During a period of 4 to 6 weeks the Higher SS and Police Leader never carried out the order. But he then received a severe reprimand from Himmler, and from that time on he was obliged to deal with the Dutch who had been arrested for sabotage or illegal activities, and had to judge them according to his own jurisdiction, shooting them when necessary. One can account in this way for the shootings on a larger scale, but I do not believe that there were as many as 4,000. As often as I could, I urged the Security Police to be most careful in carrying out this order, but I never received any reports on the individual cases. I had the impression that there were perhaps 600 to 700.
DR. STEINBAUER: If I understood you correctly, then this was a police affair, which was directly...
SEYSS-INQUART: At all events it no longer came under my authority or influence. But if, at that time, I gave the Security Police orders to check up on an illegal movement somewhere, I nevertheless had to realize that some Dutchman or other, who was discovered to be the leader of such a movement, would be shot by the Police without the courts or myself being able to investigate the case. But then I could not desist from safeguarding the security of the occupational authorities, because the Führer decree had been issued.
DR. STEINBAUER: I now come to the chapter of finance. A document has been presented here where a certain Mr. Trip announces his resignation. Who was this gentleman?
SEYSS-INQUART: Mr. Trip was the President of the Bank of the Netherlands—that is to say, the bank of issue—and he was also the General Secretary for Finance. I think he can readily be considered one of the world’s leading banking experts. He is an outstanding personality and one of the men described today as a Dutch patriot.
DR. STEINBAUER: He was also General Secretary for Finance, was he not?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes. Until March 1941 he was the General Secretary for Finance. In my first speech to the general secretaries I said that I would not ask any general secretary to do anything that was contrary to his conscience. If he thought that there was something he felt he could not do, then he could resign without any harm to himself. I said that all I asked was that he carry out my orders loyally as long as he remained in office. Mr. Trip was in office until March 1941, and then he resigned because there was something he refused to carry out. He did this without the slightest disadvantage to himself.
DR. STEINBAUER: Who was his successor?
SEYSS-INQUART: I should like to say that what Mr. Trip carried out until March 1941 is, in my opinion, justifiable in every respect. Otherwise he most certainly would not have done it.
His successor was Mr. Rost van Tonningen. Rost van Tonningen was a League of Nations Commissioner in Austria who there had had tasks similar to those I gave him in the Netherlands.