Chapter XXVI: Part 26

VAN DER ESSEN: Well, you see me here before you, I weigh 67 kilos, my height is 1 meter 67 centimeters. According to my colleagues in the Faculty of Medicine that is quite normal. Before the 10th of May 1940, before the airplanes of the Luftwaffe suddenly came without any declaration of war and spread death and desolation in Belgium, I weighed 82 kilos. This difference is incontestably the result of the occupation. But I don’t want to dwell on personal considerations or enter into details of a general nature or of a theoretical or philosophical nature. I should like simply to give you an account—it will not take more than 2 minutes—of the ordinary day of an average Belgian during the occupation.

I take a day in the winter of 1943: At 6 o’clock in the morning there is a ring at the door. One’s first thought—indeed we all had this thought—was that it was the Gestapo. It wasn’t the Gestapo. It was a city policeman who had come to tell me that there was a light in my office and that in view of the necessities of the occupation I must be careful about this in the future. But there was the nervous shock.

At 7:30 the postman arrives bringing me my letters; he tells the maid that he wishes to see me personally. I go downstairs and the man says to me, “You know, Professor, I am a member of the secret army and I know what is going on. The Germans intend to arrest today at 10 o’clock all the former soldiers of the Belgian Army who are in this region. Your son must disappear immediately.” I hurry upstairs and wake up my son. I make him prepare his kit and send him to the right place. At 10 o’clock I take the tram for Brussels. A few kilometers out of Louvain the tram stops. A military police patrol makes us get down and lines us up—irrespective of our social status or position—in front of a wall, with our arms raised and facing the wall. We are thoroughly searched, and having found neither arms nor compromising papers of any kind, we are allowed to go back into the tram. A few kilometers farther on the tram is stopped by a crowd which prevents the tram from going on. I see several women weeping, there are cries and wailings. I make inquiries and am told that their men folk living in the village had refused to do compulsory labor and were to have been arrested that night by the Security Police. Now they are taking away the old father of 82 and a young girl of 16 and holding them responsible for the disappearance of the young men.

I arrive in Brussels to attend a meeting of the academy. The first thing the president says to me is:

“Have you heard what has happened? Two of our colleagues were
arrested yesterday in the street. Their families were in a
terrible state. Nobody knows where they are.”

I go home in the evening and we are stopped on the way three times, once to search for terrorists, who are said to have fled, the other times to see if our papers are in order. At last I get home without anything serious having happened to me.

I might say here that only at 9 o’clock in the evening can we give a sigh of relief, when we turn the knob of our radio set and listen to that reassuring voice which we hear every evening, the voice of Fighting France: “Today is the 189th day of the struggle of the French people for their liberation,” or the voice of Victor Delabley, that noble figure of the Belgian radio in London, who always finished up by saying, “Courage, we will get them yet, the Boches!” That was the only thing that enabled us to breathe and go to sleep at night.

That was an average day, a normal day of an average Belgian during the German occupation. And you can well understand that we could hardly call that time the reign of happiness and felicity that we were promised when the German troops invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940.

M. FAURE: Excuse me, M. Van der Essen. The only satisfaction that you had was to listen to the London radio; this was punished by a severe penalty, if you were caught, I suppose?

VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, it meant imprisonment.

M. FAURE: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Are you finished, M. Faure?

M. FAURE: No more questions, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: General Rudenko? The American and British prosecutors?

[_Each indicated that he had no question._]

THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the defendants’ counsel wish to ask any questions?

DR. EXNER: You have been speaking about the university library at Louvain. I should like to ask something: Were you yourself in Louvain when the two batteries were firing at the library, and at the library only, in 1940?

VAN DER ESSEN: I was not in Louvain, but I should say this: Louvain was in the K. O. line, that is in the very front line; and the population of Louvain was obliged by the British military authorities to evacuate the town on the 14th so that nearly all the inhabitants of Louvain had left at the time when these events took place and only paralytics and sick persons, who could not be transported and who had hidden in their cellars, were left; but what I said concerning these batteries, I know from the interrogation of the two witnesses who were on the spot just outside Louvain. The library was not set on fire from within, but shelled from without. And these witnesses of whom I speak lived in these two villages outside the town where the batteries were located.

DR. EXNER: Were there any Belgian or British troops still left in the town?

VAN DER ESSEN: The Belgian troops were no longer there. They had been replaced by the British troops when the British had taken over the sector and at the time when the library was seen to be on fire. The first flames were seen in the night of the 16th to the 17th at 1:30 in the morning. The British troops had left. There remained only a few tanks which were operating a withdrawal movement. These fired an occasional shot to give the impression that the sector was still occupied by the British Army.

DR. EXNER: So there were still British troops in the town when the bombardment started?

VAN DER ESSEN: There were no longer any British troops; there were merely a few tanks on the hills outside Louvain in the direction of Brussels, a few tanks which, as I said, were carrying out necessary maneuvers for withdrawal.

