But this sum of 64,000 million was completely disproportionate to the needs of the occupying army. This is shown in the report of Wetter, in a passage which is submitted as Exhibit Number RF-148. On Page 245 of this report it is said that on 17 January 1941 the general who was Commander-in-Chief in Belgium had asked the High Command of the Army if the indemnity covered only the expenses of occupation. This point of view was not accepted by the commanding general, who, by order of 29 October 1941, specified that the indemnity of occupation was to be used not only for the needs of the occupying army but also for those of the operating armies. Moreover, on Page 11 of the original German text of the same report it is written—and I shall read to the Tribunal an excerpt which will be found in the document book under Document Number RF-149, the second paragraph:
“As the increase in the expenses of the Wehrmacht made it clear that it would be impossible to manage with this amount, the military administration demanded that the calculation of the occupation costs should be straightened out by deducting all expenses foreign to the occupation proper. This concerned especially the larger purchases of all kinds which the military services made in Belgium, such as horses, motor vehicles, equipment, all of which was designated for other territories and was written off as occupation costs.
“By a decision of the Delegate for the Four Year Plan, dated 11 June 1941, the financing of other than true occupation costs was to be met by clearing. To comply with this decree, beginning in July 1941, the administration of the military commander ordered a monthly report to be rendered of all expenses other than those required for the occupation but which so far had been paid under the account of occupation costs, in order to have these expenses refunded through clearing. Thanks to this, large sums could be recovered and put into the account of occupation costs.”
Before concluding the examination of this point concerning war tribute, that tribute called occupation costs, it is necessary to point out that the Germans had already demanded, by the decree of 17 December 1940, submitted as Document Number RF-150, that the costs of billeting their troops should be charged to Belgium. Owing to this, the country had to meet expenses totalling 5,900 million francs, which went for billeting German troops, costs of installation, supplies, and furniture.
In his report Wetter writes on Page 104—the excerpt submitted as Document Number RF-147—that at the end of June 1944 the Belgian payments for billeting troops totalled 5,423 million francs.
Clearing.
We now come to the third part of German plundering—clearing. The issuing of Reichskreditkasse notes and the war tribute, called “occupation costs,” were not sufficient for Germany. Her leaders created a system of clearing which enabled them to procure, unduly, means of payment totalling 62,200 million Belgian francs.
As soon as they arrived in Belgium, by the decrees of 10 July, 2 August, and 5 December, 1940—which appear in the document book under the Numbers RF-151, RF-152, and RF-153—the Germans specified:
1) That all payments on debts of people resident in Belgium to their creditors in Germany had to be paid into an account called the “Deutsche Verrechnungskasse, Berlin.” This was an open account on the books of the National Bank of Belgium in Brussels, an account kept in belgas in spite of the prohibition on currency of 17 June 1940, the prohibition to which I have already referred concerning the blocking of means of payment in the country.