Thus, this gold was delivered to the Reichsbank and was requisitioned by order of the Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan. The documents relative to this question are submitted as Document Number RF-240.
I shall simply add that after the liberation the Provisional Government of the French Republic transferred to the National Bank of Belgium a quantity of gold equal to that which the Belgian Bank had entrusted to the Bank of France in the month of May 1940.
To conclude the gold question I shall indicate to the Tribunal that Germany was unable to obtain the gold reserve of the Bank of France, for it had been put in safekeeping in good time. Finally, still according to the last secret report of Hemmen, Pages 29 and 49 of the French translation, at the moment of their retreat the Germans seized without any right the sum of 6,899 million francs from branches of the Bank of France in Nancy, Belfort, and Epinal. Document 1741-PS (24). (Exhibit Number RF-241.)
I note for the Record that during the occupation the Germans seized great quantities of gold which they arranged to be bought from private citizens by intermediaries. I cannot give figures for this. I simply touch on the question for the Record.
If we summarize the question of the means of payment which Germany unduly requisitioned in France, we shall reach—still taking the calculation most favorable to the defendants and taking the maximum amount for the cost of maintaining occupation troops—a minimum total of 745,833,392,550 francs, in round figures 750,000 million francs.
I now come to Page 50, that is to say the use which the Germans made of these considerable sums; and first of all, the black market organized by the occupying power. Here again I don’t want to take advantage of your kind attention. I have had the honor of presenting to you the mechanism of the black market in all the occupied countries. I have indicated how it arose, how the Germans utilized it, how, under the orders of the Defendant Göring, it was organized and exploited. I do not wish to revert to this, and I shall pass over the whole section of my written exposé which was devoted to the black market in France.
I come to Page 69 of my written exposé. Chapter 3: Ostensibly legal acquisitions.
Under the pressure of the Germans, the Vichy Government had to consent to reserve for them a very high quota of products of all kinds. In exchange the Germans undertook to furnish raw materials, the quantities of which were determined by them alone. But these raw materials, when they were delivered, which was not always the case, were for the most part absorbed by the industry which was forced to supply them with finished products. In fact, there was no compensation, since the occupiers got back in the form of finished products the raw materials delivered and did not in reality give anything in return.
In the report of the Economic Control which has already been quoted, submitted as Document Number RF-107, the following example may be noted which I shall read to the Tribunal:
“An agreement permitted the purchase in the free zone of 5,000 trucks destined for the German G.B.K., whereby the Reich furnished five tons of steel per vehicle or a total of 25,000 tons of steel destined for French industry. In view of the usual destination of the products of our metal industry at that time, this was obviously a one-sided bargain, indeed if our information is exact, the deliveries of steel to be made in return were not even fulfilled, and they were partly used for the defense of the Mediterranean coast, rails, antitank defenses, et cetera.”