I would have liked to add a few words and to say to the very honorable Counsel for the Defense that, according to the testimony of persons who were in the library—the ushers and the janitors—not a single British soldier ever set foot in the library buildings.

DR. EXNER: That is not surprising. At the time the German batteries were firing were there still British batteries or Belgian batteries firing?

VAN DER ESSEN: No.

DR. EXNER: So all was quiet in the town of Louvain; the troops had left; the enemy was not there yet, and the batteries didn’t fire?

VAN DER ESSEN: That was the rather paradoxical situation in Louvain; there was a moment when the British had left and the Germans had not yet arrived; and there remained only the few ill persons, the few paralytics who could not be moved and who were left behind in cellars. A few other persons remained too: the Chief of the Fire Service and Monseigneur Van Wayenberg, the Rector of the University, who had brought the dead and the dying from Brussels to Louvain in the firemen’s car and made the journey several times. There was also my colleague, Professor Kennog, a member of the Faculty of Medicine who had taken over the direction of the city.

DR. EXNER: Do you know where these German batteries were located?

VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, indeed. One was located at Corbek and the other at Lovengule, one on the west side and one on the north side. The only shell hits on the tower of the library were four hits from the east side and seven from the north side. If there had still been British or Belgian batteries, the shells would have come from the opposite side.

DR. EXNER: Can you tell me anything about the caliber of these batteries?

VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, we saved the shells and at present they are in the Library of Louvain, or rather in what serves as a library for the university. There are four shells and two or three fragments of shells.

DR. EXNER: And do you know the name of the peasant who was supposed to have been asked by a German officer whether that was really the University of Louvain? Do you know the peasant personally?

VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, indeed, his name is M. Vigneron.

DR. EXNER: Do you know the peasant yourself? Do you know him?

VAN DER ESSEN: I do not know him personally. It was the librarian of the university who had a conversation with him and who induced the War Crimes Commission to interrogate this peasant.

DR. EXNER: You are a member of that commission yourself?

VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, I am ready to declare that I took no direct part in the inquiry concerning the Library of Louvain, just as Monseigneur the Rector and the librarian took no active part in the inquiry concerning the Library of Louvain. It was made by an officer of the judicial delegation who acted alone and quite independently upon the order of the Prosecutor of Louvain, and we kept entirely out of the matter.

DR. EXNER: Have you seen the official files of this commission?

VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, certainly.

DR. EXNER: I am surprised they weren’t brought here. Tell me, why did the director of the library or the person who was directly concerned not go, after the occupation of the town, to the mayor or to the commander of the town?

VAN DER ESSEN: I don’t think I understand the question very well.

DR. EXNER: When the German Army came, a town commander was appointed. Why didn’t the mayor of the town, or the Director of the University Library go to the town commander and tell him about these things?

VAN DER ESSEN: Why didn’t he tell him about these things—for the very simple reason that at that time everything was in complete disorder and there was hardly anybody left in the town, and on the other hand as soon as the German Army arrived, it systematically closed the entrance gate of the library so that the Belgians could not make any inquiry. Then two German inquiry commissions came upon the scene. The first worked on 26 May 1940 with an expert, Professor Kellermann of the School of Technology in Aachen, accompanied by a Party man in a brown shirt. They examined what was left and they summoned before them as witnesses the Rector of the University and the Librarian. From the very beginning of the inquiry they wished to force the rector and the librarian to declare and admit that it was the British who had set fire to the library. And as a proof, this expert showed shell cases saying, “Here, sniff this, it smells of gasoline and shows that chemicals were used to set fire to the library.” Whereupon the Rector and the Librarian of the University said to him, “Where did you find this shell case, Mr. Expert?” “In such and such a place.” “When we went by that place,” said the rector, “it wasn’t there.” It had been placed there by the German expert. And I will add, if you will permit me, because this is of considerable importance, that a second inquiry commission came in August 1940, presided over by a very distinguished man, District Court of Appeal Judge Von Neuss. He was accompanied this time by the expert who had directed the inquiry into the firing of the Reichstag. This commission again examined everything, and before the rector and another witness, Krebs, from the Benedictine Abbey of Mont-César, they simply laughed at the conclusions of the first commission, and said they were ridiculous.

DR. EXNER: You have said that the library building had towers. Do you know whether there were artillery observers in these towers?

VAN DER ESSEN: You ask whether there were artillery observers? All I can say is that the rector had always opposed this from the beginning, and he certainly would have opposed any attempt of this kind, knowing that the presence of artillery observers in the tower would obviously provide the enemy with a reason to fire on the library. The rector knew this and he always said to me, “We must be extremely careful to see that British soldiers or others who might take the sector do not go up in the tower.” I know from the statements of the janitor that no Englishman, no British soldier, went into the tower. That is absolutely certain. As for Belgians, I must confess that I cannot answer your question, as I don’t know.

DR. EXNER: It would not be so very amazing, would it, if the university library had been hit by German artillery. After all, it has happened that the libraries of the Universities of Berlin, Leipzig, Munich, Breslau, Cologne, _et cetera_, have been hit. The only question is whether this was done deliberately, and here it occurs to me that the peasant . . .

