Morning Session
MARSHAL: May it please the Court, I desire to announce that Defendants Kaltenbrunner and Seyss-Inquart will be absent from this morning’s session on account of illness.
M. DUBOST: I have now completed my presentation of facts. This presentation has consisted of a dry enumeration of crimes, atrocities, extortions of all sorts, which I deliberately presented to you without any embellishments of oratory. The facts have a profound eloquence which suffices. These facts are, it seems to me, definitely established. I do not believe that the Defense, nor history—even German history—will be able to set aside their essential aspects. They will no doubt be exposed to criticism.
Our evidence was hastily collected in a ruined country whose every means of communication had been destroyed by an enemy in flight, in a country where each individual was more concerned with preparation for the future than with looking back upon the past, even to exact vengeance, for the future is the life of our children, and the past is but death and destruction.
For the whole of France, for each country in the West, the demands of daily life, the difficulty of preparing for a better future once again give full meaning to the words of the Scriptures, Sinite mortuos sepelire mortuos (Let the dead bury their dead.); and that is why in spite of all our efforts, all our endeavors, to prepare the work of justice which France and universal conscience demand, we were not able to be more thorough. That is why errors of detail may have slipped into our work, but the rectifications which time and the Defense will effect can be only accessory. They will not eliminate the fact that millions of men have been deported, starved, exhausted through labor and privation before being put to death, like cattle without value; that innumerable innocent persons have been tortured before being turned over to the executioner. Rectifications may affect circumstances of time, sometimes of place; they will not change the essential facts even if a few details are modified.
But these facts, having been established in their general aspect, it remains for us to complete our task by giving them juridical significance, by analyzing them with reference to the law of which they constitute a violation, and by making clear the inculpations, in other words, by fixing the responsibilities, of each defendant in respect to a law.
What law shall we apply? Taken one by one and separated from the systematic policy which conceived, willed, and ordered them as a means of achieving domination through terror and beyond that as a means of extermination pure and simple; these facts constitute crimes against common law as much as violations of the laws and usages of war and of international law. All of them could therefore be defined separately as a violation of an international convention and of a penal provision of one or another of our established domestic laws. Or rather all could be qualified as a violation of a rule of common law which has emerged from each of our own domestic laws, as shown by M. De Menthon in his address; of that common law which, in the last analysis, was designated by him as being the foundation, as the root of international customs, which, beyond the Charter itself, is and remains the one and only guide of your decisions.
But it is right to know that this common law springs from our established laws and, like them, punishes in principle actual misdeeds. Now, all of our defendants remained physically divorced from each of the criminal facts which in the ubiquity of their power they multiplied throughout the world. It was their will which commanded; but, as Mr. Justice Jackson recalled, they never reddened their own hands with the blood of their victims. Therefore, if we refer exclusively to our established laws and especially to French domestic law, the defendants could not, in any case, be considered as principal authors but merely as accomplices “who have provoked the act through abuse of authority or of power.” All of that is indeed a contradiction to the conception which each person in our countries holds of the guilt of the major war criminals. To solve the problem thus would be to narrow singularly the field of responsibility of each of the defendants. This responsibility would appear merely accessory, where, in fact, it is the principal responsibility; it would appear fragmentary, whereas to be truly fixed it must be presented as one single time, in the whole of their thoughts, intentions, and acts as chiefs of the Nazi government who conceived, willed, ordered, or tolerated the development of that systematic policy of terror and extermination, of which each fact taken separately is but a particular aspect, merely a constituent element. Thus a simple reference to common law does not bring us close enough to reality. If it does not omit, as such, any of the facts to which guilt attaches, it does leave aside the psychological factor and does not give us a complete conception of the guilt of the accused in a single formula embracing all the reality. That is because common law expresses a certain status of common morality which is accepted by civilized nations as law for the mutual relations of citizens. Profoundly imbued with the concept of individualism, this common law is not adequate to meet the exigencies of collective life which international morality must govern. Furthermore, this common law which is the foundation of our tradition has become static in a Cartesian sense, whereas our custom remains enriched by all the dynamism of international penal law. The Charter has not fixed the manner in which we are to qualify in a juridical sense the facts which I have presented before you. In creating your Tribunal, the authors of the Charter limited themselves to establishing the limits of your jurisdiction: War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, Crimes against Peace; and even then they did not give an exhaustive definition of each of these crimes. The Tribunal may refer on this point to Article 6, paragraphs b and c of the Charter of the Tribunal. This article gives only an indicative enumeration. That is because the authors of the Charter bore in mind that international penal law is only still in the first phase of the birth of a custom in which law is developed by reaction to the deed and where the judge intervenes only to save the criminals from individual vengeance or where law is applied by the judge alone and the penalty pronounced according to his sole judgment. Thus, the authors of the Charter abstained from giving us a fixed method of qualification by reference to common law or on the contrary, to custom. They did not say to you:
“You will take one by one the criminal facts submitted to you, and each fact taken separately shall be isolated from the others to be defined by reference to a stipulation of any one domestic law or to a synthesis of domestic laws, yielding thus a common law.”
Nor did they say to you:
“You will take these scattered criminal facts, you will group them together to make of them one single crime of which the definition, respecting in a general sense the rules of common law, will be essentially determined by the sole intention or purpose sought, without attempting to seek by analogy any precedents in the different domestic laws which apply only, moreover, to an entirely different subject.”
The authors of the Charter have left you free, entirely free, within the limits of custom; and consequently we, ourselves, within the same limitations are free to propose to you such qualification which appears to us most practical, which appears to us to come closest to the changing reality of facts in their relation to the general principles of law and the broad rules of morality which may seem to us to be such as to meet best the demands of human conscience expressed by international public opinion duly enlightened on Hitlerian atrocities, which will, in fact, remain within the limits of international penal custom. This custom is indeed still in a formulative stage; but although this Trial is without precedent, the problems that are being examined in this Court have arisen before; and the jurists who preceded us have already given them solutions. These solutions constitute precedents; and, as such, they constitute the first elements of your custom. In their memorandum to the Commission to the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on Sanctions at the Peace Conference of 1919-1920 the French jurists, M. Larnaude and M. De Lapradelle wrote:
“Criminal law could not foresee that through a singular defiance of the essential laws of humanity, of civilization, of honor, an army, by virtue of the instructions of its sovereign, could systematically lend itself to perform deeds through the perpetration of acts such as the enemy has not shrunk from performing in order to achieve success and victory. Therefore, domestic criminal law has never before been able to make provisions which would permit the repression of such acts. And still one must, in the interpretation of every law, cling to the intention of the law maker. . . . If, in certain cases considered particularly propitious, one might succeed in apprehending individuals bearing responsibility of whom the Emperor could be considered an accomplice one would only succeed, and not without difficulty, in narrowing the field of his responsibility by limiting it to a few precise cases. . . . It is a very restricted approach to the problem of William II to diminish it and reduce it to the proportions of a criminal or a court-martial case. . . . The high justice which an anxious world awaits would not be satisfied if the German Emperor were judged only as an accomplice or even as the co-author of a common-law crime. His actions as Chief of State must be considered in conformity with their true juridical character. . . .”
