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Martin Bormann’s Minutes of a Meeting at Hitler’s Headquarters (July 16, 1941)

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The annexation of Finland as a federated state should be prepared with great caution. The area around Leningrad is wanted by the Finns; the Führer will have Leningrad razed to the ground in order to hand it over to the Finns.

[ . . . ]

The Reichsmarschall, however, emphasized the most important criteria which for the time being must be exclusively decisive for us: securing food supplies, and as far as necessary, of the economy; securing of the roads, etc.

[ . . . ]

Reichsleiter Rosenberg then broached the question of providing for the security of the administration.

[ . . . ]

Field Marshal Keitel emphasizes that the inhabitants themselves ought to be made responsible for their affairs because it was of course impossible to put a sentry in front of every shed or railway station. The inhabitants had to understand that anybody who did not perform his duties properly would be shot, and that they would be held responsible for every offense.

[ . . . ]

After the break the Führer emphasized that we had to understand that the Europe of today was nothing but a geographical term; in reality Asia extended up to our frontiers.

[ . . . ]



Source of English translation: Unsigned Memorandum (July 16, 1941), in United States Department of State, Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945: From the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1964. Series D (1937-1945), The War Years, Volume 13: June 23 – December 11, 1941. Document Number 114 (Nuremberg Document 221-L), pp. 149-56.

Source of original German text: Aktenvermerk vom 16. Juli 1941, in Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof. Nürnberg 14. November 1945 - 1. Oktober 1946. Volume XXXVIII, Amtlicher Text – Deutsche Ausgabe, Urkunden und anderes Beweismaterial. Nuremberg 1949. Reprint: Munich, Delphin Verlag, 1989. Document 221-L, pp. 86-94.

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