dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
M. FAURE: I would like to read Article One and the first paragraph of Article Two. I believe that the title itself is a sufficient indication of the contents: "Article One. The safeguarding of property of people transplanted from Lorraine to the Greater German Reich or to territory placed under the sovereign power of Germany has been entrusted to the transfer services for Lorraine under the Chief of the Administration. "Article Two. These services are authorized to put in effective safekeeping the property of the Lothringians who have been transplanted in order that such property may be administered, and-insofar as orders may have been given for this exploited." This ordinance, therefore, still manifests some scruples of form. The intention is to "safeguard," but we now know what the word "safeguard" means in Nazi terminology. We have already seen what safeguarding meant in the case of works of art and Jewish property. Even here, we have been specifically warned that the term "safeguard" carries with it the right of disposal or exploitation. Other texts are even more specific or clear. Here is Document Number RF-755. This is the ordinance of 6 November 1940 pertaining to the declaration of property in Lorraine belonging to the enemies of the people and of the Reich. And on the same subject I shall also submit to you Document Number RF- 756, which is the regulation of 13 July 1940 applying to property in Alsace belonging to the enemies of the people and of the Reich. These two texts, one of which applies to Alsace and the other to Lorraine, permit the seizure and confiscation of properties designated as "enemy property." Now, to realize the extent of the property covered by this term, I will read Document 756: "Any objects and rights of any nature whatsoever, without regard to conditions of title, which are utilized for, or intended for use in, activities hostile to the people of Germany or the Reich will be considered 'as property belonging to the people and to the Reich.
M. FAURE: "Such stipulation shall apply to the entire patrimony: "(a) of all political parties, as well as of secondary or complementary organizations depending thereon; "(b) of lodges and similar associations; "(c) of Jews; "(d) of Frenchmen who have acquired property in Alsace since 11 November 1918; "(e) The Chief of the Administration Department and the Police will decide what patrimony in addition to the property mentioned above is likewise to be considered as property belonging to the enemies of the people and of the Reich. He will likewise decide on doubtful cases." We see, therefore, that in spite of the title, we are not dealing here with the measures of sequestration of enemy property taken in all. countries within the scope of the laws of war. First of all, these are measures of definite confiscation; and in addition, they are applied to the property of numerous individuals who are in no wise subjects of enemy countries. We also see at this point the absolutely arbitrary power placed in the hands of the administration. These texts are accompanied by many regulations; although the spoliations are particularly important in Alsace and in Lorraine, I shall not speak of them here in more detail, as the Prosecution has already dealt with the subject. I shall merely limit myself to the mentioning of two institutions special to Alsace and to Lorraine, that is, agricultural colonization, and industrial colonization. In the first place, agricultural colonization is not a term that has been invented by the Prosecution; it is an expression which the Germans used. I submit in this connection, Document Number RF-757, which is the ordinance of 7 December 1940, "Pertaining to the New Regime of Settlement or Colonization in Lorraine." I shall read the beginning of this Document Number RF-757: "Real estate which has been vacated in Lorraine as a result of deportations will. serve principally for the reconstitution of a German peasant class and for the requirements of internal colonization.
M. FAURE: In this connection and specifically in order to set us the required programs, I order, by virtue of the powers which have been conferred upon me by the Fuehrer the following: "Article One. Real estate property of individuals deported from Lorraine shall be seized and confiscated for the benefit of the Chief of the Civil Administration." I will. not cite the second paragraph of Article One, but I will cite Article Two: "Agricultural properties or forest properties which are seized in consequence of the ordinance concerning enemy property of the people and the Reich in Lorraine are confiscated. Insofar as they are needed, they are included in the methodical organization of the region." Article Three: "In addition to the cases provided for in Articles One and Two and according to the needs, other real estate property may be included in the programs for methodical reorganization if appropriate compensation is provided for. "The Chief of the Civilian Administration and the services designated by him will decide upon the amount and nature of the compensation. Any recourse to the law on the part of the person involved is forbidden." Thus the Tribunal can see in a striking manner the processes and the methods pursued by the German authorities. The first ordinance, cited earlier, spoke only of safeguarding the property of people who had been deported or displaced. A second ordinance now speaks of confiscations. It still refers only to the notion of enemies of the people and of the Reich. The third ordinance is more complete, since it comprises confiscation prescriptions which are quite formal in their character, and which are no longer qualified as "safeguarding" property which has become vacant as the result of deportations. This agricultural colonization of which I have spoken assumed a special importance in Lorraine. On the other hand, it is in Alsace that we find the greatest number of measures involving a veritable industrial colonization. These measures consisted in stripping the French industrial enterprises for the benefit of German firms.
