The Germans approached monuments of culture, dear to the Soviet people, with special hatred. They broke up the estate of the poet Pushkin in Mikhailovskoye, desecrating his grave, and destroying the neighboring villages and the Svyatogor monastery.

They destroyed the estate and museum of Lev Tolstoy, "Yasnaya Polyana" and desecrated the grave of the great writer. They destroyed in Klin the museum of Tsaikovsky and in Penaty, the museum of the painter Repin and many others.

The Nazi conspirators destroyed 1,670 Greek Orthodox Churches, 237 Roman Catholic Churches, 67 Chapels, 532 Synagogues, etc.

They broke up, desecrated and senselessly destroyed also the most valuable monuments of the Christian Church, such as KievoPecherskaya Lavra, Novy Jerusalem in the Istrin region, and the most ancient monasteries and churches.

Destruction in Esthonia of cultural industrial and other premises: burning down of many thousands of residential buildings: removal of 10,000 works of art: destruction of medical and prophylactic institutions. Plunder and removal to Germany of immense quantities of agricultural stock including horses, cows. pigs, poultry, beehives and agricultural machines of all kinds.

Destruction of agriculture, enslavement of peasants and looting of stock and produce in Lithuania.

In the Latvian Republic destruction of the agriculture by the looting of all stock, machinery and produce.

The result of this policy of plunder and destruction was to lay waste the land and cause utter desolation.

The overall value of the material loss which the U.S.S.R. has borne, is computed to be 679,000,000,000 rubles, in state prices of 1941.

Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939 the defendants seized and stole large stocks of raw materials, copper, tin, iron, cotton, and food; caused to be taken to Germany large amounts of railway rolling stock, and many engines, carriages, steam vessels and trolley buses; plundered libraries, laboratories, and art museums of books, pictures, objects of art, scientific apparatus and furniture; stole all gold reserves and foreign exchange of Czechoslovakia, including 23.000 kilograms of gold of a nominal value of £5,265.000; fraudulently acquired control and thereafter looted the Czech banks and many Czech industrial enterprises; and otherwise stole, looted and misappropriated Czechoslovak public and private property. The total sum of defendants' economic spoliation of Czechoslovakia from 1938 to 1945 is estimated at 200.000.000.000 Czechoslovak crowns.

(F) THE EXACTION OF COLLECTIVE PENALTIES

The Germans pursued a systematic policy of inflicting, in all the occupied countries, collective penalties, pecuniary and otherwise, upon the population for acts of individuals for which it could not be regarded as collectively responsible; this was done at many places, including Oslo, Stavanger, Trondheim and Rogaland.

Similar instances occurred in France, among others in Dijon, Nantes and as regards the Jewish population in the occupied territories. The total amount of fines imposed on French communities add up to 1,157,179,484 francs made up as follows

A fine on the Jewish population.
Various fines

1,000,000,000 157,179,484

These acts violated Article 50, Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

(G) WANTON DESTRUCTION OF CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES AND DEVASTATION NOT JUSTIFIED BY MILITARY NECESSITY

The Defendants wantonly destroyed cities, towns and villages and committed other acts of devastation without military justification or necessity. These acts violated Articles 46 and 50 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

Particulars by way of example only and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases are as follows:

1. Western Countries:

In March, 1941, part of Lofoten in Norway was destroyed. In April, 1942, the town of Telerag in Norway was destroyed. Entire villages were destroyed in France, among others Oradour-sur-Glane, Saint-Nizier and, in the Vercors, La Mure, Vassieux, La Chapelle en Vercors. The town of Saint Dié was burnt down and destroyed. The Old Port District of Marseilles was dynamited in the beginning of 1943 and resorts along the Atlantic and the Mediterranean coasts, particularly the town of Sanary, were demolished.

In Holland there was most widespread and extensive destruction, not justified by military necessity, including the destruc

tion of harbours, locks, dykes and bridges: immense devastation was also caused by inundations which equally were not justified by military necessity.

2. Eastern Countries:

In the Eastern Countries the Defendants pursued a policy of wanton destruction and devastation: some particulars of this (without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases) are set out above under the heading-"Plunder of Public and Private Property".

In Greece in 1941, the villages of Amelofito, Kliston, Kizonia, Messovunos, Selli, Ano-Kerzilion and Kato-Kerzilion were utterly destroyed.

In Yugoslavia on 15 August, 1941, the German military command officially announced that the village of Skela was burned to the ground and the inhabitants killed on the order of the command.

On the order of the Field Commander Hoersterberg a punitive expedition from the SS troops and the field police destroyed the villages of Machkovats, and Kriva Reka in Serbia and all the inhabitants were killed.

