THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Tribunal is inclined to think that you have got all that is necessary for the argument which you are indicating that you would present. If there are any particular details that you think important to us, no doubt you can bring them out.
M. DEBENEST: Quite so, Mr. President.
[Turning to the defendant.] For what purpose had you centralized the police into a police directorate?
SEYSS-INQUART: I will repeat my testimony of yesterday. The Netherlands police was under three or four different agencies, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice, I believe the Army Ministry, and so forth. For the sake of a clear police administration, I thought it necessary to combine these various police organizations in one and to place it under the Ministry of Justice.
M. DEBENEST: Did you not appoint as chief of this police a National Socialist?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes.
M. DEBENEST: In short, the end that you had in view—was it not to place the Netherlands in the hands of the NSDAP and thus adapt the internal organization of the Netherlands to that of the Reich? In other words, to do something similar to what you had done in Austria?
SEYSS-INQUART: I do not believe that one can say that. In particular, the policy of the NSB was not that of the NSDAP. The NSB was different in many respects. In the second place, if I had wanted to do that, I would have been able to make Herr Mussert Prime Minister; that would have been less complicated. The simple explanation is that I used, possibly in a somewhat schematic way, the example of the Reich as a model in setting up an administration in the Netherlands, which, at least in part, made it possible for me to carry out my task of watching over safety and order. Yesterday I only asserted that I forced no Dutch citizen to become a National Socialist. I did not deny that a certain co-ordination was undertaken due to the mistakes which I have repeatedly admitted.
M. DEBENEST: But you placed members of the NSB in all the administrative bodies, the higher offices?
SEYSS-INQUART: Not exclusively, but I did it because in the last analysis I could rely only on them; all others sabotaged my orders.