M. FAURE: On this subject there are protests of the French Delegation to the Armistice Commission. I submit as documents three of these protests, Documents Numbers RF-758, 759 and 760, which are notes under date of- respectively 27 April 1941, 9 May 1941, and 8 April 1943. 1 believe that it is preferable for me not to read these documents to the Tribunal and that I merely ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of them, as proof of the existence of these protests, because I fear that such a reading would be a mere repetition to the Tribunal, to whom the matter of economic spoliation has already been explained in sufficient detail. I shall say, finally, that the Germans carried their audacity to the point of demanding the seizure in Unoccupied France and the transportation to Alsace of assets belonging to French companies which were by this means stripped of their property and actually "colonized." I am speaking of assets belonging to companies in the other zone of France, under the control of the regular shareholders of such companies. I think it is worth while considering just one example of such procedure, contained in a very short document, which I submit to you under Document Number RF-761. This document appears in the Archives of the French Agencies of the Armistice Commission, to which it had been sent by the director of the company mentioned in the document. It is a paper which is partly written in German and partly translated into French-in the same document-and it is signed by the German Commissioner for a French enterprise called the Societe Alsacienne et Lorraine d'Electricite. In Alsace this enterprise had been placed illegally under the administration of this commissioner, and the commissioner-as the document will show had come to Paris to seize the remainder of the company's assets. He drafted this document, which he signed and which he also made the president of the French company sign. This document is of interest as revealing the insolence of German procedure and also the Germans' odd conception of law.
M. FAURE: I quote now: "Today the undersigned has instructed me that in future I am strictly forbidden to take legal action with regard to the property of the former Societe Alsacienne et Lorraine d'Electricite. If I should transgress this order in any way, I know that I shall be punished. "Paris, 10 March 1941. "Signed: Kucka. "F. B. Kommissar. "Signed: Garnier." Now this German economic colonization in the areas annexed was to serve as an experiment for the application of similar methods on a broader scale. There will be submitted to the Tribunal, in this connection, a document concerning a colonization attempt in the French Department Ardennes. On this procedure of annexation by the Germans of Alsace and of Lorraine, many other items could be cited; and I could submit many more documents-even if I were to deal only with the circumstances and the documents which are useful from the point of view of our own Prosecution. I want to limit myself in order to save the time of the Tribunal and to comply with the necessities of this Trial where so many items have to be discussed. Therefore I have limited myself to the submission of documents or to examples which are particularly characteristic. I believe that this documentation will enable the Tribunal to appraise the criminality of the German undertakings which I have brought to its attention-criminality which is particularly characteristic of military conscription, which is a criminal offence since it entails deaths. At the same time I believe the Tribunal can evaluate the grave sufferings that were imposed for five years on the populace of these French provinces, already so sorely tried, in the course of history.
M. FAURE: I have submitted a few details which may have seemed ridiculous or facetious; but I did so because I thought it desirable that one should visualize the oppression exercised by the German Administration in all circumstances of life - even in private life-that general oppression characterized by the attempt to destroy and annihilate, and extended in a most complete manner over the departments and regions which were annexed. I believe that the Tribunal will possibly prefer me to leave until tomorrow my comments with respect to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. I would like, moreover, to have the Tribunal's assent concerning a question of testimony. I should like to put a witness on the stand, but it is only a little while ago that I gave the Tribunal a letter concerning this request. May I ask to be ex cused for not having done so earlier because there has been some uncertainty on this point. If the Tribunal finds it convenient, I should like to have this witness here at tomorrow, Saturday morning's session. I state that this witness would be Mr. Koos Vorrink, who is of Dutch nationality. I also wish to say, for the benefit of Defense, that the question I would like to submit to the witness will deal with certain items concerning Germanization in the Netherlands.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you wish to call him tomorrow?
M. FAURE: If that is convenient to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly, call him tomorrow.
M. FAURE: If it please the Tribunal, his testimony could be taken after the recess tomorrow morning.
DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for Defendant Seyss-Inquart): Mr. President, I do not wish to prolong the proceedings; but I believe it will be in the interest of justice if I ask that the Dutch witness be heard, not tomorrow but Monday, on the assumption that Seyss-Inquart who is now ill may be expected back on that date.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Faure, would it be equally convenient to you to call him on Monday?
