robbers, although the Hitlerites still persist in referring to robbery as work. They shipped the most valuable exhibits of the Ukrainian Museum to Germany as “miscellaneous textiles.”
The report begins with the description of the creation of safe quarters for the Einsatzstab establishments, a purpose for which the inhabitants of an entire district were thrown out of their quarters. There then follows, in this document, a list of booty removed from the plundered museums of Kharkov and Kiev, from archives, and even from private libraries.
I shall quote one brief excerpt only from this document, dealing with the contents of the Ukrainian and the prehistorical museum of Kiev. You will find this excerpt on Page 368 of the document book. I quote:
“October 1943, materials of the Ukrainian museum in Kiev.
“On the basis of the general evacuation orders of the city commissioner, the following were sorted out by us and loaded for shipment to Kraków:
“Miscellaneous textiles; collections of valuable embroidery patterns; collections of brocades; numerous wooden utensils, et cetera.
“Moreover, a large part of the prehistoric museum was carried away.”
The second, Document Number 1109-PS of 17 June 1944, is headed, “Note for the Director of Operation Group P4,” and is addressed to Von Milde-Schreden. I shall quote it completely because it is really a short excerpt which you will find on Page 369 of the document book:
“2. The removal of cultural property.
“A great deal of material from museums, archives, institutions, and other cultural establishments was in an orderly manner removed from Kiev in the autumn of 1943.
“These actions to safeguard the material were carried out by Einsatzstab RR, as well as by the individual directors of institutes, et cetera, at the instigation of the Reich Commissioner.”
Here, Your Honors, I would point out that Einsatzstab Rosenberg in some documents is also referred to as the “Task Staff RR.” These initials stand for Reichsleiter Rosenberg.
“At first, a great deal of the property that was to be evacuated was taken only to the areas of the rear; later on, this material was forwarded to the Reich. When the undersigned, towards the end of September, received the order from the cultural division of the Reich Commissioner to take out of Kiev the remaining cultural effects, the materials most valuable from a cultural point of view had already been removed. During October some 40 carloads of cultural effects were shipped to the Reich. In this case it was chiefly a question of valuables which belonged to the research institutions of the national research center of the Ukraine. These institutions, at present, are continuing their work in the Reich and are being directed in such a manner that at any given moment they can be brought back to the Ukraine. The cultural values which could not be promptly safeguarded incurred plunder. In this case, however, it was always a question of less valuable material, as the essential assets had been removed in an orderly manner.
“In October 1943 factories, workshops, plants, and other equipment were removed from Kiev by the order of the town commander, but where it was taken, I do not know.”
This letter ends with the following sentence:
“At the time the Soviets entered the city there was nothing valuable, in this respect, left in the city.”
May it please Your Honors, from the documents submitted by the Soviet Prosecution, the Tribunal has already learned about the criminal conspiracy between Hitler and Antonescu. As a reward for supplying Germany with cannon fodder, oil, wheat, cattle, et cetera, Antonescu’s criminal clique received from Hitler’s Government authorization to plunder the civilian population between the Bug and the Dniester. German and Romanian invaders plundered and destroyed many objects of cultural value, health resorts, and medical institutions in Odessa. The Hitlerites also plundered on their own account, as well as in co-operation with Antonescu’s clique. To prove this, I shall now read into the record a few excerpts from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission