M. DUBOST: Seyss-Inquart claimed that the Dutch people who left to work in Germany up to 1942 were all volunteers. Is that correct?
HIRSCHFELD: No, they could not all be volunteers. The unemployed in the Netherlands received unemployment compensation, and shortly after the occupation a directive was issued that people who were suited for work in Germany and refused to volunteer for this work were no longer entitled to receive unemployment compensation. Thus they were under economic pressure.
M. DUBOST: Much has been said here as to whether Rauter was subordinate to Seyss-Inquart. Could you inform us on this?
HIRSCHFELD: So far as we in the occupied territories knew, Rauter was appointed by Seyss-Inquart at the beginning of June 1940 as Commissioner General for Security. No order which was then known indicated that Rauter had any kind of special position. The decree of the German Reich Chancellor of 18 May 1940 made it clear to us Dutch that the Reich Commissioner was the only responsible man in the Netherlands for the occupying power within the civilian sphere. Much later, from talks, I, and perhaps others who were better informed, realized that Rauter received direct orders from Himmler or from the Reich Security Main Office. But the population of the Netherlands could not know this.
M. DUBOST: Perhaps you know the result of the abolition of the “currency frontier” and its repercussion on life in Holland.
HIRSCHFELD: Yes. I will try to describe this matter in a few words. At the outbreak of war there was a clearing agreement between the Netherlands and Germany. Thus we Netherlands officials, at the beginning of the occupation, were able to exercise special control for deliveries of goods and such to Germany, because there was not only border control by customs officials, but we could also control payment. It was particularly disagreeable to Fischböck that Dutch authorities could still refuse anything, and this was a cause for friction. He attempted to remove this clearing, and on the 1st of April 1941 the foreign currency border was removed. This made it possible for all goods to be bought in the Netherlands for Reichsmark, and they could be taken to Germany under the protection of the German authorities. I will give an example: According to an investigation, which I ordered at that time, there were a few hundred buyers of jewelry and gold and silver articles in the Netherlands. These articles are easy to carry with one. If there had been control of payment, it would not have been possible that in 1942 alone, according to our estimate, 80 to 100 million guilders’ worth of such goods was taken away at high prices to Germany. The important point was that by lifting this control of foreign currency one could operate more freely. Furthermore, this was a possibility of buying Dutch securities on the Amsterdam stock exchange, for one of the German aims at that time was to tie Netherlands and German economy together. The easiest way to do this was to lift the “currency frontier,” or more exactly, the currency control between the occupied territories and Germany; and thus Netherlands interests were prejudiced more severely than those of other occupied territories where this currency control was retained. I should like to add that of course even there ways of carrying out this exploitation were found.
The lifting of the currency control made the German policy in this connection much easier. This was clearly shown by an order of Hermann Göring of 1942, in which the control of the Netherlands German border was abolished and the Delegate for the Four Year Plan could write that there must be no control at the border even when price regulations or rationing regulations were infringed. That was what Hermann Göring added.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, the Tribunal thinks that this should be shortened, this discussion of the question of the abolition of the frontier policy for money.
M. DUBOST: I have no more questions on this point, Mr. President.
[Turning to the witness.] What amount of money did Holland pay Germany for the cost of occupation?