But except for minor details all of this is indeed implicitly contained in the last paragraph of Article 6 of the Charter of your Tribunal:
“Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes”—Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity—“are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.”
Fundamentally, all this is within strict conformity with the primordial German concept of Führertum, which places all responsibility on the leader and those who are with the leader from the very start. Thus we can, by as close as possible to reality, by applying the Charter of 8 August and Article 6 of the Charter of your Tribunal, by respecting the rules of common law defined by the chief of our delegation, M. De Menthon, and by following custom, which is sketched in the field of international penal law, require of your Tribunal to declare all the defendants guilty of having, in their role as the chief Hitlerian leaders of the German people, conceived, willed, ordained, or merely tolerated by their silence that assassinations or other inhuman acts be systematically committed, that violent treatment be systematically imposed on prisoners of war or civilians, that devastations without justification be systematically committed as a deliberate instrument for the accomplishment of their purpose of dominating Europe and the world through terrorism and the extermination of entire populations in order to enlarge the living space of the German people.
More specifically, we ask you to declare Göring, Keitel, and Jodl guilty of having taken part in the execution of this plan by ordering the seizure and the execution of hostages in violation of Article 50 of the Hague Convention which prohibits collective sanctions and reprisals.
We ask you to find Keitel, Jodl, Kaltenbrunner, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann, and Ribbentrop guilty of having taken part in the execution of this plan: 1. by ordering the terrorist murders of innocent civilians; 2. by ordering the execution without trial and torture to death of members of the resistance; 3. by ordering devastations without justification:
To declare Göring, Keitel, Jodl, Speer, and Sauckel guilty of having taken part in the execution of this plan by jeopardizing the health and the lives of prisoners of war, notably by submitting them to privations and hard treatments, by exposing them, or by attempting to expose them to bombings or other risks of war:
To declare Göring, Keitel, Jodl, Kaltenbrunner, and Bormann guilty of having taken part in the execution of this plan, by personally ordering or by provoking the formulation of orders leading to terrorist murder or to the lynching by the population of certain combatants, more specifically, of airmen and members of commando groups as well as the terrorist murder or slow extermination of certain categories of prisoners of war:
To declare Keitel guilty of having taken part in the execution of this plan by prescribing the deportation of innocent civilians and by applying to some of them the NN (Nacht und Nebel) regime which marked them for extermination:
To declare Jodl guilty of having taken part in the execution of this plan by ordering the arrest, with a view to deportation, of the Jews of Denmark:
To declare Frank, Rosenberg, Streicher, Von Schirach, Sauckel, Frick, and Hess guilty of having taken part in the execution of this plan, by justifying the extermination of Jews or by working out a statute with a view to their extermination:
To declare Göring guilty of having taken part in the execution of this plan: 1. by creating concentration camps and by placing them under the control of the State Police for the purpose of ridding National Socialism of any opposition; 2. by tolerating and then by approving fatal physiological experiments on the effect of cold, and of increasing or decreasing pressure, which experiments were carried out—with material provided by the Luftwaffe and controlled by Dr. Rascher, medical officer of the Luftwaffe detailed to the concentration camp of Dachau for that purpose—on healthy deportees who were involuntary subjects for the said experiments with which he (Göring), as chief, associated himself; 3. by utilizing in large numbers internees for exhausting labor under inhuman conditions in the armament factories of the Luftwaffe:
To find Speer guilty of having taken part in the execution of this plan by employing in large numbers the internees for exhausting labor under inhumane conditions in the armament factories (Document Number 1584-PS):
To find Bormann guilty of having taken part in the execution of this plan by participating in the extermination of internees in concentration camps (Document Number 654-PS).
With regard to Dönitz, Raeder, Von Papen, Von Neurath, Fritzsche, Funk, and Schacht, we associate ourselves with the conclusion of our British and American colleagues. And in connection with the acts above defined, we ask you further, in accordance with the stipulation of Article 9 of the Charter of your Tribunal, to find the OKW and the OKH guilty of the execution of this plan by having ordered and participated in the deportation of innocent civilians from the occupied countries in the West:
To find the OKW, the OKH, and the OKL guilty of the execution of this plan by participating in the setting-up of the doctrine of hostages as a means to terrorize and by prescribing the seizure and execution of hostages in the countries of the West, by reducing to a degrading level the material living conditions of prisoners of war, by depriving the latter of the guarantees granted them by international custom and by positive international law, by ordering or by tolerating the employment of prisoners of war in dangerous work or in labor directly connected with military operations, by ordering the execution of escaped prisoners or prisoners attempting to escape, and the execution of numerous groups of commandos, and by giving the SS and SD directives for the extermination of airmen:
To find the OKL guilty of having participated in the execution of this plan: 1. by employing in large numbers internees in concentration camps for exhaustive labor under inhuman conditions in the armament factories of the Luftwaffe; 2. by participating in fatal physiological experiments on the effect of cold and of increasing or decreasing pressure, which experiments were carried out for the benefit of the Luftwaffe and conducted by Dr. Rascher, medical officer of the Luftwaffe, attached to the concentration camp at Dachau (Documents 343-PS, 1610-PS, 669-PS, L-90, 668-PS, UK-56, 835-PS, 834-PS, F-278 (B)):
To find the SS and the SD guilty of the execution of this plan by having deported and participated in the deportation of innocent civilians from the occupied countries in the West and by having tortured them and exterminated them by every means in concentration camps:
To find the SS, the SD, and the Gestapo guilty of the execution of this plan by having given direct orders for the execution or the deportation, with a view to their slow extermination, of members of commando groups, airmen, escaped prisoners, those who refused to accept forced labor, or those who were rebellious to the Nazi order; by forbidding any repression of acts of lynching committed by the German population on airmen brought down:
To find the SS, the SD, and the Gestapo guilty of having tortured and of having executed without trial members of the resistance:
To find the same organizations and in addition, the OKW and the OKH in collusion with the SS, the SD, and the Gestapo guilty of having committed or ordered massacres and devastations without justification (Documents 1063-PS, F-285, R-91, R-129, 1553-PS, L-7, F-185(A)):
To find the Gestapo guilty of having participated in the execution of this plan by the deportation of innocent civilians from the occupied countries of the West by the tortures and assassinations which were inflicted on them:
To find the Government of the Reich (Reichsregierung) and the Leadership Corps of the National Socialist Party guilty of having, for the purpose of dominating Europe and the world, conceived and prepared the systematic extermination of innocent civilians from the occupied countries of the West through their deportation and their assassination in concentration camps:
To find the Leadership Corps of the National Socialist Party and the Government of the Reich guilty of having, for the purpose of dominating Europe and the world through terrorism, systematically conceived and provoked tortures, summary executions, massacres, and devastation without cause as described above:
To find the Government of the Reich and the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party guilty of having, for the purpose of dominating Europe and the world, conceived and prepared the extermination of combatants who had surrendered and the demoralization, extensive exploitation, and extermination of prisoners of war, and having participated in it.
