Article 3 of the decree provided that the Chief of the Office of the Governor General and the Higher SS and Police Leader are directly subordinate to the Governor General and his Deputy. The Deputy, of course, was the Defendant Seyss-Inquart.
The significance of that provision is obvious in the light of the evidence which the Tribunal has heard and will hear. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of it.
As Deputy Governor General of the Polish occupied territories, Seyss-Inquart seems to have had the job of setting up a German administration throughout this territory; that is, he worked under the Defendant Frank but did much of the work of interviewing the various local leaders, telling them what they should do. As an illustration I offer in evidence a report of a trip which Seyss-Inquart and his consultants took between the 17th and 22d of February 1939. This is our Document Number 2278-PS, and I offer it as Exhibit Number USA-706. If the Tribunal please, I have misstated that date or period. It was the 17th to the 22d of November 1939, in other words, shortly after the administration was set up. On the first page of the English translation—and I now quote from the second full paragraph—the following appears:
“At 3:00 p. m. Reich Minister, Dr. Seyss-Inquart, addressed the department heads of the district chief and stated among other things that the chief guiding rule for carrying out German administration in the Government General must be solely the interests of the German Reich. A stern and inflexible administration must make the area of use to German economy; and, so that excessive clemency may be guarded against, the results of the intrusion of the Polish race into German territory must be brought to mind.”
This report is too long, if the Tribunal please, to quote from at too great length; but if the Tribunal will turn over to Page 7, I would like to read in some extracts of what occurred while the defendant was in Lublin. From the report it appears that the Defendant Seyss-Inquart after meeting the various local German administrative officers “then expounded the principles,” and I am now quoting from the top of Page 7, “in accordance with which the administration in the ‘Government’ must be conducted.” Then, skipping a sentence:
“The resources and inhabitants of this country would have to be made of service to the Reich, and only within these limits could they prosper. Independent political thought should no longer be allowed to develop. The Vistula area might perhaps be still more important to German destiny than the Rhine. The Minister then gave as a guiding theme to the district leaders: ‘We will further everything which is of service to the Reich and will put an end to everything which may harm the Reich.’ Dr. Seyss-Inquart then added that the Governor General wished that those men who were fulfilling a task for the Reich here should receive a post with material benefits in keeping with their responsibility and achievements.”
Then, if the Tribunal will turn over two more pages, the reporter is describing a sightseeing tour which was made to the village of Wlodawa, Cycow, and I quote:
“Cycow is a German village. . .”—skipping down a couple of sentences—“Reich Minister Dr. Seyss-Inquart made a speech in which he pointed out that the fidelity of these Germans to their nationality now found its justification and reward through the strength of Adolf Hitler.”
And then the next sentence, apparently thrown in by the reporter:
“This district with its very marshy character could, according to District Chief Schmidt’s deliberations, serve as a reservation for the Jews, a measure which might possibly lead to heavy mortality among the Jews.”