VAN DER ESSEN: The peasant . . .

DR. EXNER: I would like to ask you: Was there any mention in these inquiries as to the motive which might have induced the German Army to make this an objective?

VAN DER ESSEN: All the evidence seems to indicate, and this was the conclusion arrived at by the commission, that the motive—I will not say the main motive, because there is no certainty in this sort of thing—that the motive which is very probable, almost certain, for the destruction of the library was the German Army’s desire to do away with a monument which commemorates the Treaty of Versailles. On the library building there was a virgin wearing a helmet crushing under her foot a dragon which symbolized the enemy. Certain conversations of German officers gave the very clear impression that the reason why they wished to set fire systematically to this building was their desire to get rid of a testimony of the defeat in the other war, and above all, a reminder of the Treaty of Versailles. I may add that this is not the first time that the Germans have destroyed the University of Louvain.

DR. EXNER: You believe that the commander of that battery knew that?

VAN DER ESSEN: There is very interesting testimony which I should like to submit to the honorable Counsel for the Defense. On the day when the batteries were installed, the two batteries which I mentioned, I spoke to a tax collector, a civil servant, who lived in a villa on the road to Roosweek, a few kilometers from Louvain. That afternoon some German high-ranking officers came to his house to ask for hospitality. These officers had with them a truck with all the necessary radio apparatus for sending wireless orders to the German artillery to fire. These officers installed themselves in his house, and dinner was naturally served to them, and they invited him to sit with them. After hesitating a moment, he accepted, and during the meal there was a violent discussion. The officers said, “These Belgian swine”—excuse my using this expression, but they used it—“at any rate they did put that inscription on the library.” They were referring to the famous inscription “_Furore Teutonica_” which in fact was never on the library; but all the German officers were absolutely convinced that this inscription “_Furore teutonica diruta, dono americano restituta_” (destroyed by German fury, restored by American generosity) was on the building, whereas, in fact, it never has been there. However, I am quite willing to admit that in Germany they might have believed that it was there; and the very fact that there should have been a discussion among the officers in command of these two batteries, seems to prove that if they directed the fire onto the library, it was in order to destroy this monument. It was probable that they wanted to get rid of a monument which, according to their idea, bore an inscription which was insulting to the German Army and the German people. That is the testimony which I can give to the honorable Counsel for the Defense. I give it as it is.

DR. EXNER: You mean that the captain who commanded this battery knew about that inscription! I don’t believe it.

VAN DER ESSEN: Certainly.

DR. EXNER: Thank you.

DR. STAHMER: Witness, you have said that 43 airplanes flew over the library and dropped bombs on it. As you told us yourself, in reply to Professor Exner’s question, you were not in the town at the time; where did you get that information?

VAN DER ESSEN: As I have already said, it is not my testimony which I am giving here, because for my part I have none; but it is the testimony of the lawyer, Davids, who had a country house at Kesseloo.

This lawyer went out in the morning to look at the sky. He had a considerable number of refugees in his home, among them women and children, and as airplanes were continually overhead he had gone out in the morning to see what was going on. He saw this squadron of airplanes which he counted—remember he was an old soldier himself—and there were 43 which were flying in the direction of the library; and when they arrived over the library, exactly over the gable at the farthest point from the house of the witness, they dropped a bomb, and he saw smoke immediately arise from the roof of the library. That is the testimony on which I base the statement I just made.

DR. STAHMER: So it was just one bomb that hit the library?

VAN DER ESSEN: We must distinguish here, sir, between artillery fire and bombs which are dropped by planes. From a technical point of view, it seems absolutely certain that a bomb from a plane hit the library, because the roof has metal covering and this metal roofing is quite level, except in one part where it caves in. We consulted technicians, who told us that a metallic surface would never have sunk in to such an extent if it had been hit by artillery fire and could only have been caused by a bomb from a plane.

DR. STAHMER: How many bombs in all were dropped by airplanes?

VAN DER ESSEN: As the witness was at a height dominating the Louvain area from where he could see the library on the plain, it was impossible for him to count exactly the bombs which these planes dropped. He only saw the bombs fall. Then he saw the smoke which arose from the roof of the library. That’s all I have to say concerning this point.

DR. STAHMER: How many bomb hits were counted in the city?

VAN DER ESSEN: On this point I can give you no information, but I know that some airplanes passed over the library quarters in a straight line going north to south. These bombs, at that time, in May 1940, damaged, but not very seriously, the Higher Institute of Philosophy, the Institute of Pharmacy, and a few other university buildings; also a certain number of private houses.

DR. STAHMER: When were the bombs dropped, before the artillery fire or afterwards?

VAN DER ESSEN: The bombs were dropped before and afterwards. There were some air raids. I myself was present during a terrible air-raid on the afternoon of 10 May 1940 by a squadron of seven planes. I am not a military technician, but I saw with my own eyes the planes which dive-bombed the Tirlemont Bridge. The result of this bombing was that a considerable number of houses were destroyed and 208 persons killed on the spot, on the afternoon of 10 May 1940.

[_A recess was taken._]

THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the other Defense Counsel wish to cross-examine?

HERR BABEL: Witness, when did you last see the university building; that is, before the attack?

VAN DER ESSEN: Before the fire? I saw it on 11 May 1940.

HERR BABEL: That is to say, before the attack?

VAN DER ESSEN: Before the attack.

HERR BABEL: Was it damaged at that time, and to what extent?

VAN DER ESSEN: On 11 May absolutely nothing had happened to the library. It was intact. Until the night of the 16th to 17th of May, when I left, there was absolutely no damage.

HERR BABEL: Apart from the hits on the tower, did you notice any other traces of artillery fire on the building?

VAN DER ESSEN: On the building I don’t think so. There were only traces of artillery fire . . .

HERR BABEL: From the fact that only the tower had been hit, couldn’t it be thought that the tower and not the building was the target?

VAN DER ESSEN: When I said that the tower was struck, I meant only the traces that could be seen on the walls, on the balcony of the first story, and on the dial of the clock. Apart from that, nothing could be seen on the building for the simple reason that the building had been completely burned out inside and nothing could be seen on the charred walls. But it is absolutely certain that either a bomb from a plane or an artillery shell—I personally think it was the latter—hit the building on the north side, after the fire. The trace of shell fire can be seen very visibly. It is just here that the fire began. Witnesses who saw the fire of the Abbey of Mont César. . . .

HERR BABEL: After the fire, when did you see the building for the first time?

VAN DER ESSEN: After the fire, in July 1940.

HERR BABEL: That is, much later?

VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, but still in the same condition. Nothing had been done to it. It was still as it was originally.

HERR BABEL: Do you know whether, while the building was burning, an attempt was made to stop the fire and save the building?

VAN DER ESSEN: It is absolutely certain that attempts were made to stop the fire. The Rector of the University, Monseigneur Van Wayenberg, told me himself and has stated that he sent for the firemen, but the firemen had gone. Only the chief and two members of the fire brigade were left, and all the water mains at that time were broken as a result of the bombardment. There was no water supply for several days.

HERR BABEL: Did German troops take part in these attempts to save the building?

VAN DER ESSEN: No, they were not there yet.

HERR BABEL: How do you know that? You weren’t there.

VAN DER ESSEN: But the Rector of the University did not leave the town of Louvain. The rector was there and so was the librarian.

HERR BABEL: Did you speak to the rector on this question, as to whether German troops took part in the attempt to save the building?

VAN DER ESSEN: I spoke to the rector and to the librarian. In my capacity as General Secretary of the University I discussed with the rector all general questions concerning the university. We discussed this point especially, and he told me categorically that no soldier of the German Army tried to fight the fire.

HERR BABEL: You also have spoken about the resistance movement. Do you know whether the civilian population was called upon to resist the German troops?

VAN DER ESSEN: Where? In the Ardennes?

HERR BABEL: In Belgium?

VAN DER ESSEN: In Belgium the resistance was mainly composed of the secret army, which was a military organization with responsible and recognized commanders, and wore a distinctive badge so that they could not be confused with simple _francs-tireurs_.

HERR BABEL: Do you know how many German soldiers fell victims to the resistance movement?

VAN DER ESSEN: How German soldiers fell victims to this resistance? I know very well because everywhere in the Ardennes the resistance went into action, and legally, with chiefs at their head, carrying arms openly, and with distinctive badges. They openly attacked the German troops from the front.

HERR BABEL: That was not my question. I asked you if you knew roughly how many German soldiers became victims of that resistance movement?

VAN DER ESSEN: I don’t understand what is implied by the question of the honorable Counsel for the Defense.

HERR BABEL: That is not for you to judge, it is for the Tribunal.

VAN DER ESSEN: Does the honorable Counsel for the Defense mean the events of the Ardennes which I alluded to a while ago, or does he speak in a quite general sense?

HERR BABEL: The witness in his statements had himself brought up the question of the resistance movement, and that is why I asked whether the witness knows . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Babel, the witness has already answered the question by saying that he cannot say how many Germans were killed by the resistance movement.

HERR BABEL: But he can say whether a certain number of Germans did fall victims to the resistance.

VAN DER ESSEN: There were real battles.

HERR BABEL: The witness will also be able to confirm that the members of the resistance are today considered heroes in Belgium. From what we have read in the papers and from what has been brought up here, these people who were active in the resistance movement are now considered heroes. At least I could draw that conclusion.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you please continue your examination.

HERR BABEL: Witness, you have said, if I understood you correctly, that you lost 15 kilograms weight.

VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, indeed.

HERR BABEL: What conclusion did you draw from that fact? I could not quite understand what you said.