Such are the juridical qualifications of the facts which I have the honor of submitting to you. But a few lessons emerge from these facts. May the Tribunal permit me to state them in conclusion.
For hundreds of years humanity has renounced the deportation of the vanquished, their enslavement, and their annihilation through misery, through hunger, steel, and fire. It is because a message of brotherhood had been given to the world, and the world could not entirely forget this message even in the midst of the horrors of war. From generation to generation we observed an upward effort ever since this message of peace had been given. We were confident that it was without any thought of regressing that man had taken the view of moral progress which formed a part of the common heritage of civilized nations. All nations revered, equally, good faith in relations among individuals. All of them had come to accept good faith as the law of their mutual relationship. International morality was little by little emerging and international relationship, like that between individuals, was more and more falling in line with the three precepts of the classical Roman jurists: “Honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere.” (Live honorably, inflict no harm on another, give each his due.)
Every civilized nation had been impregnated with a common humanism, growth of a long tradition, Christian and liberal. Based on this common heritage and achieved at the price of given experience, each nation, enlightened by the well-conceived interests of man, had understood or was coming to understand that in public as in private affairs loyalty, moderation, and mutual aid were golden rules which none could transgress indefinitely and with impunity.
The defeat, the catastrophe which has fallen upon Germany confirm us in this thought and give only more meaning and more clarity to the solemn warning addressed to the American people by President Roosevelt in his address on 27 May 1940:
“Although our Navy, our guns, and our planes are the first line of defense, it is certain that back of all of that there is the spirit and the morality of a free people which give to their material defense power, support, and efficiency. . . .”
And in this struggle, the echoes of which are still rumbling in our ears, it was indeed those who could rest their strength upon law, nourish their force with justice, who won out. But because we have followed step by step the development of the criminal madness of the defendants and the consequences of that madness throughout these last years, we must conclude that the patrimony of man, of which we are the recipients, is frail indeed, that all kinds of regressions are possible, and that we must with care watch over their heritage. There is not a nation which, ill-educated, badly led by evil masters, would not in the long run revert to the barbarity of the early ages.
The German people whose military virtue we recognize, whose poets and musicians we love, whose application to work we admire, and who did not fail to give examples of probity in the most noble works of the spirit; this German people, which came rather late to civilization, beginning only with the eighth century, had slowly raised itself to the ranks of nations possessing the oldest culture. The contribution to modern or contemporary thought seemed to prove that this conquest of the spirit was final; Kant, Goethe, Johann Sebastian Bach belong to humanity just as much as Calvin, Dante, or Shakespeare; nevertheless, we behold the fact that millions of innocent men have been exterminated on the very soil of this people, by men of this people, in execution of a common plan conceived by their leaders, and this people made not a single effort to revolt.
This is what has become of it because it has scorned the virtues of political freedom, of civic equality, of human fraternity. This is what has become of it, because it forgot that all men are born free and equal before the law, that the essential action of a state has for its purpose the deeper and deeper penetration of a respect for spiritual liberty and fraternal solidarity in social relations and in international institutions.
It allowed itself to be robbed of its conscience and its very soul. Evil masters came who awakened its primitive passions and made possible the atrocities which I have described to you. In truth, the crime of these men is that they caused the German people to retrogress more than 12 centuries.
Their crime is that they conceived and achieved, as an instrument of government, a policy of terrorism toward the whole of the subjugated nations and toward their own people; their crime is that they pursued, as an end in itself, a policy of extermination of entire categories of innocent citizens. That alone would suffice to determine capital punishment. And still, the French Prosecution, represented by M. Faure, intends to present proof of a still greater crime, the crime of attempting “to obliterate from the world certain ideas which are called liberty, independence, security of nations, which are also called faith in the given word and respect for the human person,” the crime of having attempted to kill the very soul, the spirit of France and other occupied nations in the West. We consider that to be the gravest crime committed by these men, the gravest because it is written in the Scriptures, Matthew, XII, 31-32:
“All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy unto the Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men. Whosoever speaketh against the Spirit shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, nor in the world to come. . . . For the tree is known by its fruit. Race of vipers, how could ye speak good words when ye are evil. . . .”
THE PRESIDENT: [To M. Faure of the French Delegation] Yes, M. Faure.
M. EDGAR FAURE (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): Mr. President, Honorable Judges, I have the honor of delivering to the Tribunal the concluding address of the French Prosecution. This presentation relates more particularly to the sections lettered (I) and (J) of Count Three of the Indictment: oath of allegiance and Germanization; and on the other hand to section (B) of Count Four, persecutions on political, racial, and religious grounds.
First of all I should like to present in a brief introduction the general ideas which govern the plan of my final pleading. The concept of Germanization has been stated in the presentation of M. De Menthon. It consists essentially in imposing upon the inhabitants of occupied territories norms for their political and social life such as the Nazis had determined according to their own doctrine and for their own profit. The combined activities which carried out Germanization or which have Germanization for their purpose, and which are illegal, have been defined as a criminal undertaking against humanity. The complete process of Germanization was employed in certain territories to annex them to the Reich. The Germans intended even before the end of the war to incorporate these territories within their own country. These territories, annexed and then germanized in an absolute manner, are the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Belgian Cantons of Eupen, Malmédy, and Moresnet, and the three French Departments of Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin and the Moselle.
These territories can be considered relatively small in comparison with the total area of the territories occupied by the Germans. This in no wise mitigates the reprehensible character of these annexations; moreover, we should note at this point two essential aspects of our subject.
The first proposition: The Germans had conceived and prepared more extensive annexations than those actually carried out in an official manner. For reasons of expediency, they did not proceed with these annexations during the period of time at their disposal.
The second proposition: Annexation, on the other hand, was not the unique or obligatory procedure of Germanization. The Nazis discovered that they could employ different and various means to achieve their purpose of universal domination. The selection of means which vary according to circumstances, to attain and to camouflage an identical result, was characteristic of what has been called Nazi Machiavellism. Their conception is technically much more pliable, more clever, and more dangerous than the classical conception of territorial conquest. In this respect the most brutal competitor has over them the advantage of candor.
To begin with I say that the Germans had formulated the plan to annex more extensive territory. Numerous indications point to this. I would like to give you only two citations.
The first of these is taken from the documentation collected by our colleagues of the American Prosecution, an American document which has not yet been submitted to the Tribunal. I should say in addition that in my final pleading I shall refer only twice to very remarkable American documents. All the other documents which I shall submit will be new ones belonging to the French Prosecution. The document of which I speak now is Number 1155-PS of the American documents, and it appears in the file of documents submitted to you under Number RF-601, which will become, may it please the Tribunal, that number in French documentation.
This document is dated Berlin, 20 June 1940. It bears the notation: “Top Secret Staff Document.” Its title is: “Note for the Dossier on the Conference of 19 June 1940, at Headquarters of General Field Marshal Göring.”
The notes which are included in this document reflect, therefore, the views of the leaders and not individual interpretations. I would like to read to the Tribunal only Paragraph 6 of that document, which is to be found on Page 3. It is the first document bearing Number RF-601 (Document Number 1155-PS), I proceed with the reading of Paragraph 6, Page 3:
“General plans regarding the political development.
“Luxembourg is to be annexed by the Reich. Norway is to become German. Alsace-Lorraine is to be reincorporated into the Reich. An autonomous Breton state is to be created. Considerations are pending concerning Belgium, the special treatment of the Flemish in that country, and the creation of a State of Burgundy.”
The second citation which I shall submit to the Tribunal on this point refers to a French document which I submit as Document Number RF-602. This document comprises the minutes of the interrogation of Dr. Globke, a former assistant of State Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, Dr. Stuckart. It is dated 25 September 1945. This interrogation was taken by Major Graff of the French Judicial Service.
To the minutes of the interrogation has been added a memorandum which was delivered following the questioning by Dr. Globke. I read a passage from this interrogation, at the beginning of the document, Paragraph 1:
“Question: ‘Have you any knowledge of plans which envisage the annexation of other French territories at the conclusion of peace between Germany and France? (Belfort, Nancy, Bassin de Briey, the coal fields of the North, the so-called “Red Zone”, territory attached to the Government General of Belgium)?’
“Answer: ‘Yes, those plans did exist. They were worked out by Dr. Stuckart, upon the personal instruction of the Führer, and I have seen them. They were communicated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to the OKW, and to the Armistice Commission in Wiesbaden. All these documents have been destroyed (Dr. Globke maintains). The State Secretary, M. Stuckart, was ordered to deliver a preliminary draft at the headquarters of the Führer (End of 1940, before the launching of the Russian campaign).
“ ‘After examination the Führer considered the proposal was too moderate; and he ordered provisions for the incorporation of further territories, specifically those along the Channel.
“ ‘Dr. Stuckart then prepared a second draft, with a map attached, on which the approximate borders were indicated. I have seen it, and I can show it to you roughly on a large scale map of France. I do not know whether this second plan was approved by Hitler.’ ”
THE PRESIDENT: M. Faure, did you tell us who Dr. Globke was?
M. FAURE: Yes, Mr. President, he was the assistant of Dr. Stuckart, State Secretary in the Ministry of Interior. He styled himself in his interrogation “officer in charge of matters concerning Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg in the Ministry of the Interior, since 1940.”
I now read a passage from the attached memorandum. This appears in your document book immediately after the passage I have just read. Still under Document Number RF-602, I now read Paragraph 6 of the memorandum in question; it is the beginning of the document before your eyes.
“The plan of a new Franco-German border was elaborated upon in the Ministry of Interior by the State Secretary Dr. Stuckart, upon the order given to him by Hitler. This plan envisaged that the territory in the north and the east of France which, for historical, political, racial, geographical, or any other reasons ostensibly did not belong to western but to central Europe, should be given back to Germany. A first draft was submitted to Hitler at his general headquarters and it was approved by him in full. Hitler nevertheless wanted . . .”
DR. STAHMER: The Defense has not received these documents. Consequently, even today we are not in a position to follow the presentation. Above all, we are not in a position to check individually whether the validity of these documents really exists at all.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Faure, is that correct, that none of these documents have been deposited in the Defense Information Center?
M. FAURE: They have been deposited with two photostatic copies in the document center of the defendants’ counsel. Moreover, before I complete my statement, I think that the Defense Counsel will have full opportunity to study this very brief document and to make any observations which he may desire; but I can give you assurance that those documents were delivered.
THE PRESIDENT: What assurance can you give me that the orders which the Tribunal has given have been carried out?
M. FAURE: The documents have been delivered to the Defense Counsel in accordance with instruction and two photostatic copies have been delivered in the document room of the Defense. These documents are, moreover, in the German language, which should greatly facilitate the task of the Defense Counsel, as the interrogation was taken in the German language by an officer of the French Judiciary Services.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Stahmer, did you hear what M. Faure said?
DR. STAHMER: I should certainly not raise any objections if these documents had actually been sent to our document room and put at our disposal. This morning I and several others looked into the matter and made an effort to determine whether the documents were really there. We could not find out. Dr. Steinbauer and I went there; we could not find the documents. I shall go there again to see whether they may not have come in the meantime.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has stated on a variety of occasions that they attach a great importance to the documents being deposited in the defendants’ Information Center and copies supplied in accordance with the regulations which they have laid down. Whether that has been done on this occasion, is disputed by Dr. Stahmer. The Tribunal proposes therefore to have the matter investigated as soon as possible and to see exactly whether the rules have been carried out or not. And in future they hope that they will be carried out with the greatest strictness. In the meantime, I think it will be most convenient for you to continue.
M. FAURE: The defendants’ counsel tells me that the documents are in the Defense Counsel Room, but they have not yet been distributed. It can be seen, therefore, that the orders were fully respected; but because of the burden of work it may be that the Defense may not individually have received these documents. In any event, I am prepared to submit immediately to the Defense Counsel mainly concerned with this, photostatic copies which will enable them to follow my reading of the documents, which, incidentally, are quite brief.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Tribunal will have the facts investigated by the Marshal. And in the meantime, you can continue. The Marshal of the Court will immediately find out and report to the Tribunal what the facts are about the deposition of the documents and the time at which they were deposited. In the meantime you can continue, and we shall be glad if you will assist the defendants’ counsel by giving them any copies you may have available.
M. FAURE: I was reading then, Document Number RF-602, the attached memorandum. If the Tribunal wishes to follow the reading of this document will it kindly take the book entitled “Exposé” or “Presentation,” and turn to Page 6 thereof. The passage which I am now coming to is the last paragraph of Page 6. “Introduction—Exposé,” Page 6, third and last paragraph, I am continuing:
“A first draft was submitted to Hitler at his general headquarters and was approved by him as a whole; but, nevertheless, he called for an enlargement of the territory falling to Germany, in particular, along the Channel coast. The final draft was to serve as the basis for future discussions with the administrative departments concerned. These discussions did not take place. The intended frontier followed approximately a course beginning at the mouth of the Somme, turning eastward along the northern edge of the Paris Basin and Champagne to the Argonne, then bent to the south crossing Burgundy, and westward of the Franche-Comte, reaching the Lake of Geneva. For some districts alternative solutions were suggested.”
