The Machine Pool Office for Belgium and Northern France was set up upon the decision of the Chief of the Military Economic Section in Brussels under date of 18 February 1943. Its activity has already been outlined to the Tribunal in connection with the spoliation of non-ferrous metal industries. Its activity did not stop there; it is found in all branches of industry. The Exhibit Number RF-185 (Document ECH-29) can give us figures on its activity. This activity continued to the very last days of the occupation. Requisitions of machinery and instruments were not limited to industry; Documents Numbers ECH-16 and ECH-15 (Exhibits Numbers RF-193 and 194) show the extent of the requisitioning of scientific instruments.
I have finished with the levies on industrial material.
I shall present briefly in the fourth chapter the question of services, first of all:
1. The billeting of troops. By an ordinance dated 17 December 1940, Page 88, the Germans imposed the costs of billeting their troops upon Belgium. Having done this, the occupation authorities justified themselves by a rather liberal interpretation of Article 52 of the Hague Convention, according to the provisions of which the occupying power may require levies in kind and in services.
The Wetter report (Document Number RF-186) wrongly contends that the Convention does not specify by whom the settlement should be made; Article 49 gives the right to make the occupied country defray the expenses.
Therefore Belgium had to meet expenses to the amount of 5,900 million francs for billeting costs, equipment, and furniture. The payments of the Belgian treasury for billeting is estimated in the report of the Belgian Military Administration at 5,423 million francs.
It is evident that under the pretext of billeting costs, other expenses were entered to the detriment of the Belgian economy, as in other occupied countries—the purchases of furniture which was to be sent to Germany.
2. Transport and Communications.
To assure transport and communications, the Belgian treasury had to advance a total of 8,000 million francs. As already pointed out to the Tribunal, the seizure by the occupation authorities covered even the river fleet to the extent that the transport plan restricted the use of rail to the operation troops.
According to Article 53 of the Hague Convention, the occupying army has the right to seize means of transport and communications provided that it returns them and pays indemnity. That army, however, does not possess the right to make the occupied country pay the costs of transport put at the army’s disposal. That is, however, what Germany did in Belgium.