I shall not endeavor to enumerate in their totality all the cases of executions of hostages. For our country, France, alone, there were 29,660 executed. This is proved in Document Number F-420, dated Paris, 21 December 1945, the original of which will be submitted under Exhibit Number RF-266 to your Tribunal. It is at the beginning of the document book, the second document. There in detail, region by region, the number is given of the hostages who were executed.
“Region of: Lille, 1,143; Laon, 222; Rouen, 658; Angers, 863; Orléans, 501; Reims, 353; Dijon, 1,691; Poitiers, 82; Strasbourg, 211; Rennes, 974; Limoges, 2,863; Clermont-Ferrand, 441; Lyons, 3,674; Marseilles, 1,513; Montpellier, 785; Toulouse, 765; Bordeaux, 806; Nancy, 571; Metz, 220; Paris, 11,000; Nice, 324; total, 29,660.”
I shall limit my presentation to a few typical cases of executions which unveil the political plan of the General Staff which prescribed these executions—plans of terror, plans that were intended to create and accentuate the division between Frenchmen, or, more generally, between citizens of the occupied countries. You will find in your document book a file quoted as F-133, which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-288. This is called “Posters Concerning Paris.” At the head of the page you will read, Pariser Zeitung supplement. This document reproduces a few of the very numerous posters and bills, some of the numerous notices inserted in the press from 1940 to 1945 announcing the arrest of hostages in Paris, in the Paris district, and in France. I shall read only one of these documents, which you will find on the second page, entitled Number 6, 19 September 1941. You will see in it an appeal to informers, an appeal to traitors; you will see in it a means of corruption, which systematically applied to all the countries of the West for years; all tended to demoralize them to an equal extent:
“Appeal to the population of occupied territories.
“On 21 August a German soldier was fired on and killed by cowardly murderers. In consequence I ordered on 23 August that hostages be taken, and threatened to have a certain number of them shot in case such an assault should be repeated.
“New crimes have obliged me to put this threat into execution. In spite of this, new assaults have taken place.
“I recognize that the great majority of the population is conscious of its duty, which is to help the authorities in their unremitting effort to maintain calm and order in the country in the interest of this population.”