These German plans were indicated on several occasions by specific measures having to do with the territories in question, measures which might be designated preannexation measures.
I come now to the second proposal which I referred to a while ago. With or without annexation, the Germans had in mind to take and maintain under their domination all the occupied countries. As a matter of fact their determination was to germanize and to nazify all of Western Europe and even the African Continent. This intention appears from the very fact of the conspiracy which has been laid bare before the Tribunal so completely by my colleagues of the American Prosecution. That will also be shown by the applications made of it, of which the principal ones will be retraced in this concluding address.
I merely want to recall to the Tribunal this general point that the plan for Germanic predominance is defined according to the German interpretation itself in a public diplomatic document, which is the Tripartite Pact of 27 September 1940 between Germany, Italy, and Japan. In this connection I would like to quote before the Tribunal a few sentences of a comment made upon this treaty by an official German author, Von Freytagh-Loringhoven, a member of the Reichstag, who wrote a book on German foreign policy from 1933 to 1941. This book was published in a French translation in Paris at the publishing house of Sorlot, during the occupation.
I do not want to submit this as a document, but merely as a quotation from a published work, a book, which is here in your hands. I read from Page 311:
“This treaty granted Germany and Italy a dominant position in the new European order, and it accorded Japan a similar role in the area of eastern Asia.”
I am now skipping a sentence that has no significance.
“At first glance, one could realize that the Tripartite Pact had in mind a double purpose.”
I shall skip the following sentence which is without interest, and I go to the sentence dealing with the second purpose:
“Moreover, it entrusted the parties with a mission for the future, that is to say, the establishment of a new order in Europe and eastern Asia.
“Without seeking to lessen the importance of the first question, there can be no doubt that this second purpose, dealing with the future, involved vaster projects and was, in fact, the principal point. For the first time in an international treaty, in the Tripartite Pact, the terms ‘space’ and ‘orientation’ were used linking one with the other.”
I now go to Page 314 where the author makes a remark which appears to me to be significant:
“Now, the Tripartite Pact places a clear delimitation of the wider spaces created by nature on our globe. The concept of space, it is true, is employed explicitly only for the Far East, but it is equally applicable to Europe and that within this conception Africa is comprised. The latter is certainly politically and economically a complement, or if one wishes, an annex of Europe. Moreover, it is obvious that the Tripartite Pact fixes the limits of the two great regions or spaces reserved for the partners, that the pact tacitly recognizes the third area, that is Asia, properly speaking, and that it leaves aside the fourth, the American Continent, thus leaving the latter to its own destiny. In this way the whole surface of the globe is concerned; and an idea, which as yet has not been considered except in theory, was given the significance of a political principle derived from international law.”
I have felt that this text was of interest because, on the one hand, it clarifies the fact that the African Continent is itself included in the space reserved to the German claimants, and on the other, it states that the government of such an immense space by Germany constitutes international law. This pretense of acting juridically is one of the characteristics of the undertaking to germanize the world from 1940 to 1945. It is undoubtedly one of the reasons which inspired Nazi Germany to proceed only on rare occasions by the annexation of territories.
Annexation is not indispensable for the domination of a great area. It can be replaced by other methods which correspond rather accurately to the usual term of “vassalization.”
THE PRESIDENT: Do you not think this will be a convenient time to break off?
[A recess was taken.]
M. FAURE: Mr. President, before resuming my brief, I should like to ask the Tribunal if they could agree to hear, during the afternoon session, a witness who is M. Reuter, President of the Chamber of Luxembourg.
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly, M. Faure, if that is convenient to you, the Tribunal is quite willing to hear the witness you name.
M. FAURE: I propose on those conditions to have him heard at the beginning of the second part of the afternoon session.
I pointed out a moment ago that the different methods of disguised annexation can correspond to the term “vassalization.” From a German author I shall borrow a formula which is eloquent. It is Dr. Sperl, in an article in the Krakauer Zeitung, who used this expression: “A differentiation in methods of German domination.” In using, thus, indirect and differentiated methods of domination, the Germans acted in political matters, as we have seen before, in the same way as they acted in economic matters. I had the opportunity to point out to the Tribunal, in my first brief, that the Germans immediately seized the keys of economic life. If you will permit me to use this Latin expression, I shall say as far as sovereignty in the occupied countries is concerned, they insured for themselves the power of the keys, “potestas clavium.” They seized the keys of sovereignty in each country. In that fashion, without being obliged to abolish officially national sovereignty as in the case of annexation, they were able to control and direct the exercise of this sovereignty.
Beginning with these principle ideas, the plan of my brief was conceived as follows:
In the first chapter I shall examine the regime in annexed territories where national sovereignty was abolished. In a second chapter I shall examine the mechanism of the seizure of sovereignty for the benefit of the occupying power in the regions which were not annexed. Then it will be suitable to examine the results of these usurpations of sovereignty and the violation of the rights of the population which resulted from them. I thought it necessary that I should group these results by dealing with the principal ones in a third and fourth chapter. The third chapter will be devoted to spiritual Germanization, that is, to the propaganda in the very extensive sense that the German concept gives to this term. Chapter four, and the last, will bear the heading, “The Administrative Organization of Criminal Action.”
I would now like to point out, as far as the documentation of my brief is concerned, I have forced myself to limit the number of texts which will be presented to the Tribunal; and I shall attempt to make my quotations as short as possible. For the fourth chapter, for example, I might point out that the French Delegation examined more than 2,000 documents, counting only the original German documents, of which I have kept only about fifty.
I should like also to point out to the Tribunal how the documents will be presented in the document books which you have before you. The documents are numbered at the top of the page to the right; they are numbered in pencil and correspond to the order in which I shall quote them. Each dossier has a pagination which begins with the number 100.
I would ask the Tribunal now to take up the document book entitled: “The Annexed Territories of Eupen, Malmédy, and Moresnet.”
In carrying out, without any attempt or cloak of legality, the annexation of occupied territories, Germany did something much more serious than violating the rules of law. It is the negation of the very idea of international law. The lawyer, Bustamante y Sirven, in his treatise on international law expresses himself in the following terms regarding this subject:
“It can be observed that never have we alluded at any moment to the hypothesis that an occupation terminates because the occupying power takes possession of the occupied territory through his military forces and without any convention. The motive for this mission is very simple and very clear. Since conquest cannot be considered as a legitimate mode of acquisition, these results are uniquely the result of force and can be neither determined nor measured by the rules of law.”
On the other hand, I have said just now that Germanization did not necessarily imply annexation. Inversely, we might conceive that annexation did not necessarily mean Germanization. We shall prove to the Tribunal that annexation was only a means, the most brutal one of Germanization, that is to say, nazification.
