In the case of Belgium, the basic document is the French Document F-685, submitted as Exhibit Number RF-394; and you will find it on Page 48 of your document book. It is a report drawn up by the Belgian War Crimes Commission, which deals only with the crimes committed by the German troops at the time of the liberation of Belgian territory, September 1944. These crimes were all committed against Belgian patriots who were fighting against the German Army. It is not merely a question of executions but of ill-treatment and torture as well. Page 50:
“At Graide a camp of the secret army was attacked. 15 corpses were discovered to have been frightfully mutilated. The Germans had used bullets with sawn off tips. Some of the bodies had been pierced with bayonets. Two of the prisoners had been beaten with cudgels before being finished off with a pistol shot.”
The prisoners were soldiers, taken with weapons in hand and in battle, belonging to those units which officially, according to the testimony in documents previously cited to you, were considered by the German General Staff from that time on as being combatants.
“At Fôret, on 6 September, several hundred men of the resistance were billeted in the Château de Forêt. The Germans, having been warned of their going into action, decided to carry out a repressive operation. A certain number of unarmed members of the resistance tried to flee. Some were killed; others succeeded in getting back to the castle, not having been able to break through the cordon of German troops; others were finally made prisoner.
“The Germans advanced with the resistance prisoners in front of them. After 2 hours the fighting stopped for lack of ammunition. The Germans promised to spare the lives of those who surrendered. Some of the prisoners were loaded on a lorry; others, in spite of the promise given, were massacred after having been tortured. The castle and the corpses were sprinkled with gasoline and set on fire: 20 men perished in this massacre; 15 others had been killed during combat.”
The examples are numerous. This testimony to heroic Belgium was necessary. It was necessary that we should be reminded of what we owe her, of what we owe to her combatants of the secret army, and how great their sacrifice has been.
With regard to Luxembourg, we have a document from the Ministry of Justice of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which is Document Number UK-77, already submitted under Exhibit Number RF-322, which the Tribunal will find on Page 53 of the document book.
The Tribunal will note that a special summary tribunal, similar to those which functioned in Holland, was set up in Luxembourg; that it functioned in that country and pronounced a certain number of death sentences, 21—all of them equally arbitrary, in view of the arbitrary character of the tribunal which pronounced them.
The document contains the official indictment of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg against all the members of the Reich Cabinet, specifically against the Ministers of the Interior, of Justice, and the Party Chancellery, and against the leaders of the SS and Police, and especially against the Reich Commissioner for the Preservation of German Nationality.