“The duty of the Commissioner is to set or keep in motion the enterprise under his charge, to ensure the systematic fulfillment of orders, and to take all measures which increase the output.”
The decline of the commodity control offices began with an ordinance dated 6 August 1942, establishing the principle providing for the prohibition of manufacturing certain products or for ordering the use of certain raw materials. This ordinance is to be found in the document book under Document Number RF-167. Supervision of the commodity control offices was soon organized by the appointment to each of them of a German Commissioner, selected by the competent Reichsstelle.
From the last months of 1943 on, the “Rüstungsobmann” Office of the Armament and War Production Ministry (Speer), acquired the habit of passing its orders direct, without having recourse to the channel of the commodity control offices.
Even before this date measures had been taken to prevent any initiative that was not in accord with the German war aims. Further and even before the above ordinance of 6 August 1942, the ordinance of 30 March 1942 should be mentioned, which made the establishment or extension of commercial enterprises subject to previous authorization by the military commissioner.
In the report of the military administration in Belgium that has already been cited, the chief of the administrative staff, Reeder, specifies in Exhibit Number RF-169 (Document Number ECH-335) that for the period of January to March 1943 alone, out of 2,000 iron works, 400 were closed down for working irrationally or being useless to the war aims. The closing of these factories seems to have been caused less by the concern for a rational production than by the cunning desire to obtain cheaply valuable tools and machines.
In this connection, it is appropriate to point to the establishment of a Machine Pool Office. The above quoted report of the military administration in Belgium, in the 11th section, Pages 56 and following, is particularly significant in this respect. Here is an extract from the German text, the last lines of the last paragraph of Page 56, in the French translation, the last lines . . .
THE PRESIDENT (Lord Justice Sir Geoffrey Lawrence): That passage you read about the Defendant Raeder, was that from Document 169 or 170?
M. DELPECH: Mr. President, I spoke yesterday of the chief of the administration section, Reeder. He was section chief in Brussels. He has no connection with the defendant here.
THE PRESIDENT: I see, very well.
M. DELPECH: Exhibit Number RF-171 (Document Number ECH-10), second paragraph of the French text. The paragraph concerns the Machine Pool transactions: