Now, in regard to the looting of the Netherlands and the attempt to nazify and germanize that country—were these not the actions of the civil government of which you were the head?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes and no. It is quite obvious to me that from the economic point of view the Dutch people considered our conduct as looting. Seen from the legal point of view I do not think it was. I did not germanize the Netherlands in any way.
M. DEBENEST: Will you take Document 997-PS, Page 26 of the French text and Page 22 of the German text? I refer to the section of your report entitled “Remarks.” Have you got it? I will read the remarks which you made concerning your own activities. That was on 18 July 1940:
“2) The administration is at present sufficiently under the direction and control of the German authorities and will be increasingly so in the future.
“3) The national economy and communications have been set in motion again and adapted to a state of war. Plans are on foot for large-scale reconversion geared to the continental economy, and practically everything is ripe for this change-over. Stocks in the country have been placed at the disposal of the Reich war economy. Nearly all the financial resources”—that is in 1940—“have been made available and placed under the control of the Reich, all this on the basis of extensive co-operation by the Netherlanders.”
Isn’t that exactly what you wrote? Isn’t that exactly what you thought?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes, and I believe that any occupation power would fully understand Point 2, and Point 3 was a constructive conception of a new Europe.
M. DEBENEST: That is an opinion which the Tribunal will judge.
I would like to return briefly to the Jewish question. You stated yesterday that you protested against the deportation of 1,000 Jews to Mauthausen or Buchenwald and that there had been no more deportations to these camps. But why did you not protest against the transports to Auschwitz? Did you think that this camp was very different from the other two?
SEYSS-INQUART: Naturally, because Mauthausen and Buchenwald were concentration camps, whereas I was informed that Auschwitz was an assembly camp in which the Jews were to remain until such time as the war would be decided or some other decision would be made.