Moreover, they did not achieve the results expected. Far from reducing the number of attacks, it increased them. Each attempt was followed by an execution of hostages, and every shooting of hostages occasioned more attacks in revenge. Generally the announcement of new executions of hostages plunged the countries into a stupor and forced every citizen to become conscious of the fate of his land, despite the efforts of German propaganda. Faced with the failure of this terroristic policy, one might have thought that the defendants would modify their methods. Far from modifying them, they intensified them. I shall endeavor to show the activity of the police and the law from the time when, the policy of hostages having failed, it was necessary to appeal to the German police in order to keep the occupied countries in a state of servitude. The German authorities made arbitrary arrests at all times and from the very beginning of the occupation; but with the failure of the policy of executing hostages, which was—as you remember—commented upon by General Von Falkenhausen in the case of Belgium, arbitrary arrests increased to the point of becoming a constant practice substituted for that of killing hostages.
We submit to the Tribunal Document Number 715-PS, Exhibit Number RF-294. This document concerns the arrest of high-ranking officers who were to be transferred to Germany in honorable custody:
“Subject: Measures to be taken against French Officers.
“In agreement with the German Embassy in Paris and with the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, the Supreme Commander in the West has made the following proposals:
“1. The senior officers enumerated below will be arrested and transferred to Germany in honorable custody: “Generals of the Army: Frère”—who died subsequently in Germany after his deportation—“Gérodias, Cartier, Revers, De Lattre de Tassigny, Fornel de la Laurencie, Robert de Saint-Vincent, Laure, Doyen, Pisquendar, Mittelhauser, Paquin;
“Generals of the Air Force: Bouscat, Carayon, De Geffrier, D’Harcourt, Mouchard, Mendigal, Rozoy;