THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.
[The witness left the stand.]
M. FAURE: I had stopped my presentation at the end of the second part. That is to say, I have examined so far, in the first place, the elimination of the French regime and secondly, the imposition of German rules.
I now come to the third part, which gives measures for transplantation in Alsace-Lorraine. The German authorities applied in these annexed departments characteristic methods for the transport of populations. It so happens that, as the witness from Luxembourg was heard sooner than I had anticipated, the Tribunal is already informed of the aspect which these measures of transplantation assumed in the annexed territories.
The situation which I am about to describe with respect to Alsace and Lorraine is, indeed, analogous to the situation which existed with regard to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The principal purpose of the application of such methods by the Germans was to enable them to colonize by bringing German subjects into the country, who then seized the lands and property of the inhabitants who had been expelled.
A second advantage was the elimination of groups considered especially difficult to assimilate. I should like to quote in this connection—this will be Document Number RF-749—what Gauleiter Wagner stated in a speech given at Saverne, according to the Dernières Nouvelles de Strasbourg, of 15 December 1941.
“Today we must make up our mind. In the moment of our nation’s supreme struggle—a struggle in which you, too, must participate—I can only say to anyone who says ‘I am a Frenchman!’ ‘Get the hell out of here! In Germany there is room only for Germans.’ ”
From the beginning the Germans proceeded, firstly, to the expulsion of individuals or small groups, especially Jews and members of the teaching profession. Moreover, as is shown by a document which I have already cited this morning under Number RF-701 and which was the first general protest made by the French Delegation, under date of 3 September 1940, the Germans authorized the people of Alsace-Lorraine to return to their homes only if they acknowledged themselves to be of German origin. Now the Tribunal will understand that these restrictions upon the return of refugees were in themselves equivalent to expulsion. Mass expulsions began in September 1940. I now submit in this connection Document Number RF-750; it is again a note from the French Armistice Delegation taken from the files of the High Court of Justice. I shall now read this document, Paragraph 2:
“Since then it has been brought to the knowledge of the French Government that the German authorities are proceeding to mass expulsions of families in the three eastern departments. Every day French citizens, forced to abandon all their belongings on the spot, are driven into the unoccupied part of France in groups of 800 to 1,000 persons.”
It was only the 19th of September. On the 3rd of November the Germans undertook the systematic expulsion of the populations of the Moselle region. This operation was accomplished with extreme perfidy. The Germans, as a matter of fact, gave the Lorrainers of certain localities the choice of either going to eastern Germany or going to France. They gave them only a few hours to make up their minds. Moreover, they sought to promote the belief that such a choice was imposed upon the Lorrainers as a result of an agreement reached with the French authorities.