M. FAURE: Mr. President, I do not desire to vex the Defense; but the witness might like to leave Nuremberg fairly promptly. Perhaps I might suggest that he be heard tomorrow and that after he has been heard, if Counsel for Defendant Seyss-Inquart expresses his desire to cross-examine him, the witness could remain until Monday's session. If, on the other hand, after having heard the questions involved, the Counsel considers that there is no need for any cross- examination, then Seyss-Inquart's absence would not matter. But I will naturally accept the decision of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: That seems a very reasonable suggestion.
DR. STEINBAUER: I am agreeable to the suggestion of the French Prosecutor.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now. [The Tribunal adjourned until 2 February 1946 at 1000 hours.]
MARSHAL: May it please the Court, I desire to announce that the Defendants Kaltenbrunner, Seyss-Inquart, and Streicher will be absent from this morning's session due to illness.
M. FAURE: Gentlemen, I shall ask the Tribunal to be kind enough now to take the file which is entitled "Luxembourg." The Tribunal has already been informed of the essential elements of the situation concerning Luxembourg by the testimony of President Reuter, who was heard during yesterday's session. I shall, therefore, be able to shorten my explanations about this file; but it is nevertheless indispensable that I submit some documents to the Tribunal. The annexation of Luxembourg has quite a special character, in that it carried with it the total abolition of the sovereignty of this occupied country. It therefore concerns a case which corresponds to the hypothesis which we call "debellatio" in classic law, that is to say, the cessation of hostilities by the disappearance of the body of public law of one of the belligerents. This total annexation of Luxembourg completes the proof that there was criminal premeditation on the part of the Reich against this State to which it was bound by diplomatic treaties, notably the Treaty of London of 11 May 1867, and the Treaty of Arbitration and Conciliation of 2 September 1929. And the Tribunal knows by the testimony of Mr. Reuter that these pledges were confirmed, first by a spontaneous diplomatic step taken on 26 August 1939 by M. Von Radowitz, the Minister Plenipotentiary for Germany, and afterwards by a re-assuring declaration a few days before the invasion, in circumstances which have already been explained to the Tribunal. In view of the fact that Luxembourg-unlike Alsace and Lorraine, which were French departments-I say, in view of the fact that Luxembourg was a state, the Germans, in order to carry out this de facto annexation, had to issue special regulations concerning the suppression of public institutions; and this they did. Two ordinances of 23 August and 22 October 1940 announced, on the one hand, the ban on Luxembourg's political parties; and, on the other, the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies and the State Council. These two decrees are submitted as Documents RF-801 and RF-802.
M. FAURE: I request the Tribunal only to take judicial notice of these documents which are public texts Moreover, from 26 August 1940 on, a German decree had abolished the constitutional executive formula, according to which justice is rendered in the name of the sovereign. A formula, according to which justice is rendered in the name of the people, was substituted at that time for this executive formula. On 15 October 1941, the formula was again modified in a more obvious way and became "In the name of the German people." I shall now follow in my supplementary explanation the order of ideas which I adopted for Alsace and Lorraine; and naturally I shall dwell only on those circumstances peculiar to Luxembourg. As in the case of Alsace and Lorraine, the Germans attempted to extirpate the national sentiment of Luxembourg and to render impossible all manifestations of the traditional culture of this country. Thus, the ordinances of 28 August 1940 and 23 October 1940 banned all associations of a cultural or educational nature. As in Alsace and Lorraine, the Germans imposed Germanization of family and Christian names. This was the object of a decree of 31 January 1941, Document Number RF-803. I point out, in passing, that the wearing of a beret was also forbidden in Luxembourg, by a decree of 14 February 1941. At the same time they did away with national institutions, the Germans set up, according to their custom, their own administration and appointed a Gauleiter in the person of Gustav Simon, the former Gauleiter of Koblenz-Trier. From the administrative point of view, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was administered as a Bezirk (district) of the Chief of the Civilian Administrative Service but by the German administrative services. As far as the Party was concerned-the National Socialist Party-it was officially joined to the Reich, as a dependency of the Mosel Gau. I shall not dwell on the introduction of German civilian and penal legislation, which was introduced in the same way as in Alsace and Lorraine.
