“Expropriation with indemnity or in return for assignment of other lands and grounds will be even less possible.
“It is therefore suggested that the respective authorities of the orders be instructed that they make available the monasteries concerned for the accommodation of racial Germans and remove their own members to other less populous monasteries.”
There is a marginal note opposite this paragraph that, translated, means “very good.”
“The final expropriation of these properties thus placed at our disposal can then be carried out step by step in the course of time.”
On 5 April 1940 the Security Police and Security Service SS sent a letter to the Reich Commissar for the consolidation of Germandom, enclosing a copy of the foregoing letter from Heydrich to Himmler of 21 February 1940, proposing the confiscation of Church properties. The letter of 5 April 1940 is included in the Document R-101(a), just introduced in evidence; and I quote from the second sentence of the first paragraph thereof, on Page 1 of the English translation of Document R-101(a):
“The Reich Leader SS has agreed to the proposals made in the enclosed letter and has ordered the matter to be dealt with by collaboration between the Chief of the Security Police and Security Service and your office.”
I now offer in evidence Document R-101(c), Exhibit USA-358. This is a letter dated July 30, 1941, written by an SS Standartenführer whose signature is illegible, to the Reich Leader of the SS. The letter supplies further evidence of the participation of the Gauleiter in the seizure of church property. I quote from the first three paragraphs of the English translation of Document R-101(c), at the bottom of the page:
“With reference to the report of 30 May 1941, this office considers it its duty to call the Reich Leader’s attention to the development which is taking place in the incorporated Eastern countries with regard to seizure and confiscation of church property.