“In order to protect the interests of the occupying power and to
assure maintenance of peace and order within this country,
rigorous measures are indispensable. Therefore, by order of the
Reich Commissioner, I have to make known to you the following:
“1. The students of the University of Oslo will be transferred
to a special camp in Germany.
“2. The women students will be dismissed from the University and
must return by the quickest means to their original place of
residence, where they will immediately report to the police.
Until further notice they are forbidden to leave these places
without permission from the police.”
I break off the quotation here and continue at the last paragraph but
one, on the second page of this Document Number RF-933:
“You ought to be thankful to the Reich Commissioner that other
much more Draconian measures are not being applied. Moreover,
thanks to this measure, most of you have been saved from
forfeiting your life and wealth in the future.”
As concerns religious life, the Germans multiplied their harassing
methods. By way of example, I offer in evidence Document Number RF-929,
which I shall read:
“Oslo, 28 May 1941: To the Commanders of the Sipo and the SD in
Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim, Tromosoe. Subject: Surveillance of
Religious Services during the Whitsuntide Feasts. Incidents:
none.
“It is requested that you watch the religious services and send
in a report here on the result.
“BDS”—commander—“of the Sipo and the SD. Oslo. Signature:
(illegible) SS Hauptsturmführer.”
Now here is the report following this order to watch the church
services. I offer this report in evidence as Document Number RF-930. I
shall read this document, which is very short.
“Trondheim, 5 June 1941.
“The surveillance of religious services during the Whitsuntide
Feasts showed no new essential points. Domprobst Fjellbu adheres
to his provocative preaching, but so cleverly that he is able to
excuse every phrase as applied to religious subjects and void of
any political meaning.”
The rest of the letter is partly burned.
Finally I should like, in order not to dwell on this matter too long, to
quote two examples which show, on the one hand, the constant immorality
of the German methods and, on the other hand, the justified protests to
which they gave rise on the part of the most qualified authorities. The
first example concerns the Netherlands.
The Dutch magistrates were roused to righteous indignation by the German
practice of arbitrary detentions in concentration camps. They found the
opportunity of making known their disapproval in a manner which came
within the normal exercise of their juridical functions. Thus, in
connection with a particular case, the Court of Appeal at Leeuwarden
rendered a decision of which I wish to read an extract to the Tribunal.
This is submitted as Document Number RF-931. I shall read to you an
extract from this document:
“Whereas the Court cannot declare itself in agreement in the
matter of the penalty inflicted upon the accused by the Chief
Judge and his presentation of motives, the Court is of the
opinion that this penalty should be determined as follows:
“Whereas as regards the penalty to be inflicted:
“The Court desires to take into account the fact that for some
time various penalties of detention inflicted by the Dutch Judge
upon delinquents of masculine sex, contrary to legal principles
and contrary to the intention of the Legislator and of the
Judge, have been executed, or are being executed in camps in a
manner which aggravates the penalty to a degree such as it was
impossible for the Judge to foresee or even to suppose when
determining the degree of the punishment.
“Whereas the Court, taking into account the possibility of this
manner of executing the penalty to be inflicted at present, will
abstain, for conscience sake, from condemning the suspect to a
period of detention in conformity, in this case, with the
gravity of the offense committed by the defendant, because the
latter would be exposed to the possibility of an execution of
the penalty as indicated here above.
“Whereas the Court, on the strength of this consideration, will
confine itself to condemning the suspect to a penalty of
detention to be determined hereafter, after deducting the time
spent by him in preventive detention, and the duration of which
is such that the penalty at the moment of the pronouncing of the
penalty will have almost entirely expired during the period of
preventive detention.”
This example is especially interesting, because I now have to indicate
that as a result of this decision of the Court of Appeal, the Defendant
Seyss-Inquart dismissed the President of the Court by a decree of the
9th of April 1943, which is likewise submitted in evidence under the
same document number, RF-931. These two documents constitute a whole.
“By virtue of paragraph 3 of my decree,”—_et cetera_—“I
dismiss from his office as Counsellor of the Court of Appeal at
Leeuwarden, such dismissal to take effect immediately, Doctor of
Law F.F. Viehoff.”—Signed—“Seyss-Inquart.”
The second example which I give in conclusion will now be taken from
Norway. It is a solemn protest made by the Norwegian bishops. The
special occasion which called forth this protest is the following: The
Minister for Police had issued a decree, dated 13 December 1940, by
which he arrogated to himself the right to suppress the obligation of
professional secrecy for priests and provided that priests who refused
to break the secrecy of the confession would be subjected to
imprisonment by his orders.
