“I will therefore put that question once more.”
And Hemmen replied:
“I shall expect your reply by tomorrow. If it does not come, I
shall transmit the negative reply which you have just given.”
Then, in the course of the meeting on 9 January 1941, Hemmen stated—I
submit again an extract from the minutes, Document Number RF-257:
“At first I was entrusted with this affair at Wiesbaden. Then it
was taken over by Consul General Neuhausen on behalf of a very
high-ranking personage (Marshal Göring), and it was handled
directly in Paris by M. Laval and M. Abetz.”
As far as French investments in petroleum companies in Romania are
concerned, the pressure was no less. In the course of the meeting of 10
October 1940, of the Armistice Commission, the same Hemmen stated (I
submit as Document Number RF-258, an extract from the minutes of the
meeting):
“Moreover we shall be satisfied with the majority of the shares.
We will leave in your hands anything which we do not need for
this purpose. Can you accept on this point in principle? The
matter is urgent, as for the Bor Mines. We want all.”
On the 22 November 1940, Hemmen stated again (I submit this extract of
the minutes of the Armistice Commission meeting as Document Number
RF-259):
“We are still at war and we must exert immediate influence over
petroleum production in Romania. Therefore we cannot wait for
the peace treaty.”
When the French delegates asked that the surrender should at least be
made in exchange for a material compensation, Hemmen replied in the
course of the same meeting:
“Impossible. The sums which you are to receive from us will be
taken out of the occupation costs. This will save you from using
the printing. This kind of participation will be made general on
the German side when the new collaboration policy has once been
defined.”
We might present indefinitely quotations of this kind, and many even
much more serious from the point of view of violation of the provisions
of the Hague Convention.
All these surrenders, apparently agreed to by the French, were accepted
only under German pressure. Scrutiny of the contracts agreed upon shows
great losses to those who handed over their property and enormous
profits for those who acquired it, without the latter having furnished
any real compensation.
The Germans thus obtained French shares in the Romanian petroleum
companies, in the enterprises of Central Europe, Norway, and the
Balkans, and especially those of the Bor Mines Company which I
mentioned. These surrenders paid by francs coming from occupation costs,
rose to a little more than two thousand million francs. The others were
paid by the floating of French loans abroad, notably in Holland, and
through clearing.
Having given you a brief summary of the seizure of French business
investments abroad, I shall also examine rapidly the German seizure of
registered capitals of French industrial companies.
Shortly after the Armistice, in conformity with the directives of the
Defendant Göring, a great number of French industries were the object of
proposals on the part of German groups anxious to acquire all or part of
the assets of these companies.
This operation was facilitated by the fact that the Germans, as I have
had the honor of pointing out to you, were in reality in control of
industry and had taken over the direction of production, particularly by
the system of “Paten Firmen.” Long discussions took place between the
occupying power and the French Ministry of Finance, whose officials
strove, sometimes without success, to limit to 30 percent the maximum of
German shares. It is not possible for me to enter into details of the
seizure of these shares. I shall point out, however, that the Finance
Minister handed to us a list of the most important ones, which are
reproduced in a chart appended to the French Document Book under
Document RF-260 (Exhibit Number RF-260).
The result was that the seizure of shares, fictitiously paid through
clearing, reached the sum of 307,436,000 francs; through occupation
costs accounts, 160 millions; through foreign stocks a sum which we have
not been able to determine; and finally, through various or unknown
means, 28,718,000 francs.
We shall conclude the paragraph of this fifth section by quoting part of
the Hemmen report relative to these questions (Page 63 of the original
and 142 of the French translation). Here is what Hemmen writes, in
Salzburg in January 1944, concerning this subject:
“The fifth report upon the activity of the delegation is devoted
to the difficulty of future seizures of shares in France, in the
face of the very challenging attitude of the French Government
concerning the surrender of valuable domestic and foreign
securities. This resistance increased during the period covered
by the report to such an extent that the French Government was
no longer disposed to give any approval to the transfer of
shares even if economic compensation were offered.”
Further on, Page 63 in the third paragraph:
“During the 4 years of the occupation of France the Armistice
Delegation transferred stocks representing altogether about 121
million Reichsmark from French to German ownership, among them
shares in enterprises important for the war in other countries,
in Germany, and in France. Details of this are found in the
earlier reports of the activities of the delegation. For about
half of these transfers, economic compensation was given on the
German side by delivery of French holdings of foreign shares
acquired in Holland and in Belgium, while the remaining amount
was paid by way of clearing or occupation costs. The use of
French foreign investments as a means of payment resulted in a
difference, between the German purchasing price and the French
rate, of about 7 million Reichsmark which went to the Reich.”
There is reason to emphasize that the profit derived by Germany merely
from the financial point of view is not 7 million Reichsmark, or 140
million francs according to Hemmen, but much greater. In fact, Germany
paid principally for these acquisitions with the occupation indemnity,
clearing, and French loans issued in Holland or in Belgium, the
appropriation of which by Germany amounted to spoliation of these
countries and could not constitute a real compensation for France.
These surrenders of holdings, carried out under the cloak of legality,
moved the United Nations in their declarations made in London on 5
January 1943 to lay down the principle that such surrenders should be
declared null and void, even when carried out with the apparent consent
of those who made them.
I submit as Document Number RF-261, the solemn statement signed in
London on 5 January 1943, which was published in the French _Journal
Officiel_ on 15 August 1944, at the time of the liberation. I might add
that all these surrenders are the subject of indictments before the
French Courts of high treason against Frenchmen who surrendered their
holdings to the Germans, even though undeniable pressure was brought to
bear upon them.
I shall conclude this chapter with one last observation: The German
seizure of real estate in France. It is still difficult to give at this
time a precise account of this subject, for these operations were made
most often through an intermediary with an assumed name. The most
striking is that of a certain Skolnikoff, who during the occupation was
able to invest nearly 2,000 million francs in the purchase of real
estate.
This individual of indeterminate nationality, who lived in poverty
before the war, enriched himself in a scandalous fashion, thanks to his
connection with the Gestapo and his operations on the black market with
the occupying power. But whatever may have been the profits he derived
from his dishonest activities, he could not personally have acquired
real estate to the value of almost 2,000 million in France.
I submit, as Document Number RF-262, a copy of a police report
concerning this individual. It is not possible for me to read this to
the Tribunal in its entirety, but this report contains the list of the
buildings and real estate companies acquired by this individual. These
are without question choice buildings of great value. It is evident that
Skolnikoff, an agent for the Gestapo, was an assumed name for German
personalities whose identity has not been discovered up to the present.
Now I shall take up Section 6; the requisition of transport and
communication material.
A report from the French administration gives us statistics which are
reproduced in very complete charts, which I shall not read to the
Tribunal. I shall merely point out that most of the locomotives and
rolling stock in good shape were removed, and that the total sum of the
requisitions of transport material reaches the sum of 198,450 million
francs.
I shall now deal with requisitions in the departments of Haut-Rhin,
Bas-Rhin, and Moselle. From the beginning of the invasion the Germans
incorporated these departments into the Reich. This question will be
presented by the French Prosecution when they discuss the question of
Germanization. From the point of view of economic spoliation it must be
stressed that the Germans sought to derive a maximum from these three
departments. If they paid in marks for a certain number of products,
they made no settlement whatever for the principal products, especially
coal, iron, crude oil, potash, industrial material, furniture, and
agricultural machinery.
The information relating to this is given by the French administration
in a chart which I shall summarize briefly and which I submit as
Document Number RF-264. The value of requisitions made in the three
French departments of the east—requisitions not paid for by the
Germans—reaches the sum of 27,315 million francs.
To conclude the question of the departments in the east, I should like
to point out to the Tribunal that my colleague, who will discuss the
question of Germanization, will show how the firm, Hermann Göring Werke,
in which the Defendant Göring had considerable interests, appropriated
equipment from mines of the large French company called the “Petits-Fils
de François de Wendel et Cie.” (See Document RF-1300.)