The annexation of the Belgian cantons of Eupen, Malmédy, and Moresnet was made possible by a German law of 18 May 1940 and was the subject of an executive decree of 23 May 1940. These are public regulations, which were published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, Pages 777 and 804. I should like to ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this.
As a result of this decree the three Belgian districts were attached to the province of the Rhineland, district of Aachen.
A decree dated 24 September 1940 installed local German government and German municipal laws. A decree of 28 July 1940 introduced the German judicial system in these territories. Local courts were established in Malmédy, in Eupen and St. Vith, and district courts at Aachen, which could judge cases on equality with the local courts.
The Court of Appeal of Cologne replaced the Belgian Court of Cassation for cases where the latter would have been competent. German law was introduced in these territories by the decree of 23 May 1940, signed by Hitler, Göring, Frick, and Lammers and was effective as from September 1940.
A decree of 3 September 1940 regulates the details of the transition of Belgian law into German law in the domains of private law, commercial law, and law of procedure.
By the decree of annexation German nationality was conferred upon the inhabitants of German racial origin in this Belgian territory. The details of this measure were specified and stipulated by the decree of 23 September 1941. All persons who had acquired Belgian nationality as a result of the ceding of these territories could, according to the terms of the decree, resume their German nationality, with the exception, however, of Jews and Gypsies. All the other inhabitants, on condition that they were racially German, could acquire German nationality, which might be revoked after 10 years.
I shall not take up at great length the situation which resulted from the annexation of these Belgian territories, for the developments of the situation are analogous to those which we shall examine in the other countries. I simply would like to point out a special detail of this subject: A law of 4 February 1941, signed by Hitler, Göring, Frick, and Lammers granted the citizens of Eupen, Malmédy, and Moresnet representation in the Reichstag, that is to say, the benefits of the German parliamentary regime, the democratic character of which is known.
I shall ask the Tribunal to now take up the file entitled “Alsace and Lorraine.” There is a file, “Exposé,” and a file, “Documents.”
Contrary to what took place in the Belgian cantons the Germans did not officially proclaim by law the annexation of the three French departments which constitute Alsace and Lorraine. The fact of this annexation, however, is in no way doubtful. I should like to remind the Tribunal here of extracts from a document which has already been submitted to it, which is Document Number RF-3 of the French documentation. It concerns a deposition made before the French High Court of Justice, by the French Ambassador, Léon Noël, who was a member of the Armistice Delegation. I did not put this document in your book because I shall cite only one sentence from it. The document has already been submitted to the Tribunal, as I have just said.
Ambassador Noël, in this document, pointed out the conversations which he had at the time of the signing of the Armistice Convention with the German representatives, notably with the accused Keitel and Jodl. The sentence which I would like to remind the Tribunal of is as follows:
“. . . and likewise, in thinking of Alsace and Lorraine, I required them to say that the administrative and judicial authorities of the occupied territories would keep their positions and functions and would be able to correspond freely with the government.”
The affirmations are dated 22 June 1940.
I am now going to submit to the Tribunal a document of 3 September 1940, which is a note of protest of the French Delegation, addressed to the Armistice Commission. I submit this to the Tribunal in order that the Tribunal may see that during the period which elapsed between these two dates, a period which covers barely 2 months, the Nazis had applied a series of measures which created, in an incontestable manner, a state of annexation.
This document which I submit bears the Number RF-701 of the French documentation. It is the first document of the document book which the Tribunal has before it. All the documents in this chapter will bear numbers beginning with the Number 7, that is to say, beginning with RF-701.
This document comes from the file of the French High Court of Justice, and the copy submitted to the Tribunal has been certified by the clerk of this jurisdiction. I should like to quote from this document, beginning with the fourth paragraph on Page 1 of the Document Number RF-701:
“1. Prefects, subprefects, and mayors, as well as a number of local officials whose tendencies were considered suspicious, have been evicted from their respective offices.
“2. Monseigneur Heintz, bishop appointed under the Concordat to Metz, was driven from his diocese. Several members of the clergy, secular as well as regular, were also expelled under the pretext that they were French in tongue and mentality.
“3. Monseigneur Ruch, the bishop appointed under the Concordat to Strasbourg, was forbidden to enter his diocese and, consequently, to resume his ministry.
“4. M. Joseph Bürckel was appointed on 7 August, Gauleiter of Lorraine and M. Robert Wagner, Gauleiter of Alsace. The first of these provinces was attached to the Gau of Saar-Palatinate; the second to the Gau of Baden.
“5. Alsace and Lorraine were incorporated in the civil administration of Germany. The frontier and custom police were then placed on the western limits of these territories.
“6. The railroads were incorporated in the German network.
“7. The post office, telegraph, and telephone administration was taken over by the German postal authorities, who gradually substituted their own personnel for the Alsatian personnel.
“8. The French language was eliminated, not only in administrative life but also from public use.
“9. Names of localities were germanized.
“10. The racial legislation of Germany was introduced into the country; and as a result of this measure, the Jews were expelled as well as nationals which the German authorities considered to be intruders.
“11. Only the Alsatians and Lorrainers who agreed to consider themselves as being of German stock were permitted to return to their homes.
“12. The property of associations of a political character and of Jews was confiscated as well as property acquired after 11 November 1918 by French persons.
“Nothing illustrates better the spirit which animates these measures, in themselves arbitrary, than the words pronounced publicly 16 July at Strasbourg by M. Robert Wagner. Stressing the elimination of all elements of foreign stock or nationality which was taking place, this high official affirmed that the purpose of Germany was to settle once and for all the Alsatian question.
“Such a policy, which could not be the function of subordinate occupational authorities, was equivalent to disguised annexation and is strictly contrary to agreements subscribed to by Germany at Rethondes.”
Numerous protests were subsequently lodged by the French Delegation. We have attached to our file a list of these protests; there are 62 of them. This list is found in the book under the Document Number RF-702.
The development of the German policy may now be studied through three series of measures which were carried out. First, a body of measures destined to assure the elimination of what can be called the French complex, that is to say, of everything which can tie an inhabitant of an annexed country to his way of life and to his national tradition. Second, a body of measures destined to impose German standards in all domains of life of the population. Third, the measures of transportation and of colonization. We use here the German terminology.
First, elimination of the French complex.
The elimination of French nationality and of French law resulted automatically from the measures which we shall study relative to the imposition of German standards. I should like to point out particularly, that the Germans tried to fight against all elements of French organization which might have survived the suppression of their national juridical conditions.
