“Simultaneously, I order that everyone abstain from any kind of agitation which might disturb public order and the security of public life.”
I skip a paragraph.
“The senior SS and Police Leader will take every step deemed necessary by him for the maintenance or restoration of public order or the security of public life.
“In the execution of his task the senior SS and Police Leader may deviate from the law in force.”
Summary police justice! These words do not deceive us. This is purely and simply a matter of murder, in that the police is authorized in executing its functions to deviate from the law in force. This sentence, which Seyss-Inquart signed and which protected his subordinates who assassinated Dutch, patriots as far as German law was concerned, is in itself the condemnation of Seyss-Inquart.
In execution of this decree the Tribunal will see that on 2 May—and this is Page 32 of your document book—a summary police tribunal pronounced the death sentence against ten Dutch patriots. On Page 34, another summary police tribunal pronounced the death sentence on ten other Dutch patriots. All of them were executed. On the next page, still in application of the same decree, a summary police court pronounced the death sentence on a patriot, and he was executed.
This document, Document F-224(a), Exhibit RF-277, comprises a very long list of similar texts which seems to me superfluous to cite. The Tribunal may refer to the last only, which is especially interesting. We will consider it for a moment; it is on Page 46 of your document book. This is the report of the Identification and Investigation Service of the Netherlands, according to which, while it was not possible to make known at that time the number of Dutch citizens who were shot by the military units of the occupying power, we can state now that a total of more than 4,000 of them were executed. The details of the executions, with the places where the corpses were discovered, follow.
This constitutes only a very fragmentary aspect of the sufferings and the sacrifices in human life endured by Holland. That needs to be stated because it is the consequence of the criminal orders of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart.