The report of the military administration in Belgium, to which I shall refer constantly, gives the following details, briefly summarized:
From the very beginning of the occupation the Germans demanded an inventory of supplies on which they were to impose considerable levies, notably textiles and non-ferrous metals.
I shall confine myself to some brief remarks on textiles and non-ferrous metals. The example of the textiles industry is particularly revealing: On the eve of the invasion, the Belgian textile industry, with its 165,000 workers, was the second largest industry in Belgium after the metal industry. Under the pretext of avoiding the exhaustion of the very important supplies then still available, an ordinance of 27 July 1940 prohibited the textile industry to work at more than 30 percent of its 1938 capacity. For the period from May to December 1940 alone requisitions were not less than 1,000 million Belgian francs. They particularly affected nearly half of the wool stock available in the country on May 10, 1940, and nearly one-third of the stock of raw cotton.
On the other hand, the forced closing down of factories constituted for the Germans an excellent excuse for taking away, on the pretext of hiring, unused equipment, unless it was requisitioned at a cheap price. The ordinance of 7 September 1942, which is to be found in the document book under Document Number RF-174, laid down the manner in which factories were to be closed in execution of the right accorded to the occupation authorities; and it also gave the right to dissolve certain business and industrial groups and to order their liquidation. Consolidation of enterprises was the pretext given. In the month of January 1944, 65 percent of the textile factories had been stopped.
I shall not go into the details of these operations and I shall pass on to Page 58. The report of the German military administration quoted above gives particularly significant figures as to production. Of a total output of the wool industry of 72,000 tons for the entire period May 1940 to the end of June 1944, representing a value of about 397 million Reichsmark, the distribution of the deliveries between the German and Belgian markets is the following: The German market, 64,700 tons, 314 million Reichsmark; the Belgian market, 7,700 tons, 83 million Reichsmark. The whole spoliation of the textile industry is contained in these figures.
Belgian consumption obviously had to suffer a great deal from the German policy of direction of the textile market. The same report of the military administration furnishes details, stating that in 1938 the needs in textile products amounted in Belgium to a monthly average of twelve kilos. The respective figures for the occupation years are the following: 1940 to 1941—2.1 kilos per head, 1941 to 1942—1.4, 1942 to 1943—1.4, 1943 to 1944—0.7. The diminution of Belgian consumption under the Germans is contained in these two figures; twelve kilos per head in 1938; 0.7 kilo at the end of the occupation.
On the other side, the Belgian Government gives the following details on the pillage of this produce. Compulsory deliveries to Germany during the occupation amounted to:
Cotton yarn, about 40 percent of the production; linen, 75 percent; rayon, 15 percent.
Finally, out of the textile stocks remaining in Belgium a great percentage was still taken away by the Germans through purchases on the Belgian markets, purchases of finished or manufactured products. The equivalent of these forced deliveries can generally be found in the clearing statistics, unless it is placed under misrepresented occupation costs.
I have finished with textiles. As to the non-ferrous metal industry, Belgium was in 1939 the largest producer in Europe of non-ferrous metals, of copper, lead, zinc, and tin. The statistics included in the report of the military command, which are to be found in Exhibit Number RF-173 (Document Number ECH-11), will furnish the evidence for the Tribunal.