VAN DER ESSEN: I simply meant to say that I lost these 15 kilos as a result of the mental suffering which we underwent during the occupation, and it was an answer to a question of M. Faure on whether I considered this occupation compatible with the dignity of a free man. I wanted to answer “no,” giving the proof that as a result of this occupation we suffered much anguish, and I think the loss of weight is sufficient proof of this.

HERR BABEL: During the war, I also, without having been ill, lost 35 kilos. What conclusion could be drawn from that, in your opinion?

[_Laughter._]

THE PRESIDENT: Go on, Dr. Babel, we are not interested in your experiences.

HERR BABEL: Thank you, Sir. That was my last question.

THE PRESIDENT: Does any other Counsel wish to ask any questions? [_There was no response._] M. Faure?

M. FAURE: I have no questions.

THE PRESIDENT: The witness may retire.

[_The witness left the stand._]

M. FAURE: I ask the Tribunal kindly to take the presentation file and the document book constituting the end of the section on the seizure of sovereignty, which bears the title “France.”

France, like Belgium, was placed under the regime of the military occupation administration. There was, moreover, in France a diplomatic representation. Finally, it must be noted that the police administration always played an important role there. It became increasingly important and was extended, particularly during the period which followed the appointment of General Oberg in 1942.

As regards this last part of my section on the seizure of sovereignty, I should like to limit myself to mentioning a few special features of these usurpations in France and certain original methods employed by the Germans in this country, for this question has already been extensively dealt with, and will be further dealt with by me under the heading of consequences of German activities in France.

I wish to draw the attention of the Tribunal to four considerations. First, the German authorities in France, at the very beginning, got hold of a special key to sovereignty. I speak of the splitting up of the country into five different zones. This splitting up of the country by the Germans compensated to a certain extent for the special situation which the existence of unoccupied French territories created for them.

I have already indicated that the Armistice Convention of 22 June, which has already been deposited with the Tribunal, provided for the establishment of a line of demarcation between the occupied zone and the so-called unoccupied zone. It might have been thought at that time that this demarcation between the occupied and the unoccupied zone was chiefly drawn to meet the necessity of military movements in the occupied zone. It might also have been concluded that the separation of the zones would be manifested only through the exercise in the occupied zone of the ordinary rights of an armed force occupation. I have already had occasion to quote to the Tribunal a document, the testimony of M. Léon Noël, which contained the verbal assurances given in this respect by General Keitel and by General Jodl, who are now the defendants before you bearing these names.

Now, in fact, this demarcation of zones was interpreted and applied with extreme rigor and in a manner that was wholly unforeseen. We have already seen the far reaching consequences of this from the point of view of the economic life of the country. There were also serious consequences from the point of view of local administration, which was continually hampered in its tasks, and from the point of view of the life of the population, which could move from one part of French territory to another only with great difficulty. In this way the Germans acquired a first means of pressure on the French authorities. This means of pressure was all the more effective as it could be used at any time and was very elastic. At times the Germans could relax the rules of separation of the zones, at others they could apply them with the greatest severity.

By way of example, I quote an extract from a document, which I present in evidence under the Document Number RF-1051.

This document is a letter of 20 December 1941 addressed by Schleier of the German Embassy to the French Delegate De Brinon, a letter concerning passes to German civilians wishing to enter the unoccupied zone. The French authorities of the _de facto_ government had protested against the fact that the Germans obliged the French authorities to allow any person provided with German passes to enter the unoccupied zone where they could take on any kind of work, particularly spying, as one may imagine.

The letter which I quote is in answer to this French protest, and I wish to mention only the last paragraph which is the second paragraph on page 2 of this Document Number 1051.

“In case the French Government should create difficulties
concerning requests for passes presented with the German
approval, it will no longer be possible to exercise that same
generosity as shown hitherto when granting passes to French
nationals.”

But what I have just said is only a first point concerning the division of the country. This first division had as basis an instrument which was the Armistice Convention, although this basis was exceeded and was contestable. On the other hand, the other divisions which I am going to mention were simply imposed by the Germans without warning of any kind, and without the enunciation of any plausible pretext.

I must recall that a first supplementary division was that which separated the annexed Departments of the Haut-Rhin, the Bas-Rhin, and the Moselle from the rest of France; and in this connection I have already proved that they had been really annexed.

A second division affected the Departments of Nord and the Pas-de-Calais. These departments were in fact attached to the German Military Administration of Belgium. This fact is shown by the headings of the German Military Command decrees, which are submitted to the Tribunal in the Belgian _Official Gazette_. Not only did this separation exist from the point of view of the German Military Command Administration, but it also existed from the point of view of the French Administration. This last mentioned administration was not excluded in the departments under consideration, but its communications with the central services were extremely difficult.

As I do not wish to develop this point at length, I should like simply to quote a document which will serve as an example, and which I submit as Document Number RF-1052. This is a letter from the military commander under the date of 17 September 1941, which communicates his refusal to re-establish telegraphic and telephonic communications with the rest of France. I quote the single sentence of this letter:

“Upon decision of the High Command of the Army it is so far not
yet possible to concede the application for granting direct
telegraphic service between the Vichy Government and the two
departments of the North.”