M. FAURE: Sufficient proof of this must be considered to have been given by the submission of the official report of the government of the Grand Duchy. As regards nationality and conscription, we also notice a parallelism between the provisions which concern Luxembourg and those which concern other annexed countries. On 30 August 1942, two ordinances were promulgated. It must be pointed out that these two ordinances, the one concerning nationality and the other military service, bear the same date. The ordinance concerning military service is submitted as Document Number RF-804 and the one concerning nationality is submitted -as Document Number RF-805. The legislation concerning nationality includes, moreover, a provision which is peculiar to Luxembourg, although it is in conformity with the general spirit of German legislation concerning nationality in annexed countries. The Germans had created in Luxembourg various organizations of the Nazi type, of which the main one was the Volksdeutsche Bewegung (German nationalist movement); and here is the special circumstance which I wish to point out. The ordinance of 30 August 1942 concerning nationality grants German nationality to persons who gave their adherence to this association, the Volksdeutsche Bewegung. But this nationality could be revoked. This is shown in the last paragraph of title 1 of this ordinance, Document Number RF-805. In fact, this conferring of nationality in this special case was valid provisionally for 2 years only. At the same time that the Nazis were establishing conscription, they made it obligatory for all young Luxembourgers. to serve in the paramilitary formations of the Hitler Youth. This is laid down in an ordinance of 25 August 1942 concerning the Hitler Youth camps, which is Document Number RF-806. Just as in Alsace and Lorraine, compulsory labor was imposed in Luxembourg, not only for men but also for women and for work of military concern.
M. FAURE: These provisions are found chiefly in three ordinances: the ordinance of 23 May 1941, the ordinance of 10 February 1943, and the ordinance of 12 February 1943. These last two ordinances are introduced as Documents RF-807 and RF-808. I should now like to cite another circumstance, which is peculiar to Luxembourg and of which proof is found in the official report of the Luxembourg Government already submitted to the Tribunal. According to this report, Page 4, Paragraphs 7 to 8, it is stipulated the quotation is very short and I did put the whole of the Luxembourg report in my document book; I shall cite only one sentence which bears the reference I have given: "By ordinance, which appeared in the Official Gazette for Luxembourg, 1942, Page 232, part of the Luxembourg population was forced to join the formations of a corps called Sicherheits und Hilfsdienst (Security and Emergency Service), a paramilitary formation which had to do military drills. Part of it was sent forcibly to Germany to carry out very dangerous tasks at the time of the air attacks of the Allied forces." The Nazis made a special effort to bring about the nazification of Luxembourg; and for this country they thought out a special method, the basic point of which was the language element. They developed the official thesis that the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg belonged to the German language group. By means of propaganda they spread the idea that the dialect spoken in Luxembourg was a Franconian dialect of the Moselle and constituted a variant of the High German. Having developed this theory, they took a census of the population, as mentioned yesterday by the witness who gave evidence before the Tribunal. I especially mention that this census took place on 10 October 1941.
M. FAURE: 1 wished to have the witness speak on this point because no information on the result of the census was furnished in the government report; and the Tribunal knows now the reason why the German authorities immediately stopped the census as soon as they discovered that the number of persons answering in the way they desired was ridiculously small. After this failure the Germans considered that the Luxembourg dialect was no longer their political friend and in a circular dated 13 January 1942, which I submit as Document Number RF-809, they forbade the civil servants to use this dialect in conversations with the public or on the telephone. This was very inconvenient to a great many people. The nazification campaign was carried out also by the creation of groups with the same end in view. I have already said that the most important of these groups was the Volksdeutsche Bewegung and I shall merely supplement this by citing a sentence from the Luxembourg report, namely: "Membership in the Volksdeutsche Bewegung was the condition sine qua non on which civil servants were allowed to keep their positions, private employees their positions, professional people-such as lawyers, doctors, et cetera-to exercise their profession, industrialists to run their factories, and everybody to earn his livelihood. Failure to comply meant dismissal, expulsion from the country, and the deportation of whole families." The penalties imposed on the Luxembourgers who refused these solicitations were accompanied by a formula which shows-very well the Nazi mentality and which I shall read to the Tribunal from the text of the government report. It is a very short quotation. "Because of their attitude these persons do not offer the guarantee that they will fulfill, in an exemplary manner at all times and without any reservation, during and outside their professional activity, the duties which have their foundation in the establishment of the civil administration in Luxembourg and in the pro-German attitude." The Nazis also sought to develop in Luxembourg the SA formation.
THE PRESIDENT: Have we got this report? Has this governmental report been deposited?
M. FAURE: The report of the Luxembourg Government was submitted to the Tribunal by my colleague, M. Dubost.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
M. FAURE: As I am making only very short quotations from it I did not put it in my document book.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, M. Faure, it would help me if you would give me the page of the dossier, when you are citing a document which is not in the document book.