“1. Whoever fails to comply with these requisitions of service or goods which are imposed upon him by the Military Commander in France, or an authority designated by him, or who performs them in such a manner as to imperil or make fail the purpose of the services or requisitions, shall be punished by penal servitude, imprisonment, or fine. A fine may be imposed in addition to penal servitude or imprisonment.
“2. In serious cases the penalty of death may be inflicted.”
These ordinances were protested against by the French authorities. General Doyen protested on several occasions against the first of these without his protest having any effect.
I refer again to his letter of 25 May 1941, which I have just submitted to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-23 (Document Number F-283), and I read on Page 3 of the French text, Page 4 of the German translation:
“I am instructed to lodge a formal protest with you against such practices and to beg you to intervene so that an immediate end may be put to this.
“On 16 November, in letter Number 7,843/AE, I already protested against the ordinance that was decreed on 10 October 1940, by the Chief of the Military Administration in France, which provided the death penalty for any person failing to carry out or carrying out inadequately the tasks of surveillance imposed by the occupation authorities. I protested then that this demand, as well as the penalty, was contrary to the spirit of the Armistice Convention, the object of which was to relieve the French population from any participation in the hostilities.
“I had limited myself to this protest in principle because at the time no concrete case in which such a task of surveillance might have been imposed had been called to my attention. But it was not possible to accept as justification of the ordinance in question the arguments which you gave me in your letter Number 1361 of 6 March.