DR. STEINBAUER: Furthermore, he has been accused of interfering with the existing legislation by issuing laws concerned with citizenship and also with marriage. You were in charge of the Justice Department. What can you say about that, quite briefly?
WIMMER: Acts of interference of that kind did occur. However, they occurred because they were necessary from the point of view of the conduct of the war and for the Armed Forces in particular for, to mention the question of citizenship, those Dutchmen who had entered the German Army wanted to have the assurance of also obtaining German citizenship. The Reich Commissioner, however, who was of the opinion that by acquiring German citizenship they should not incur any disadvantage in Holland, decreed—and this can be found in the corresponding decree—that these Dutchmen who acquired German citizenship should retain their Dutch citizenship, so that by so doing they would not be alienated from their people and their nation.
So far as marriage laws are concerned, the necessity arose that if soldiers, in particular, wanted to marry Dutch girls, the parents’ approval of the marriage was not asked, and not for political reasons. This approval was of some importance in that connection because the parents, contrary to the rule in many other nations, retained this right of approval until, I believe, the thirtieth year of the daughter concerned.
DR. STEINBAUER: Now I come to another chapter. That is the question of the so-called summary courts-martial (Standgericht). Will you tell us how these courts-martial were organized and how long and when they were in session?
WIMMER: The creation of courts-martial was seen as a necessity after a general strike had broken out in Amsterdam and we wanted to have a legal basis for future cases so as to prevent future strikes as far as possible, that is, to be able to combat them effectively after they had broken out on the basis of the proper law.
How these courts-martial were organized and when they had to function is exactly set down in the corresponding decree of the Reich Commissioner. However, if I am to answer your specific question here about the composition of these summary courts-martial, I can in any case only say from memory that the president of these courts was a judge, and moreover a judge who fulfilled all the requirements which a judge in the German Reich had to fulfill.
DR. STEINBAUER: Well, that is the essential point, and if I understand you correctly, before these courts became police courts a judicial functionary was president of these courts-martial. Is that correct?
WIMMER: Yes.
DR. STEINBAUER: Is it known to you whether Seyss-Inquart had so-called collective fines imposed on certain cities and communities?
WIMMER: The Reich Commissioner actually imposed such collective fines. The largest which was imposed, I believe, was the one which was imposed once on Amsterdam on the occasion of the general strike which I have already mentioned. The fines were decreed in accordance with established procedure on the basis of existing decrees, and they were proclaimed in an official decree by the police.