In addition to requisitioning supplies for their armies, the Hitlerite conspirators exacted enormous sums of money from Greece to cover the so-called cost of occupation. In the report of the Greek Government the following remark is made on the subject—this is on Page 60 of the document book—I read:
“Between August 1941 and December 1941 the sum of 26,206,085,000 drachmas was paid to the Germans, representing a sum of 60 percent more than the estimated national income during the same period. In fact, according to the estimates of two Axis experts, Dr. Barberin, from Germany, and Dr. Bartoni, an Italian, the national income for that year amounted to only 23,000 million drachmas. In the following year, as the national income decreased, this money was taken from national funds.”
Another method of plundering Greece which the Hitlerites applied on a vast scale was the so-called requisitions and confiscations. In order to save time, I shall, with the permission of the Tribunal, merely read into the record a brief excerpt from the Greek report dealing with this question. I quote:
“One of the enemy’s first measures on occupying Greece was to seize all the existing stocks in the country by requisition or open confiscation. Among other goods, they requisitioned from the wholesale and retail trade 71,000 tons of currants and 10,000 tons of olive oil; they confiscated 1,435 tons of coffee, 1,143 tons of sugar, 2,520 tons of rice, and a whole shipload of wheat valued at 530,000 dollars.”
As the country was divided among three occupying powers, the Hitlerites blockaded that part of Greece which was occupied by their own troops and forbade the export of food supplies from that zone. The Hitlerites began to confiscate all existing stocks of food and other goods, a measure which reduced the population to a state of extreme misery and starvation. This plundering had such catastrophic consequences for the Greek nation that, finally, even the Germans themselves were forced to realize that they had gone too far. The practical result of this was that towards the end of 1942 the German authorities promised the International Commission of the Red Cross that they would return to the population all the local products confiscated and exported by the armies of occupation. The Germans also undertook to replace them by the importation of products of the same caloric value. This pledge was not fulfilled.