On the 22 November 1940, Hemmen stated again (I submit this extract of the minutes of the Armistice Commission meeting as Document Number RF-259):
“We are still at war and we must exert immediate influence over petroleum production in Romania. Therefore we cannot wait for the peace treaty.”
When the French delegates asked that the surrender should at least be made in exchange for a material compensation, Hemmen replied in the course of the same meeting:
“Impossible. The sums which you are to receive from us will be taken out of the occupation costs. This will save you from using the printing. This kind of participation will be made general on the German side when the new collaboration policy has once been defined.”
We might present indefinitely quotations of this kind, and many even much more serious from the point of view of violation of the provisions of the Hague Convention.
All these surrenders, apparently agreed to by the French, were accepted only under German pressure. Scrutiny of the contracts agreed upon shows great losses to those who handed over their property and enormous profits for those who acquired it, without the latter having furnished any real compensation.
The Germans thus obtained French shares in the Romanian petroleum companies, in the enterprises of Central Europe, Norway, and the Balkans, and especially those of the Bor Mines Company which I mentioned. These surrenders paid by francs coming from occupation costs, rose to a little more than two thousand million francs. The others were paid by the floating of French loans abroad, notably in Holland, and through clearing.
Having given you a brief summary of the seizure of French business investments abroad, I shall also examine rapidly the German seizure of registered capitals of French industrial companies.
Shortly after the Armistice, in conformity with the directives of the Defendant Göring, a great number of French industries were the object of proposals on the part of German groups anxious to acquire all or part of the assets of these companies.
This operation was facilitated by the fact that the Germans, as I have had the honor of pointing out to you, were in reality in control of industry and had taken over the direction of production, particularly by the system of “Paten Firmen.” Long discussions took place between the occupying power and the French Ministry of Finance, whose officials strove, sometimes without success, to limit to 30 percent the maximum of German shares. It is not possible for me to enter into details of the seizure of these shares. I shall point out, however, that the Finance Minister handed to us a list of the most important ones, which are reproduced in a chart appended to the French Document Book under Document RF-260 (Exhibit Number RF-260).