M. DEBENEST: Page 12 of the French text and Page 11 of the German. You write:
“The stocks of raw materials have been collected and with the agreement of the Field Marshal have been distributed in such a manner that a quota sufficient to keep Dutch economy running for 6 months will be left behind. Raw material quotas and food rationing, et cetera, will be assigned the same way as in the Reich. Considerable stocks of raw materials have been guaranteed for the Reich, such as, for example, 70,000 tons of industrial fats which represents about one-half of the amount which the Reich still needs.”
SEYSS-INQUART: I believe that coincides with the description I have just given you.
M. DEBENEST: But I thought you said that the stocks were at the disposal of the Dutch people and not for the Reich?
SEYSS-INQUART: No, that is an error in transmission. I said that the supplies were confiscated and enough left there for only 6 months and that future needs would be supplied by the Reich in the same proportion as the Reich was supplied. But primarily these stocks were confiscated for the Reich.
M. DEBENEST: Very well, the translation did not come through. You received numerous complaints about these requests, didn’t you?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes.
M. DEBENEST: And what measures did you take?
SEYSS-INQUART: The attention of the gentlemen who were with me, that is, Secretary General Hirschfeld and the other secretaries, was called to the fact this was a strict directive in the framework of the Four Year Plan. In some cases I may have transmitted the complaints to the Delegate for the Four Year Plan, if the stocks were taken away in what seemed to me excessive quantities.
M. DEBENEST: In addition to these requests, were there not mass purchases made by the Reich?