“From Riga—the city archives, the state archives (the major part of these were in Edwahlen);
“From Reval—the city archives, the Estonian Literary Society, and small collections from Schwarzhäupterhaus, the town hall, Evangelical Lutheran consistory, and Nicolas’ Church.
“From Dorpat—the university library; collections evacuated to Estonian estates—Jerlep, Wodja, Weissenstein, and Lachmes.
“Haupteinsatzführer Schueller, in his capacity as acting director of the main working group of the Einsatzstab RR, is commissioned with the carrying out of the removal and shipment.
“He is advised to maintain special contact with Army Group North in order to co-ordinate the execution of this mission of the Reichsleiter, with the transportation requirements of the field forces.
I should like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to another peculiar circumstance. In this case, too, the looting was carried out by Rosenberg together with the High Command, and as late as the fall of 1944, “future chiefs” of Staff Rosenberg were selected.
An analysis of all these circumstances permits us categorically to reassert that the destruction and looting of cultural valuables was inspired, directed, and executed by a central organization, and that this central organization was the criminal Hitler Government and the High Command, the representatives of which, in the persons of all the defendants in this Trial, should suffer punishment in accordance with Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal.
May it please Your Honors, when we deal with a system of wholesale destruction and plunder, it is impossible, and scarcely necessary, to enumerate all the facts, even if these facts are, _per se_, of great importance. In the occupied territories of the Soviet Union the Hitlerites carried out precisely such a system of wholesale and manifold destruction and plunder of cultural treasures of the peoples of the U.S.S.R. At this moment it is not yet possible to draw up an exhaustive balance of the defendants’ crimes.
But I shall, with the permission of the Tribunal, submit a document containing data which, although only of a preliminary nature, are absolutely accurate and bear witness to the tremendous damage inflicted by the Hitlerites.