At first they proscribed, in an extraordinarily brutal way, the use of the French language. Several regulations were formulated relative to this. I shall cite only the third regulation, bearing the date of 16 August 1940, entitled, “Concerning the Reintroduction of the Mother Tongue.” This document is published in the Journal of German Ordinances or Decrees of 1940, (Verordnungsblatt) on Page 2. It bears Document Number RF-703. The Tribunal will find it in the document book after the Document Number 702, which is the list of French protests. I should like to read a large part of this document, which is interesting; and I shall start at the beginning:
“Following the measures undertaken with a view of reintroducing the mother tongue of the Alsatian people, I decree as follows:
“1. Official Language.
“All public services in Alsace, including administration of communes, of corporations within the meaning of civil law, public establishments, churches, and foundations, as well as tribunals, will use exclusively the German language orally and in writing. The Alsatian population will use exclusively its German mother tongue in both oral and written applications to the above establishments.
“2. Christian and Family Names.
“Christian names will be exclusively used in their German form orally and in writing, even when they have been inscribed in the French language on the birth register. As soon as this present decree comes into force, only German Christian names may be inscribed upon the birth register. Alsatians who bear French Christian names, which do not exist in German form, are asked to apply for a change of their Christian names in order to show their attachment to Germanism. The same holds good for French family names.”
I shall skip the following sentence and go to Paragraph 4:
“4. It is forbidden to draw up, in the French language, contracts and accounts under private seal of whatever nature they may be. Anything printed on business paper and on forms must be drawn up in the German language. Books and accounts of all business firms, establishments, and companies must be kept in the German language.
“5. Inscriptions in Cemeteries.
“In the future, inscriptions on crosses and on tombstones can be written only in the German language. This provision applies as well to a new inscription as to the renewal of old inscriptions.”
These measures were accompanied by a press campaign. Because of the resistance of the population, this campaign was carried on throughout the occupation.
I should like to make one citation of an article which is particularly significant, published in the Dernières Nouvelles de Strasbourg on 30 March 1943. This is not introduced as a document; it is a quotation of a published article. When we read such an article, we think it at first a joke; but we see, subsequently, that it is serious because repressive measures had to be taken against people who sabotaged the German language. I cite:
“Germans greet one another with ‘Heil Hitler.’ We do not want any more French greetings, which we still hear constantly in a thousand different forms. The elegant salutation ‘Bonjour’ is not made for these rough Alsatian throats, accustomed to the German tongue since the distant epoch of Osfried von Weissenburg. The Alsatian hurts our ears when he says ‘boschurr.’ When he says ‘Au Revoir,’ the French think they are listening to an Arabic word, which sounds like ‘arwar.’ Sometimes they say ‘Adje’ (Adieu).
“These phonetic monstrosities which disfigure our beautiful Alsatian-Germanic dialect resemble a thistle in a flower bed. Let us weed them out! They are not worthy of Alsace. Do you believe feminine susceptibility is wounded by saying ‘Frau’ instead of ‘Madame’? We are sure that Alsatians will drop the habit of linguistic whims so that the authorities will not have to use rigorous measures against saboteurs of the German language.”
After this attack on the language, the National Socialists attacked music. This is the purpose of a decree of 1 March 1941, signed by Dressler, the Chief of the Department of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in the Office of the Chief of Civil Administration for Alsace.
This is Document Number RF-704, published in the German Official Journal (Verordnungsblatt) Page 170 of the year 1941. I shall simply cite the title of this decree: “Decree Concerning Undesirable and Injurious Music.” The first 3 lines are:
“Musical works contrary to the cultural will of National Socialists will be entered on a list of undesirable and injurious music by the Department for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.”
After music, now, we have the question of hairdress. In this regulation the ridiculous constantly disputes supremacy with the odious. I would almost like to ask the Tribunal to pardon me, but, truly, nothing in this is invented by us.
Here is Document Number RF-705. It is a decree of 13 December 1941 published in the Official Bulletin of 1941, Page 744. This Document RF-705 concerns the wearing of French berets (Basque berets) in Alsace. I read only the first paragraph:
“The wearing of French berets (Basque berets) is forbidden in Alsace. Under this prohibition are included all berets which by form or appearance resemble French berets.”
I may add that any violation of this decree was punishable by fine or imprisonment.
The leaders also undertook a long struggle against French flags which the inhabitants kept in their houses. I cite as an example Document Number RF-706, a German administrative document which we found in the archives of the Gau Administration of Strasbourg. It is dated 19 February 1941. I read 3 paragraphs of this document.
“The Gauleiter desires that the Alsatian population be recommended by the organization of the Block- and Zellenleiter to rip up the French flags still in possession of the people and to use them in a suitable way for household needs.
“By the 1st of next May no French flag should be in private hands. This goal should be attained in a way by which the Blockleiter are to visit each household and recommend the families to use the flags for household needs. It should also be pointed out that after the 1st of next May corresponding conclusions shall be drawn concerning the attitude of owners if, after this date, French flags are still found in private possession.”
The following document is our Document Number RF-707, which is also an administrative memorandum on the same subject, dated Strasbourg, 26 April 1941, of which I should simply like to read the last sentence:
“If, after 1 June 1941, Alsatians are found still to have French flags in their possession, they are to be sent to a concentration camp for one year.”
The Nazis feared French influence to such a degree that they even took a special measure to prevent the coming to Alsace of French workers among the laborers brought into this territory for compulsory labor service. This is the purpose of a memorandum of 7 September 1942 of the civil administration in Alsace, which is our Document Number RF-708, also found in the archives of the Gauleitung of Strasbourg. I read the first few lines of this Document Number RF-708.
“Given the general situation of the labor market, the Chief of the Civil Administration in Alsace has decided that foreign labor from all European countries could, in the future, be used in Alsace. There is but one exception, for French and Belgians, who cannot be employed in Alsace . . . .”
The German undertaking against the French sentiment of Alsatians . . .
THE PRESIDENT: The translation which came through to me came to me as “must.” It came through that the foreign workers of all countries of Europe must, in the future, be used. The word is “pouvait.” That does not mean “must,” does it? It is “pouvait.” Does not that mean “could”?
M. FAURE: “Could,” according to necessity. The interesting aspect is that those who are French may not work there, even if labor is needed in Alsace.
The German undertaking against the French sentiments of the Alsatians found its complementary aspect in the attempt also to destroy, on the outside, anything which might be an indication of Alsace belonging to the motherland, France. I shall cite one example in relation to this point. This is our Document Number RF-709.
It is a letter of the German Embassy in Paris, 7 May 1941, which is reproduced in a memorandum of the French Delegation, which is found in the archives of the government. I read this Document Number RF-709, which is short:
“The German Embassy has the honor to point out the following to the General Delegation of the French Government in occupied territory:
“The German Embassy has been informed that in a series of reports on a theme concerning the fatherland, a French radio station in the unoccupied territory, on 16 or 17 April 1941, about 2100 hours, is said to have made a broadcast about the village of Brumath.
“As Brumath, near Strasbourg, is in a German language territory, the German Embassy requests that they inform it if such a broadcast was actually made.”
