And in Article 3:
“The Secretaries General of the Dutch ministries are responsible to the Reich Commissioner.”
If the Nazi Party did not constitute the Government, it nevertheless received the official blessing.
I shall quote to the Tribunal in this connection the decree of 30 January 1943, which likewise is in the Dutch Official Gazette, 1943, Page 63. I read the following passage:
“The representative of the political will of the Dutch people is the National Socialist movement of the Netherlands. I have, therefore, decreed that all the German offices under my orders, of the administration and those of the National Socialist movement, shall maintain close contact with the leader of the Movement in order to assure the co-ordination of the tasks in carrying out important administrative measures and particularly for all matters concerning personnel.”
The Tribunal knows already, for it is common knowledge, and insofar as it might be necessary through the witness who has already been heard, how outrageously untrue it was to claim that the Dutch National Socialist Party represented the political will of the people of this country.
Having commented on these two forms of utilization of the local party as agents of sovereignty, I should now like to point out to the Tribunal the main features of these usurpations which were committed by the Germans.
A first line of action is exemplified by the attempt to induce the occupied countries to participate in the war or, at the very least, to initiate recruitment for the German Army. In Norway the Nazis created the “SS Norge,” a formation which later was called the “Germanske SS Norge.” I submit as evidence Document Number RF-926, which is the decree of 21 July 1942, concerning the “Germanske SS Norge,” and I quote Paragraph 2 of this decree, which is a Quisling decree.
“2. ‘The Germanske SS Norge’ is a National Socialist order of soldiers which shall consist of men of Nordic blood and ideas. It is an independent subdivision of the Nasjonal Samling, directly under the NS Foerer (NS Leader) and responsible to him. It is, at the same time, a section of the ‘Stor-Germanske SS’ ”—the SS of Greater Germany—“and shall help to lead the Germanic peoples towards a new future and create the basis of a Germanic fellowship.”
We see again, by this example, that the interventions of the so-called Norwegian Government are perfectly obvious methods of Germanization. In order to facilitate the recruiting into this legion, the German or Norwegian Nazis did not hesitate to upset the civil legislation and to abolish the abiding principles of family rights by making a law which exempted minors from having to obtain the consent of their parents. This is a law of 1 February 1941, Norwegian Official Gazette, 1941, Page 153, which I submit in evidence as Document Number RF-927.