A third division consisted in the creation within the unoccupied zone of a so-called forbidden zone. The conception of this forbidden zone certainly corresponded to the future projects of the Germans as to the annexation of larger portions of France. In this connection I produced documents at the beginning of my presentation. This forbidden zone did not have any special rules of administration, but special authorization was required to enter or to leave it. The return to this zone of persons who had left it in order to seek refuge in other regions was possible only in stages, and with great difficulty. Administrative relations, the same as economic relations between the forbidden zone and the other zones were constantly hampered. This fact is well known. Nevertheless, I wish to quote a document also as an example, and I submit this document, Number RF-1053. It is a letter from the military commander, dated 22 November 1941, addressed to the French Delegation. I shall simply summarize this document by saying that the German Command agreed to allow a minister of the _de facto_ government to go into the occupied zone, but refused to allow him to go into the forbidden zone.

In order that the Tribunal may realize the situation of these five zones which I have just mentioned, I have attached to the document book a map of France indicating these separations. This map of France was numbered RF-1054, but I think it is not necessary for me to produce it as a document properly speaking. It is intended to enable the Tribunal to follow this extreme partitioning by looking, first at the annexed departments, and then at Nord and the Pas-de-Calais, the boundaries of these departments being indicated on the map, then at the forbidden unoccupied zone, which is indicated by a first line; and, finally, the line of demarcation with the unoccupied zone. This is, by the way, a reproduction of the map which was published and sold in Paris during the occupation by Publishers Girard and Barère.

To conclude this question of the division I should like to remind the Tribunal that on 11 November 1942 the German Army forces invaded the so-called unoccupied zone. The German authorities declared at that time that they did not intend to establish a military occupation of this zone, and that there would simply be what was called a zone of operations.

The German authorities did not respect this juridical conception that they had thought out any more than they had respected the rules of the law of the occupation; and the proof of this violation of law in the so-called operational zone has already been brought in a number of circumstances and will be brought again later in the final parts of this presentation.

Apart from this division, the inconveniences of which can well be imagined for a country which is not very extensive and whose life is highly centralized, I shall mention the second seizure of sovereignty, which consisted in the control by the Germans of the legislative acts of the French _de facto_ government.

Naturally, the German military administration, in conformity with its doctrine, constantly exercised by its own decrees, a real legislative power in regard to the French. On the other hand—and it is this fact which I am dealing with now—in respect to the French power the sovereignty of which the Germans pretended still to recognize, they exercised a veritable legislative censorship. I shall produce several documents by way of example and proof of this fact.

The first, which I submit as Document Number RF-1055, is a letter from the Commander-in-Chief of the Military Forces in France to the French Delegate General; the letter is dated 29 December 1941. We see that the signature on this letter is that of Dr. Best, of whom I spoke this morning in connection with Denmark, where he went subsequently and where he was given both diplomatic and police functions. I think it is not necessary for me to read the text of this letter. I shall read simply the heading: “Subject: Bill Concerning the French Budget of 1942, and the New French Finance Law.”

The German authorities considered that they had the power to take part in the drawing up of the French _de facto_ government’s budget, although this bore no relation to the necessities of their military occupation. Not only did the Germans check the contents of the laws prepared by the _de facto_ government, but they made peremptory suggestions. I shall not quote any document on this point at the moment, as I shall be producing two: One in connection with propaganda and the other in connection with the regime imposed upon the Jews.

The third seizure of sovereignty which the Germans exercised consisted in their intervention in the appointment and assignment of officials. According to the method which I have already followed, I submit, on this question, documents by way of example. First I submit a document which will be Document Number RF-1056, a letter of 23 September 1941, from the Commander-in-Chief Von Stülpnagel to De Brinon. This letter puts forth various considerations, which it is not necessary to read, on the sabotage of harvests and the difficulties of food supplies. I read the last paragraph of Document RF-1056.

“I must, therefore, peremptorily demand a speedy and unified
direction of the measures necessary for assuring the food
supplies for the population. A possibility of achieving this aim
I can see only by uniting both ministries in the hands of one
single and energetic expert.”

It was, therefore, a case of interference on the very plane of the composition of a ministry, of an authority supposedly governmental. As regards the control of appointments, I produce Document Number RF-1057, which is a letter from the Military Command of 29 November 1941. I shall simply summarize this document by indicating that the German authorities objected to the appointment of the President of the Liaison Committee for the Manufacture of Beet Sugar. You see, therefore, how little this has to do with military necessities.

I next produce Document Number RF-1058, which is likewise a letter from the Military Command. It is brief and I shall read it by way of example:

“I beg you to take the necessary measures in order that the
Subprefect of St. Quentin, M. Planacassagne, be relieved of his
functions and replaced as soon as possible by a competent
official. M. Planacassagne is not capable of carrying out his
duties.”

I shall now quote a text of a more general scope. I produce Document Number RF-1059, which is a secret circular of 10 May 1942, addressed by the Military Command Administrative Staff to all the chief town majors. Here again we find the signature of Dr. Best.