General Fritz Neidhold (369 Infantry Division) on 11 September, 1944, gave an order to destroy the villages of Zagniezde and Udora, hanging all the men and driving away all the women and children.

In Czechoslovakia the Nazi conspirators also practised the senseless destruction of populated places. Lezaky and Lidice were burned to the ground and the inhabitants killed.

(H) CONSCRIPTION OF CIVILIAN LABOUR

Throughout the occupied territories the defendants conscripted and forced the inhabitants to labour and requisitioned their services for purposes other than meeting the needs of the armies of occupation and to an extent far out of proportion to the resources of the countries involved. All the civilians so conscripted were forced to work for the German war effort. Civilians were required to register and many of those who registered were forced to join the Todt Organization and the Speer Legion, both of which were semi-military organizations involving some military training. These acts violated Articles 46 and 52 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

Particulars, by way of example only and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases, are as follows:

1. Western Countries:

In France, from 1942 to 1944, 963,813 persons were compelled to work in Germany and 737,000 to work in France for the German Army.

In Luxembourg in 1944 alone, 2,500 men and 500 girls were conscripted for forced labor.

2. Eastern Countries:

Of the large number of citizens of the Soviet Union and of Czechoslovakia referred to under Count Three VIII (B) 2 above many were so conscripted for forced labor.

(I) FORCING CIVILIANS OF OCCUPIED TERRITORIES TO SWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO A HOSTILE POWER

Civilians who joined the Speer Legion, as set forth in paragraph (H) above, were required under threat of depriving them of food, money and identity papers, to swear a solemn oath acknowledging unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fuehrer of Germany, which was to them a hostile power.

In Lorraine, Civil Servants were obliged, in order to retain their positions, to sign a declaration by which they acknowledged the "return of their Country to the Reich", pledged themselves to obey without reservation the orders of their Chiefs and put themselves "at the active service of the Fuehrer and the Great National Socialist Germany".

A similiar pledge was imposed on Alsatian Civil Servants by threat of deportation or internment.

These acts violated Article 45 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of international law and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

(J) GERMANIZATION OF OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

In certain occupied territories purportedly annexed to Germany the defendants methodically and pursuant to plan endeavoured to assimilate those territories politically, culturally, socially and economically into the German Reich. The defendants endeavoured to obliterate the former national character of these territories. In pursuance of these plans and endeavours, the defendants forcibly deported inhabitants who were predominantly non-German and introduced thousands of German colonists.

This plan included economic domination, physical conquest, installation of puppet Governments, purported de jure annexation and enforced conscription into the German Armed Forces.

This was carried out in most of the Occupied Countries including: Norway, France (particularly in the departments of Upper Rhine, Lower Rhine, Moselle, Ardennes, Aisne, Nord, Meurthe and Moselle), Luxembourg, the Soviet Union, Denmark, Belgium, Holland.

In France in the Departments of the Aisne, the Nord, the Meurthe and Moselle, and especially in that of the Ardennes, rural properties were seized by a German state organization which tried to have them exploited under German direction; the landowners. of these exploitations were dispossessed and turned into agricultural labourers.

In the Department of the Upper Rhine, the Lower Rhine and the Moselle, the methods of Germanization were those of annexation followed by conscription.

1. From the month of August, 1940, officials who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Reich were expelled. On September 21st expulsions and deportation of populations began and on November 22nd, 1940, more than 70,000 Lorrainers or Alsacians were driven into the South zone of France. From July 31, 1941, onwards, more than 100,000 persons were deported into the Eastern regions of the Reich or to Poland. All the property of the deportees or expelled persons was confiscated. At the same time, 80,000 Germans coming from the Saar or from Westphalia, were installed in Lorraine and 2,000 farms belonging to French people were transferred to Germans.

2. From 2nd January, 1942, all the young people of the Departments of the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine, aged from 10 to 18 years, were incorporated in the Hitler Youth. The same thing was done in the Moselle from 4th August, 1942. From 1940 all the French schools were closed, their staffs expelled, and the German school system was introduced in the three departments.

3. On the 28th September, 1940, an order applicable to the Department of the Moselle ordained the Germanization of all the surnames and christian names which were French in form. The same thing was done from the 15th January, 1943, in the Departments of the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine.

4. Two orders from the 23rd to 24th August, 1942, imposed by force German nationality on French citizens.

5. On the 8th May, 1941, for the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine, the 23rd April, 1941, for the Moselle, orders were promulgated enforcing compulsory labour service on all French citizens