On 15 January 1941, the Norwegian bishops addressed themselves to the
Ministry of Public Education and Religious Affairs, and handed to it a
memorandum. In this memorandum they made known their protests against
this extraordinary demand by the police and at the same time they
protested against other abuses; violent acts committed by Nazi
organizations, and illegal acts in judicial matters. This protest of the
Norwegian bishops is transcribed in a pastoral letter addressed to their
parishes in February 1941. I submit it as Document Number RF-932. I
should like to quote an extract from this document on Page 9, top of the
page:
“The decree of the Ministry of Police, dated 13 December 1940,
just published, gravely affects the mission of the priests.
According to this decree, the obligation of professional secrecy
for priests and ministers may be suppressed by the Ministry of
Police.
“Our obligation to maintain professional secrecy is not only
established by law, but has always been a fundamental condition
for the work of the Church and of the priests in the exercise of
their care of souls and in receiving the confession of persons
in distress. It is an unalterable condition for the work of the
Church, that a person may have absolute and unlimited confidence
in the priest who is unreservedly bound by his obligation to
keep professional secrecy, as it has been formulated in the
Norwegian legislation and in the regulations of the Church at
all times and in all Christian countries.
“To abolish this _Magna Charta_ of the conscience is to strike
at the very heart of the work of the Church, which is all the
more serious because Paragraph 5 of the decree stipulates that
the Ministry of Police may imprison the priest in question, in
order to force a statement without the case having been
submitted to a tribunal.”
Yet all this was happening during the first year of the occupation.
Already the highest spiritual authorities of Norway found themselves in
the position of having not only to protest against a particularly
intolerable act, but also to enunciate a judgment upon the whole of the
methods of the occupation, which judgment appears on Page 16 of the
pastoral letter, and which I shall read to the Tribunal (last
paragraph):
“For this reason the bishops of the Church have placed before
the Ministry some of the acts and official proclamations about
the government of society during these latter times, acts and
proclamations which the Church finds in contradiction with the
Commandments of God and which give the impression of
revolutionary conditions prevailing in the country, instead of a
state of occupation by which the laws are upheld as long as they
are not directly incompatible with this state of occupation.”
This is a very correct juridical analysis; and now, if it please the
Tribunal, I should also like to read a last sentence which preceded
this, on Page 16:
“When the public authority of society permits violence and
injustice and exercises pressure over souls, then the Church
becomes the guardian of consciences. A human soul is of more
importance than the whole world.”
I shall now ask the Tribunal to take the file entitled “Belgium.” I
point out immediately to the Tribunal that this file does not include
any document book. This statement, which deals with very general facts,
will be supported as being evidence by the report of the Belgian
Government, which has already been submitted by my colleagues under
Document Number RF-394. The section which I now take up is a general
section concerning military administration in two cases, in Belgium and
France; and I shall begin with the file concerning Belgium.
In Belgium the usurpations of national sovereignty by the occupying
power are imputable to the military command which committed them either
by direct decrees or by injunctions to the Belgian administrative
authorities who in this case were the Secretaries General of the
Ministries.
Concerning the setting up of this apparatus of usurpation I shall read
out to the Tribunal two paragraphs of the Belgian report, Chapter 4,
concerning Germanization and nazification, Page 3, Paragraph 3:
“The legal government of Belgium, having withdrawn to France,
then to London, it was the Secretaries General of the
Ministries, that is to say, the highest officials in the
hierarchic order, who, by virtue of Article 5 of the law of 10
May 1940, exercised within the framework of their professional
activity and in cases of urgency, all the powers of the highest
authority.”
In other words, these high officials, animated, at least during the
first months of the occupation, by the desire to keep the occupying
authorities as far removed as possible from the administration of the
country, took upon themselves governmental and administrative powers. At
the order of the Germans this administrative power after a time became a
real legislative power.
This regime of the Secretaries General pleased the Germans who adopted
it. In appointing to these posts Belgians paid by them they could
introduce into Belgium under the appearance of legality absolutely
radical reforms, which would make of this country a National Socialist
vassal state.
