Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1942, Europe, Volume III

740.0011 European War 1939/18301: Telegram

The Chargé in the Soviet Union ( Thurston ) to the Secretary of State

Kuibyshev (Moscow),² January 8, 1942—11 a.m.
[Received January 9—4:20 a.m.]

25. I have received from Molotov³ a very long note,⁴ also a circular printed in the local papers, concerning German looting, torture, murder, and destruction as revealed by the Soviet reoccupation of areas overrun by the German forces. I shall send a translation of this document by mail.⁵

Thurston

2. The necessity for the removal of the American Embassy from Moscow to Kuibyshev in October 1941, with a reduced staff remaining in Moscow, is explained in Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, pp. 907–911.
3. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.
4. This note of January 6, 1942, was translated in full in the Moscow News of January 12, 1942 under the heading: “Regarding the Wholesale Looting, Ruination of the Population and Monstrous Atrocities Perpetrated by the German Authorities on Soviet Territories Seized by Them.” For correspondence regarding Allied declarations concerning German atrocities in occupied territories, see Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, pp. 445 ff.
5. Despatch No. 1464 of January 12, 1942, containing lengthy excerpts of this note in translation, not printed.