In the Netherlands, as in Austria and elsewhere, Seyss-Inquart was relentless in his treatment of Jewish Netherlanders. To illustrate his attitude, I offer in evidence Document 3430-PS, which consists of extracts from the defendant’s book Four Years in the Netherlands (Collected Speeches). It becomes Exhibit Number USA-708. In a speech in Amsterdam on 13 March 1941—and I am now quoting from Page 57 of the original book, the last extract on the translation, Seyss-Inquart said:
“The Jews, for us, are not Dutch. They are those enemies with whom we can come to neither an armistice nor to peace. This applies here, if you wish, for the duration of the occupation. Do not expect an order from me which stipulates this, except regulations concerning police matters. We will beat the Jews wherever we meet them, and those who join them must bear the consequences. The Führer declared that the Jews have played their final act in Europe, and therefore they have played their final act.”
Now, as promised, the Defendant Seyss-Inquart proceeded to promulgate the long series of decrees which first threatened to deprive the Jewish people in the Netherlands of their property, of their rights, and degraded them to something lower than the lowest, which eventually resulted in their deportation to Poland. These decrees, all signed by Seyss-Inquart, are collected in our brief, Page 65. I ask the Court to take judicial notice of them. By way of illustration, the first to which I wish to refer appears in the document book as 3333-PS, and it is a decree of 26 October 1940, requiring the registration of businesses belonging to Jews as defined in the decree, including partnerships or corporations in which Jews owned a substantial interest. You have seen that this type of law was the inevitable prelude to mass confiscation of the property of Jews under the Nazi administration. In a law found in Verordnungsblatt, Volume Number 6, Page 99, 11 February 1941, Document 3325-PS, Dutch universities and colleges were limited in the registration of Jewish students. This of itself does not seem important, but it is a part of the program to take away from these people their rights and degrade them. Document Number 3328-PS is a decree published in Verordnungsblatt Number 44 at Page 841, of 22 October 1941. This prevented the Jews from exercising any profession or trade without authorization from administrative authorities and permitted such authorities to order the termination of any employment contract concerning Jews.
As a final illustration I refer in passing to Document 3336-PS, a decree published in the Verordnungsblatt, Issue 13, Page 289, and dated 21 May 1942. This decree required all Jews to make written declaration of claims of any kind, under which they might be beneficiaries, at a banking firm known as Lippmann-Rosenthal and Company, which was actually an agency of the Reich at Amsterdam. The decree gave the bank, this named bank, all rights to dispose of the claim and provided that payment to the bank should be released in full. This type of Nazi decree was, of course, a forerunner of ultimate deportation to the East and allowed the Nazis to snatch the insurance.
Evidence of the success of this defendant’s efforts to annihilate all Jews in the Netherlands has already been read into the Record. The court will find that Major Walsh—again reading from the report of the Netherlands Government, Exhibit Number USA-195, at Page 1497 (Volume III, Page 565)—showed that out of 140,000 Jewish Netherlanders, 117,000 were deported, over 115,000 of them to Poland, over 80 percent. The evidence has shown what was the probable fate of most of these people, and I shan’t dwell on it further.
Finally, I want to say a few words about the responsibility of this defendant for the systematic terror practiced against the inhabitants of the occupied territory by the Nazis throughout the occupation. Referring again to the collected speeches in Document 3430-PS, on 29 January 1943, the defendant left little doubt of his point of view. He said, and I quote:
“It is also clear, now more than ever, that every resistance which is directed against this fight for existence must be suppressed. Some time ago the representatives of the churches had written to the Wehrmacht commander and to me, and they presented their ideas in regard to the execution of death sentences which the Wehrmacht commander announced in the meantime. To this I can say only the following: At the moment in which our men, fathers, and sons with iron determination look towards their fate in the East and unflinchingly and steadfastly perform their highest pledge, it is unbearable to tolerate conspiracies whose goal is to weaken the rear of this eastern front. Whoever dares this must be annihilated. We must be severe and become even more severe against our opponents. This is the command of a relentless sequence of events and for us, perhaps, inhumanly hard but our holy duty. We remain human because we do not torture our opponents. We must remain hard in annihilating them.”
I do not offer any evidence of the commission of these crimes, because that is to be done by prosecutors of the French Republic. But the position of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart as Reich Commissioner, the control which he exercised, which has been shown, particularly over the SS and Police, and the attitude of the man himself will make clear his authorization and participation in the crimes to be proved and are a further indication of his part in the common plan.
Seyss-Inquart supported the Nazi Party as early as 1931. He was a traitor to the government to which he owed allegiance and in which he held high office. With full knowledge of the ultimate purposes of the conspirators he bent every effort to integrate Austria into the Reich and to make its resources and manpower, as well as its strategic position, available for the Nazi war machine. He performed these tasks with such ruthless efficiency that he was chosen thereafter for key positions in the enslavement of Poland and the Netherlands—the positions which he filled with such satisfaction to his superiors, that ultimately he came to be one of the foremost and most detested leaders in this common plan. As such, under Article 6 of the Charter, he is responsible for all acts performed by any persons in the execution of that plan. As such, he is guilty of the crimes charged to him under Counts One and Two of the Indictment.
I wish to introduce to the Tribunal at this time Dr. Robert M. W. Kempner, who will represent the Prosecution in the next phase of the case dealing with the Defendant Frick.