3) By a decree of the same date, 31 March 1941, which I submit as Document Number RF-125, the tax on blocked marks, created on 8 October 1940 by the Netherlands authorities, was abolished.
Faced with this situation, particularly dangerous to the Netherlands treasury, Mr. Trip resigned his position as Secretary General for Finance and President of The Netherlands Bank.
The Reich Commissioner replaced him with Rost von Tonningen, a notorious collaborator who complied with all the demands of the occupying power.
As the private banks were unwilling to keep credits in marks at a rate very disadvantageous to the real parity of 100 Reichsmark to 75.36 guilders, they transferred their credits in marks to the Bank of The Netherlands. The credit account of the Institute of Exports to Germany, through operations with that country, rose considerably; while the credit balance as of 1 April 1941 amounted to 235 million guilders, it was to rise by 1 May 1945, to 4,488 million guilders.
According to information given by the Netherlands Government, this credit was accounted for by purchases of all kinds of merchandise made by the Germans in Holland, of transferable stock or other valuable papers, by payment of services imposed upon Dutch enterprises, the wages of workers deported to Germany, and the liquidation debts incurred by the occupiers.
Apart from these two methods—indemnities for the occupation troops and clearing—the Germans procured resources for themselves in another way—by imposing collective fines, and this in violation of the provisions of Article 50 of the Hague Convention.
In the course of the occupation, under every pretext, the Germans imposed, by way of reprisal or intimidation, considerable fines upon the municipalities. These fines had to be paid by the inhabitants, with the exception of persons of German nationality, members of pro-Nazi associations (NSB, Waffen-SS, NSKK, Society for Technical Aid Services of the Dutch-German cultural community), and persons working for the Germans. According to information which has been obtained up to the present, of only 62 municipalities the total fines thus imposed amounted to a minimum of 20,243,024 guilders. This is based on testimony of the Netherlands Government, which I submit as Document Number RF-126.
From the same testimony, in the archives forgotten by the Germans at The Hague, there have been discovered two copies of letters relative to these collective fines. According to the first of these copies, which is a letter of 8 March 1941, collective fines amounting to 18 million guilders had been raised at the beginning of the year 1941. From the second, we learn that Hitler had given the order to employ this sum for National Socialist propaganda in the Netherlands. I quote:
“Reich Commissioner, The Hague, 1808, 8 March 1941.