“Denmark. In Denmark the situation is extremely encouraging on account of the taking over of power by SS Gruppenführer Dr. Best. We may be convinced that the SS Gruppenführer Dr. Best will furnish a classical example of the ethnical policy of the Reich. The relations with the Party Leader Clausen have recently become difficult. Clausen agreed only to the project for the establishment of a Front Combatant Corps as a preliminary to the Germanic Schutzstaffel in Denmark, on the condition that members of this corps will be barred from membership to the Party. Negotiations about this urgently needed central organization of front combatants are going on. The monopoly of the Party is untenable; all rejuvenating elements must be mobilized although Clausen personally has to stand in the foreground but without his clique.
“Netherlands. In the Netherlands Mussert has in the meantime been proclaimed Führer of the Dutch people by the Reich Commissioner, Seyss-Inquart. This measure has produced an extremely disquieting effect in other Germanic countries, particularly in Flanders. The decisive role again falls to the General Commissioner whose principle of exploiting Mussert and then dropping him cannot be accepted under a Germanic Reich policy as approved by the SS.
“Flanders: In Flanders the development of the VNV (the Flemish National Movement) continues to be unfavorable. Even the shrewd policy of the new leader of the VNV, Dr. Elias, can no longer deceive us about this. Besides, he once expressed the opinion that Germany was prepared to make concessions in ethnological policy only when she was in bad straits.”
This information is quite characteristic. In the first place, it is firmly established that the Germanic regions should include Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Flanders. Naturally I speak only of the western countries. In the second place, we clearly see how the Germans used the Nazi-inspired local parties as an instrument for the usurpation of sovereignty. In the third place, we see it is quite true that the German diplomatic agents were also instruments for this policy of usurpation and completely exceeded their normal functions. In the fourth place, the document confirms the interdependence which existed between the different agents of German interference, which we stressed a short time ago and on which we cannot lay too much emphasis. The case of Dr. Best is a good example. Dr. Best was a minister with plenipotentiary powers; therefore, he was a diplomatic agent. We have seen that this same Dr. Best was previously an agent of the military administration in France, and we see by this document that besides his being a Plenipotentiary Minister he is a General in the SS, and in this capacity, so the document states, he seized power in Denmark. The information contained in the document concerning Norway and the Netherlands is a transition for the following part of this section, and I ask the Tribunal to take the file entitled, “Norway and the Netherlands.”
The institution of Reich Commissioner was applied in Norway and in the Netherlands, and in these two countries only; it constitutes a definite concept in the general plan of Germanization, in which these two countries occupy parallel positions. In both cases the establishment of the civil administration followed hard upon the military occupation of the country. The military men, therefore, did not have to take over the administration, and during the few days which preceded the appointment of the Reich Commissioner, they confined themselves to measures concerning order.
In Norway the decree of 24 April 1940 appointed Terboven as Reich Commissioner. This decree is signed by Hitler, Lammers, and the Defendants Keitel and Frick. In Holland the decree of 18 May 1940 appointed the Defendant Seyss-Inquart as Reich Commissioner. This decree is signed by the same persons as the preceding decree, and it bears in addition the signatures of Göring and Ribbentrop.
The decrees appointing the Reich-Commissioners also defined their functions as well as the division of the functions between the civil commissioner and the military authorities. I am not submitting these two decrees as documents since they are direct acts of German legislation. The decree concerning Norway provides in its first article:
“The Reich Commissioner has the task of safeguarding the interests of the Reich, and of exercising supreme power in the civil domain.”—The decree adds—“The Reich Commissioner is directly under me and receives from me directives and instructions.”