I will stop quoting the words of the Reich Commissioner at this point, and now I shall cite the terms of the reply of Dr. Landfried, which you will find a little lower down in the document:
“I am very glad to be able to state that we have succeeded here in Norway . . . in mobilizing the economic forces of Norway for German needs to an extent which it has not been possible to attain in all the other occupied countries. I must thank you especially in the name of the Minister of Economics for having succeeded in inducing the Norwegians to achieve the greatest possible results.”
I think the Tribunal will have observed the series of expressions which are used in this document and which are quite characteristic. The Reich Commissioner says that from the very beginning, his duty was to mobilize all the economic and material forces of the country for the purposes of the Wehrmacht, and Dr. Landfried answers that they succeeded in mobilizing the economic forces to an extent which it has not been possible to attain in all the other occupied territories.
Thus we see that Dr. Landfried does not say that the Germans had, in Norway, a particular concept of occupation and that in the other countries they used a different procedure; he says that it was not possible to do as well in the other countries. The only limitation he recognizes is a limit of fact and opportunity, which will soon be overcome, but in no wise a limitation of law. The idea of a legal limitation never enters his mind, any more than it comes to the mind of any of the 40 personages present.
It is not here a question of an opinion or initiative of a regional administrative authority, but rather of the official doctrine of the Reich Cabinet and the High Command, since 40 high officials were present at this conference, and especially the representative of the Minister for Economy.
I should like to stress at this point that this German doctrine and these German methods for the mobilization of the resources of the occupied countries necessarily extend to the labor of the inhabitants.
I said yesterday that the Germans ensured for themselves from the very beginning the two keys of production. By that very fact they had within their power the working capital and the manpower. It depended on their decision whether labor worked or did not work, whether there should or should not be unemployment. This explains in a general way why the Germans took such brutal measures as the displacement and the mobilization of workers only after a certain time.
In the first period, that is to say, as long as there existed in the occupied countries stocks and raw materials, it was more in the interests of the Germans to utilize labor locally, at least to a great extent. This labor permitted them to produce for their benefit, with the wealth of these countries, finished products which they seized. Thus, besides the moral advantage of safeguarding appearances, they avoided the initial transportation of raw materials. The consideration of transport difficulties was always very important in the German war economy.
But when after a time, which was more or less long, the occupied countries were impoverished in their raw materials and really ruined, then the Germans no longer had any interest in permitting labor to work on the spot. They would, indeed, have had to furnish the raw materials themselves, and consequently that would involve double transportation—that of raw material in one direction and that of the finished products in the other direction. At that moment it became more advantageous for them to export workmen. This consideration coincided, moreover, with the needs resulting from the economic situation of Germany at that time and with political considerations.
On this question of the use of labor, I shall read to the Tribunal a few sentences of a document which I offer under Document Number RF-4. It is therefore the document following that from which I have just read. The note which you will find in the document book reproduces the sentences from an article which appeared in the newspaper Pariser Zeitung on 17 July 1942.