DR. STEINBAUER: The presentation on Page 6 of the individual agencies is correct?
SEYSS-INQUART: The actual presentation, too, is basically correct. Yesterday I spoke also of the burning of synagogues and of the prevention of the destruction of synagogues in The Hague and Amsterdam.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Dr. Steinbauer. Go on.
DR. STEINBAUER: Now, I should like to refer to Document 79, Page 203, from Exhibit Number USA-708. That is a speech which Seyss-Inquart made on the Jewish question. The Prosecution submitted this document. Since it needs a little explaining I shall begin by reading the last sentence:
“The only thing we can discuss is the creation of a tolerable transitional state while maintaining our point of view that the Jews are enemies, and thus applying every precaution customarily observed against enemies. As regards the time when Germany will not be here as an occupational force to maintain order in public life, the Dutch people will have to decide for themselves whether they want to endanger the comradely union with the German people for the sake of the Jews.”
Witness, I should like to ask you about this speech. Were you thinking of the complete elimination and destruction of the Jews?
SEYSS-INQUART: I never thought of that at all, and in this speech I was not even thinking of evacuation. At that time I held the point of view that the Jews should be confined in the Netherlands, as is done with enemy aliens, for the reasons which are given in the preceding part of this speech, which the American Prosecution has submitted. The idea still prevailed of treating them as enemy aliens, even though Englishmen, for example, were also transported to the Reich. I have already pointed out that that viewpoint later changed to conform to the measures against Jews, which were customary in the Reich.
DR. STEINBAUER: We now come to...
THE PRESIDENT: What is the date of the speech?
SEYSS-INQUART: This speech is of March 1941. Only once again did I express my point of view, and that was on 20 April 1943, when I made the somewhat, I admit, fantastic suggestion that all belligerent powers should pool 1 percent of their war costs in order to solve the Jewish problem from the economic standpoint. I was thus of the opinion that the Jews still existed; incidentally, I never called the Jews inferior.