“One of our people, Paul Collomp, was cold-bloodedly murdered with a shot in the chest, and an eyewitness confirms the fact. Alas, it is only too true. Asked to leave the Secretariat where he was, Collomp no doubt obeyed too slowly to suit the policeman, for the latter gave him a violent blow on the back; instinctively, our colleague turned around, and the other then fired a shot directly into his chest. Death was almost immediate, but the body was left lying there alone until that evening. Another rumor reached us. We didn’t know from where. A colleague in Protestant Theology, M. Eppel, was apparently also shot down, in his own house, where they had gone to look for him. He received, as was later learned, several bullet shots in the abdomen but miraculously recovered and even survived the horrors of Buchenwald Camp.”
As I indicated to the Tribunal this morning, I wish to say that the Prosecution has no proof that such crimes were due to a German governmental order; but I believe that it is nevertheless interesting to advise the Tribunal of this last episode in the German undertakings against the University of Strasbourg, for the episode constitutes the sequel and, in a sense, the climax of the preceding incidents. We have seen, indeed, that German procedure began at first regularly and that after these regular procedures it reached the stage of recourse to the police. Brutality and violation accompanied this recourse.
I wish to advise you that this document which I have just read bears the Document Number RF-712 (bis).
I come now to the second part of this subject, which is the imposition of German standards. The leaders of the Reich began by organizing a specifically German administration. I already indicated a while ago the appointment of Gauleiter as heads of the civil administration. I continue on this point by producing as Document Number RF-713 the Ordinance of 28 August 1940, Official Gazette of the Reich, 1940, Page 22. The Ordinance is entitled: “Concerning the Introduction of the German Regime in Alsace.” I shall not read this Ordinance. I simply indicate that its object is to put into effect, from 1 October 1940 on, the German municipal regime of 30 January 1935.
The text and the organization show that the territories annexed were reorganized on the basis of German administrative concepts. At the head of each district (arrondissement) we no longer have a French subprefect but a Landkommissar, who has under his orders the different offices of Finance, Labor, School Inspection, Commerce, and Health. The large towns, the chief towns of arrondissements and even of cantons, were endowed with a Stadtkommissar instead of, and replacing, the mayors and elected counsellors, who had been eliminated. The judicial offices were attached to the court of appeals in Karlsruhe. The economic departments and, in particular, the chambers of commerce were run by the representatives of the chambers of commerce of Karlsruhe for Alsace and of Saarbrücken for Moselle.
After having germanized the forms of administrative activity, the Germans undertook to germanize the staffs. They nominated numerous German officials to posts of authority. They attempted, moreover, on a number of occasions, to make the officials who had remained in office sign declarations of loyalty to the Germans. These attempts, however, met with a refusal from the officials. They were therefore renewed on a number of occasions in different forms. We have recovered from the archives of the Gauleiter of Strasbourg 8 or 10 different formulas for these declarations of loyalty. I shall produce one of these for the Tribunal, by way of example.
This is Document Number RF-714. It is the formula for the new declaration which the officials are obliged to sign if they wish to retain their positions:
“Name and first name, grade and service, residence.
“I have been employed from —— 1940 to this date in the public service of the German administration in Alsace. During this period I have had, from my own observation as well as from the Party and the authorities, verbally and in writing, occasion to learn the obligations of a German official and the requirements which are exacted of him from a political and ideological point of view. I approve these obligations and these requirements without reservation and am resolved to be ruled by them in my personal and professional life. I affirm my adherence to the German people and to the National Socialist ideals of Adolf Hitler.”