“Control of French policy as regards personnel in the occupied
territories.

“The remodelling of the French Government presents certain
possibilities for exercising a positive influence on French
police in the occupied territories as regards personnel. I,
therefore, ask you to designate those French officials, who,
from the German point of view, appear particularly usable and
whose names could be submitted to the French Government when the
question of appointing holders for important posts arises.”

Thus we see in the process of formation this general network of German control and German usurpation. I now produce Document Number RF-1060. This document is an interrogation of Otto Abetz, who had the function of German ambassador in France. This interrogation took place on 17 November 1945 before the Commissioners Berge and Saulas at the General Information Bureau in Paris. This document confirms German interferences in French administration and likewise gives details about the duplications of these controls by the military commander and the Gestapo. I quote:

“The Military Commander in France, basing himself on the various
conventions of international law”—this is Otto Abetz who is
speaking and it is not necessary to say that we in no way accept
his conception of international law—“considered himself
responsible and supreme judge for the maintenance of order and
public security in the occupied zone. This being so, he claimed
the right to give his approval for the appointment or the
retaining of all French officials nominated to occupy posts in
the occupied zone. As regards officials residing in the free
zone who were obliged by reason of their functions to exercise
them subsequently in the occupied zone, the Military Commander
also stressed the necessity for his approval of their
nomination. In practice the Military Commander made use of the
right thus claimed only when the officials were nominated and
solely in the sense of a right to veto, that is to say, he did
not intervene in the choice of officials to be nominated and
contented himself with making observations on certain names
proposed. These observations were based on information which the
Military Commander received from his regional and local
commanders, from his various administrative and economic
departments in Paris, and from the police and the Gestapo, which
at that time were still under the authority of the Military
Commander.

“From 11 November 1942 on, this state of things changed because
of the occupation of the free zone. The German military
authorities settled in this zone demanded that they should give
their opinion in regard to the nomination of officials in all
cases where the security of the German Army might be affected.
The Gestapo for its part acquired in the two zones a _de facto_
independence with regard to the regional and local military
chiefs and with regard to the Military Commander. It claimed the
right to intervene in connection with any appointment which
might affect the carrying out of their police tasks.

“Having been recalled to Germany from November 1942 to December
1943, I did not myself witness the conflicts which resulted from
this state of things and which could not fail to compromise in
the highest degree the so-called sovereignty of the Vichy
Government. When I returned to France the situation was
considerably worse because the Gestapo claimed, in the occupied
as well as in the unoccupied zone, the right to make the
nomination of prefects subject to its consent. It even went so
far as to propose itself the officials to be nominated by the
French Government. Seconded by me, the Military Commander took
up again the struggle against these abusive demands and
succeeded in part in restoring the situation to what it was
before November 1942 . . . .”

The document which I have just read constitutes a transition to the fourth consideration which I should like to submit to the Tribunal. In putting this consideration I should like to stress the juxtaposition and the collaboration of the various agents of usurpation, that is to say, the military command, the embassy, and the police. As regards the latter I shall deal at greater length with its role in the last part of my brief.

With regard to the setting up of the German Embassy in France, I produce before the Tribunal Exhibit Number RF-1061. This document was in my file as a judicial translation of a judicial document in the file concerning Otto Abetz in Paris. On the other hand, it is also contained in the American documentation and bears the Document Number 3614-PS. It has not, however, as yet been submitted to the Tribunal. It deals with the official appointment of Otto Abetz as ambassador. I should like to read this Document RF-1061.

“Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 3 August 1940.

“In answer to a question of the General Quartermaster, addressed
to the High Command of the Armed Forces and transmitted by the
latter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Führer had
appointed Abetz, up to now minister, as ambassador and upon my
report has decreed the following:

“I. Ambassador Abetz has the following functions in France:

“1. To advise the military agencies on political matters.

“2. To maintain permanent contact with the Vichy Government and
its representatives in the occupied zone.

“3. To influence the important political personalities in the
occupied zone and in the unoccupied zone in a way favorable to
our intentions.

“4. To guide from the political point of view the press, the
radio, and the propaganda in the occupied zone and to influence
the responsive elements engaged in the molding of public opinion
in the unoccupied zone.

“5. To take care of the German, French, and Belgian citizens
returning from internment camps.

“6. To advise the secret military police and the Gestapo on the
seizure of politically important documents.

“7. To seize and secure all public art treasures and private art
treasures, and particularly art treasures belonging to Jews, on
the basis of special instructions relating thereto.

“II. The Führer has expressly ordered that only Ambassador Abetz
shall be responsible for all political questions in Occupied and
Unoccupied France. Insofar as military interests are involved by
his duties, Ambassador Abetz shall act only in agreement with
the Military Command in France.

“III. Ambassador Abetz will be attached to the Military
Commander in France as his delegate. His domicile shall continue
to be in Paris as hitherto. He will receive from me instructions
for the accomplishment of his tasks and will be responsible
solely to me. I shall greatly appreciate it if the High Command
of the Armed Forces (the OKW) will give the necessary orders to
the military agencies concerned as quickly as possible.

“Signed: Ribbentrop.”

This document shows the close collaboration that existed between the military administration and the administration of foreign affairs, a collaboration which, as I have already said on several occasions, is one of the determining elements for establishing responsibility in this Trial, a collaboration of which I shall later on give examples of a criminal character.

I now wish to mention to the Tribunal that I eliminate the production of the next document which was numbered RF-1062. Although I am personally certain of the value of this document which comes from a French judicial file, I have not the original German text. This being so, the translation might create difficulties, and it is naturally essential that each document produced should present incontestable guarantees. I shall therefore pass directly to the last document, which I wish to put in and which I submit as Document Number RF-1063. This is a detail, if I may call it such, concerning this problem of the collaboration of the German administrations, but sometimes formal documents concerning details may present some interest. It is a note taken from the German archives in Paris, a note dated 5 November 1943, which gives the distribution of the numbering of the files in the German Embassy. I shall read simply the first three lines of this note: “In accordance with the method adopted by the military administration in France, the files are divided into 10 chief groups.” There follows the enumeration of these methods and groups used for the classification of the files. I wish simply to point out that under their system of close collaboration the German Embassy, a civil service department of the foreign office, and the Military Command had adopted filing systems under which all records and all files could be kept in the same way.

I have now concluded my second section which was devoted to the general examination of this seizure of sovereignty in the occupied territories, and I should like to point out that these files have been established with the collaboration of my assistant, M. Monneray, a collaboration which also included the whole brief which I present to the Tribunal.

I shall now ask the Tribunal to take the files relative to Section 3, devoted to the ideological Germanization, and to propaganda.

When I had occasion to speak to the Tribunal about forced labor and economic pillage I said that the Germans had taken all available manpower, goods, and raw materials from the occupied countries. They drained these countries of their reserves. The Germans acted in exactly the same manner with regard to the intellectual and moral resources. They wished to seize and eliminate the spiritual reserves. This expression “spiritual reserves,” which is extremely significant, was not invented by the Prosecution. I have borrowed it from the Germans themselves. I have quoted to the Tribunal another extract from a work which was submitted as a document under Number RF-5 of the French documentation. This was a book published in Berlin by the Nazi Party. The author was Dr. Friedrich Didier. This work has a preface by the Defendant Sauckel and is entitled _Working For Europe_. The quotation which I should like to make appears in the document book under 1100, which is simply the order of sequence, as the book itself has already been presented and submitted. The book includes a chapter entitled “Ideological Guidance and Social Assistance.” The author is concerned with the ideological guidance of the foreign workers who were taken away by millions to the Reich by force. This preoccupation with the ideological guidance of such an important element of the population of the occupied countries is already remarkable in itself; but it is, on the other hand, quite evident that this preoccupation is general with regard to all the inhabitants of the occupied countries, and the author in this case has simply confined himself to his subject. I have chosen this quotation to begin my section because its wording seemed to me to be particularly felicitous to enable us to get an idea of the German plans in regard to propaganda.

Page 69 of the book that has been put in evidence reads:

“The problem of ideological guidance of the foreign worker is
not as simple as in the case of the German fellow worker. In
employing foreigners far more importance must be paid to the
removal of psychological reservations. The foreigner must get
accustomed to unfamiliar surroundings. His ideological scruples
must be dispersed, if he has any. The mental attitude of the
nationals of former enemy states must be just as effectively
refuted as the consequences of foreign ideologies.”

In the occupied countries the Germans undertook to eliminate the mental reserves and to expurgate the ideology of each man in order to substitute for them the Nazi conception. Such was the object of the propaganda. This propaganda had already been introduced in Germany and it was carried on there unceasingly. We have seen from the article just quoted that there was also a preoccupation with the ideological guidance of the German worker, although the problem was considered there to be more simple. When we speak today of Nazi propaganda we are often tempted to underestimate the importance of this propaganda. There are grounds for underestimating it, but they are false grounds. On the one hand, when we consider the works and the themes of propaganda, we are often struck by their crudeness, their obviously mendacious character, their intellectual or artistic poverty. But we must not forget that the Nazi propaganda utilized all means, the most crude as well as the more subtle and often skillful methods. From another point of view the crudest affirmations are those that carry most weight with some simple minds.

Finally, we must not forget that if the Germans had won the war, these writings, these films, which we find ridiculous, would have constituted in the future our principal and soon our sole spiritual food.

Another remark that is often heard is that German propaganda achieved only very poor results. Indeed, these results are quite insignificant, especially if one takes into account the means which this propaganda had at its disposal. The enslaved peoples did not listen to the news and to the exhortations of the Germans. They threw themselves into the resistance. But here again we must consider that the war continued, that the broadcasts from the countries which had remained free gave out magnificent counter propaganda, and that finally the Germans after a time suffered military reverses.