There exist numerous claims and protests of this kind, which fortunately have often an anecdotal character. We must now cite two especially serious cases, for they included assault, flagrant violations of sovereignty, and even crime.
The first case concerns the seizure and profanation of the treasure of the Cathedral of Strasbourg. I shall submit, concerning this subject, Document Number RF-710, which is a letter of protest of 14 August 1943 written by General Bérard, President of the French Delegation of the Armistice Commission. I read the beginning of the letter and repeat that the date is 14 August 1943:
“Dear General,
“From the beginning of the war, the treasure of Strasbourg Cathedral and the property of certain parishes of this diocese had been entrusted by Monseigneur Ruch, Bishop of Strasbourg, to the Beaux-Arts Department. This department had put them in a safe place in the castles of Hautefort and of Bourdeilles in Dordogne, where they still were on the date of 20 May 1943.
“The treasure and this property included, in particular, the pontificalia reserved for the exclusive use of the Bishop, several of which were his personal property, the relics of saints, vessels, or objects for the performance of ceremonies.
“After having sought on several occasions—but in vain—to obtain the consent of Monseigneur Ruch, the Ministerial Counsellor Kraft, on 20 May, requested not only the prefect of Dordogne, but also the director of religious matters, for authority to remove the objects deposited. Faced with the refusal of these high officials, he declared that the repatriation to Alsace of the property of the Catholic Church would be entrusted to the Sicherheitspolizei.
“As a result, at dawn on 21 May, the castles of Hautefort and Bourdeilles were opened and occupied by troops, despite the protests of the guardian. The sacred objects were placed in trucks and taken to an unknown destination.
“This seizure, moreover, was extended to consecrated vessels and ceremonial objects and the relics of saints worshipped by the faithful. The seizure of these sacred objects by laymen not legally authorized and the conditions under which the operation was carried out aroused the emotion and unanimous reprobation of the faithful.”
Relative to this document I would like to emphasize to the Tribunal one fact which we shall find frequently hereafter, and which is, in our opinion, very important in this Trial. It is the constant interference and collaboration of different or diverse German administrations. Thus, the Tribunal must through this document see that Ministerial Counsellor Kraft, belonging to the civilian service dealing with national education, appeals to the police of the SS to obtain objects which he cannot obtain through his own efforts.
The second case which I would like to cite concerns the University of Strasbourg. From the beginning of the war the University of Strasbourg, which was one of the finest in France, had withdrawn to Clermont-Ferrand to continue its teaching there. After the occupation of Alsace and since this occupation really meant annexation, it was not reinstated in Strasbourg and remained in its city of refuge. The Nazis expressed their great disapproval of this in numerous threatening memoranda.
We would like to submit Document Number RF-711 relative to this. In this document we shall again come across the Ministerial Counsellor, Herbert Kraft, about whom I spoke in the preceding document. The document, which I submit, bears the Document Number RF-711 and is an original signed by Kraft. It was found in the archives of the German Embassy. In this memorandum, which is dated 4 July 1941, Counsellor Kraft expresses his disappointment at the result of steps which he had undertaken with the Rector of the University of Strasbourg, M. Danjon.
I believe that it is adequate if I read a very short passage of this memorandum in order to show the insolence and the threatening methods which the Germans used, even in the part of France which was not yet occupied. The passage which I am going to read will be the last paragraph on Page 2 of Document Number RF-711. Mr. Kraft relates the end of his conversation with the rector. I cite:
“I cut off the conversation, rose, and asked him, by chance, whether the decisions of Admiral Darlan did not represent for him an order from his government. As I went out I added, ‘I hope that you will be arrested.’ He ran after me, made me repeat my remark, and called out, ironically, that this would be a great honor for him.”
This document gives an amusing impression, but the matter as a whole was very serious.
The 15th of June 1943 the German Embassy wrote a note which I submit as Document Number RF-712. This document is an extract from the archives of the High Court of Justice, and has been certified by the clerk of that jurisdiction. Here is the text of this Document RF-712. I shall not read the beginning of the document:
“The German Embassy considers it very desirable to find a solution of the affair of the University of Strasbourg at Clermont-Ferrand.
“We would be happy to learn that no further publication would appear under the heading ‘University of Strasbourg’ so that new disagreements may not result from publications of that kind.
“The German Embassy has taken note of the fact that the Ministry of National Education will no longer fill vacant professorial chairs.
“Furthermore, it is requested that in the future no examination certificates be awarded under the title ‘University of Strasbourg.’ ”
I must, in concluding this subject of the University of Strasbourg, point out to the Tribunal a fact which is notorious, that is that Thursday, 25 November 1943, the German police took possession of the buildings of the University of Strasbourg in Clermont-Ferrand, arrested the professors and students, screened them, and deported a great number of persons. During this operation, they even shot at two professors; one was killed and the other seriously wounded.
I will be able to produce a document relative to this; but I think that is not indispensable, since there are no proofs for the Prosecution that these murders were committed under orders which definitely show governmental responsibility.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Faure, did you say that you had or had not got proof of the facts that you have just stated about the seizure of the property of the university?
M. FAURE: I said this, Mr. President: We consider that these facts are facts of public knowledge; but because of the interpretation which was given by the Tribunal, I have considered that it would be better to prove it by a document. As this document was not added to my file at that time, this document will be submitted as an appendix. I am going to read a passage of this document; but I should like to explain that it is not found in its proper place, as I added it to the brief after the statement of the Tribunal the other day on the interpretation of facts of “public knowledge.”
THE PRESIDENT: The Court will adjourn now.
Tomorrow being Saturday, the Tribunal will sit from 10 o’clock in the morning until 1 o’clock. We will then adjourn.
DR. KAUFFMANN: It was said that this afternoon there will be a witness. I would like to ask that this testimony be postponed to another day. I believe that we have reached a so-called silent agreement that we shall be notified in advance as to whether there will be witnesses and what the subject of their evidence will be.
I do not know whether there will be cross-examination; but the possibility exists, of course, and pertinent questions can only be put when we know, first of all, who the witness is to be, and secondly, what the subject will be on which the witness is to be cross-examined, perhaps just a clue.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal does not think it is necessary to postpone the evidence of this witness. As a matter of courtesy on the part of the Prosecution, it would be well, perhaps, but the subject matter—not necessarily the name, but the subject matter upon which the witness is to give evidence—should be communicated to the Defense so that they may prepare themselves upon that subject matter for any cross-examination.
I understand that this afternoon you propose to call a witness who will deal with the circumstances in respect to the German occupation of Luxembourg. That is right, is it not?
M. FAURE: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps you will give the defendants’ counsel the subject matter upon which they can prepare themselves for cross-examination. I am told that this subject matter has already been communicated to the defendants and is on their bulletin board at the present moment.