I wish to speak of all the measures decreed or applied by Rosenberg with the aim of removing from France and the western countries cultural treasures, works of art, and property belonging to groups or individuals, and transferring to Germany all these riches.
Gentlemen, owing to the limited time which we have at our disposal, I shall limit myself today to recalling how certain organisms were made to collaborate in this pillaging through orders from higher quarters. I shall indicate, first of all, the part played by the Gestapo, which was ordained by a decree issued by the Defendant Keitel, dated 5 July 1940, which bears the Document Number 137-PS and which was submitted by the American Delegation, under Exhibit Number USA-379, on 18 December 1945 (Exhibit Number RF-1400). I refer likewise to a second order dated 30 October 1940, which reinforced and detailed the orders given in regard to pillaging by what was known as the Einsatzstab Rosenberg. This is Exhibit Number RF-1304 (Document Number 140-PS), which was quoted by the Economic Section of the French Prosecution.
Thus, Keitel and Rosenberg went back to the conception of a booty exacted by the triumphant German people from the Jewish people with regard to whom it was not bound by the conditions of the Compiègne Armistice. This intervention by the chief of the army, as indicated by the orders to which I have just referred, suffices in my opinion to prove the important part played by the German Army in this looting; and the Tribunal will not fail to remember that when it makes its decisions as to the guilt of the Defendant Keitel and the Defendant Göring.
If I mention the Defendant Göring, it is because a third document proves that this defendant gave the operation his full support, inviting all the organizations of the Party, the State, and the Army to afford the fullest possible support and assistance to Reichsleiter Rosenberg and his collaborator Utikal, whom Rosenberg himself had appointed Chief of the Einsatzstab on 1 April 1941. This is the order of 1 May 1941, which we produced under our Exhibit Number RF-1406 (Document Number 1614-PS). If we examine the text of this decree carefully we cannot fail to be struck by the first paragraph. The Tribunal will surely allow me to reread it rapidly: