MAJOR JONES: I want to deal with your relations, for the moment, with Seyss-Inquart. You were receiving reports from him as to his administration in the Low Countries, were you not?
LAMMERS: It was like this: Every three months or so, a general report was sent in and then passed on to the Führer. We also received individual reports.
MAJOR JONES: And in the Low Countries, as elsewhere, you know that the object of German administration was to extract and exploit that territory for the German advantage as much as possible, do you not?
LAMMERS: Our aim was naturally to make use of the occupied countries for our war production. I know nothing about any orders for exploitation.
MAJOR JONES: To reduce their standard of living, to reduce them to starvation, that was one of the results of the Netherlands policy. You knew that, did you not?
LAMMERS: I do not believe that we went as far as that. I myself had friends and relatives in Holland and know that people in Holland lived much better than we did in Germany.
MAJOR JONES: I want you to look at the Document 997-PS, which is already Exhibit Number RF-122, which consists of a letter which you sent to Rosenberg, the defendant, enclosing a report given to you by Stabsleiter Schickedanz to the Führer, together with a report delivered by Reich Commissioner Dr. Seyss-Inquart, about the period from May 29 to July 19, 1940. If you look at Page 9 of your text, Page 5 of the English text, of 997-PS, you will see there is a first statement of the outlines of German economic policy in the Low Countries. You will see the paragraph is marked on your copy, so that your difficulty of finding where these passages are, might be eliminated. You see it reads, “It is necessary to reduce consumption by the population...”
LAMMERS: It goes without saying that in wartime consumption by the population must be reduced. There is no intention of gaining supplies for the Reich.
MAJOR JONES: Just one moment and I will read out the passage to you:
“It was clear that with the occupation of the Netherlands a large number of economic and, in addition, police measures had to be taken. The first of these were intended to reduce the consumption of the population in order, partly to gain supplies for the Reich and, partly, to secure a uniform distribution of the remaining stocks.”