It is interesting to note at this point that in order to strengthen
their hold on the public life through the local authorities, the Germans
did not hesitate by a decree of 14 May 1942, which is referred to in the
official report, to suppress the jurisdictional control of the legality
of the orders of the Secretaries General, which was a violation of
Article 107 of the Belgian Constitution. The Belgian report states in
the following paragraphs where the responsibility lies in this matter of
breaches of public order, and I shall quote here the actual terms of
this report on Page 4, Paragraph 3:
“In conclusion, whether the transformation of the legal
institutions be the consequence of German decrees or that of
orders emanating from the Secretaries General makes no
difference. It is the Germans who bear the responsibility for
these, the Secretaries General being in relation to them only
faithful agents for carrying out their instructions.”
I think that it will likewise be interesting to read the three following
paragraphs of the report, for they reveal characteristic facts as to
German methods in their seizure of sovereignty.
“If it is necessary to furnish a new argument to support this
thesis further, it is sufficient to recall that the occupying
power employed all means to introduce into the structure which
was to be transformed, from top to bottom, devoted National
Socialist agents. This was really the work of termites.
“The decree of 7 March 1941, under the pretext of bringing
younger men into the administration, provided for the removal of
a great number of officials. They would naturally be replaced by
Germanophiles.
“Finally, the Germans set up at the head of the Ministry of the
Interior one of their most devoted agents, who arrogated to
himself, as we shall see subsequently, the right to designate
aldermen, permanent deputies, burgomasters, _et cetera_, and
used his rights to proceed to certain appointments of district
commissioners, for instance, by putting into office tools of the
enemy.”
The Belgian report then analyzes in a remarkably clear manner the
violations by the Germans of Belgian public order, classifying these
under two headings. The first is entitled “Modifications Made in the
Original Constitutional Structure.”
Under this heading we find particular mention of the decree of 18 July
1940, which immediately abolished all public activity; then a series of
decrees by which the Germans suppressed the election of aldermen and
decided that these aldermen would henceforth be designated by the
central authority. This meant the overthrow of the traditional
democratic order of communal administrations.
In the same way the Germans, in violation of Article 3 of the Belgian
Constitution, ordered by the decree of 26 January 1943 the absorption of
numerous communes into great urban areas.
The report then mentions here the fiscal exemptions granted in violation
of the Constitution, to persons engaged in the service of the German
Army or the Waffen SS. We find here a fresh example of the German
criminal and general methods of military recruitment in the occupied
countries.
The second heading of the report reads: “Introduction into Belgian
Public Life of New Institutions Inspired by National Socialism and the
Idea of the State.” Such institutions were, in fact, created by the
German authorities. The most remarkable are the National Agricultural
and Food Corporation and the Central Merchandise Offices. The report
analyzes the characteristics of these institutions and proves that they
aimed at destroying traditional liberties. They were organs of
totalitarian inspiration in which the Leadership Principle was applied,
as we have seen was the case in similar institutions in the Netherlands.
I should like now to read the brief but revealing conclusion of the
Belgian report on Germanization. We think that it has been sufficiently
established by the preceding statement that the Belgian Constitution and
laws were deliberately violated by the German occupying power, and this
with the purpose, not of assuring its own security, which is obvious,
but with the skillfully premeditated intention of making of Belgium a
National Socialist State and, consequently, capable of being annexed,
seeing that two nationalist states that are neighbors must necessarily
exclude each other, the stronger absorbing the weaker.
This policy was carried out in violation of international laws and
customs, of the Declaration of Brussels of 1874, and of the Hague
Regulations of 1899.
I shall not give detailed indications concerning other applications of
this usurpation in connection with Belgium, because many indications
have been furnished to the Tribunal already, notably in the economic
statement and likewise in M. Dubost’s presentation. And, moreover, as
the regime in Belgium was closely bound up with the regime in France,
the indications which I shall give in the two other sections of my brief
will relate particularly to these two countries.
However, before concluding the presentation which I am now making, I
should like to mention the abuses committed by the Germans against the
universities of Belgium. We find here again the same phenomenon of
hostility—very understandable of course—on the part of the
doctrinaires and Nazi leaders against the centers of culture; and this
hostility showed itself especially with regard to the four great Belgian
universities, which have such a fine tradition of spiritual life. I must
point out to the Tribunal that the observations which I intend to
present on this point have been taken from the appendices to the Belgian
report of which I read some extracts. I must point out that these
appendices have not been submitted as documents, although they are
attached to one of these originals, which marks their authenticity. I
shall have these appendices translated and submitted later and I shall
ask the Tribunal, therefore, to consider the indications which I shall
give it as affirmations, the proof of which will be furnished, on the
one hand, by the deposit of documents and, on the other hand, by oral
evidence, since I have called a witness on the subject of these
questions. If this method satisfies the Tribunal, and I beg to be
excused for the fact that the appendices have not been actually
presented with the document, I shall continue my statement on this
point.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Faure, what are the appendices to which you are
referring?
M. FAURE: They are documents which are in the appendix of the Belgian
report. They are as follows:
The subject matter of this report is to be found in the Belgian report
itself, which has already been submitted. On the other hand, another
copy of the same section has been established as the original with a
series of appendices. For this reason the appendices were not translated
and submitted at the same time as the main report, of which this was
only a part. They are appended notes which trace events that occurred in
university life. But, as I indicated to the Tribunal, I propose to prove
these points by the hearing of a witness. I thought, therefore, that I
could make a statement which would constitute an affirmation of the
Prosecution and on which I would produce oral evidence. On the other
hand, I shall submit the appendices as soon as they have been translated
into German, which has not yet been done.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. The Tribunal is satisfied with the course which you
propose, M. Faure.
M. FAURE: I shall mention first that in the University of Ghent the
Germans undertook special propaganda among the students, with a view to
germanizing these young generations. They utilized for this purpose an
organization called “Genter Studenten Verband,” but their efforts to
develop this organization did not achieve the success they had hoped.
They set up in this university and in others a real espionage system
under the cover of an ingenious formula, namely, that of “invited
professors,” German professors who were supposed to have been invited
and who were observers and spies.
The report of one of these invited professors has been found in Belgium.
This report shows the procedure adopted as well as the complete failure
of the German efforts to exert influence.
In all the universities, the Germans made arrests and deported
professors and students, and this action was resorted to particularly
when the students refused—and rightly so—to obey the German illegal
orders which compelled them to enter the labor service.
As regards the University of Brussels, it should be pointed out that
this university had been, from the beginning, provided with a German
Commissioner, and that 14 professors had been irregularly dismissed.
Later, the University of Brussels was obliged to discontinue the
courses, and this as a result of a characteristic incident:
On the occasion of the vacancy of three chairs at the university, the
Germans refused to accept the nomination of the candidates proposed in
the usual way, and decided that they would appoint professors whose
views suited them. This clearly shows the generally applied German
method of interfering in everything and putting into office everywhere
agents under their influence.
On 22 November 1941 the German military administration notified the
President of the University of this decision. Therefore, the university
decided to go on a sort of strike and, in spite of all the efforts of
the Germans, this strike of the University of Brussels lasted until the
liberation.
On this question of the Belgian universities, I should like now to read
something to the Tribunal. This concerns the University of Louvain.
Before reading this, I must indicate to the Tribunal the circumstances.
The Germans had in this university, as in the others, imposed upon the
students compulsory labor. This we already know. But what I am going to
read has to do with an additional requirement which is altogether
shocking.
The Germans wished to oblige the Rector of the University, Monseigneur
Van Wayenberg, to give them a complete list with the addresses of those
students who were liable to compulsory service and who evaded it. They
wished, therefore, to impose upon the rector an act whereby he would
become an informer and this under threat of very severe penalties. The
Cardinal Archbishop of Malines intervened on this occasion and on 4 June
1943 addressed a letter to General Von Falkenbausen, Military Commander
in Belgium. I should like to read this letter to the Tribunal. This
letter is to be found in a book which I have here and which is published
in Belgium, entitled “Cardinal Van Roey and the German Occupation in
Belgium.” I do not submit this letter as a document. I ask the Tribunal
to consider it as a quotation from a publication. This is what Cardinal
Archbishop of Malines writes:
“By an oral communication, of which I have asked in vain for the
confirmation in writing, the Chief of the Military
Administration Reeder has informed me that in case Monseigneur
the Rector of the Catholic University of Louvain should persist
in refusing to furnish the list with the addresses of the first
year students, the occupying authority will take the following
measures:
“Close down the university; forbid the students to enroll in
another university; subject all the students to forced labor in
Germany and, should they evade this measure, take reprisals
against their families.
“This communication is all the more surprising, as a few days
previously, following a note addressed to your Excellency by
Monseigneur the Rector, the latter received from the
Kreiskommandant of Louvain a notification that the academic
authority would have no further trouble with regard to the
lists. It is true that the Chief of Military Administration
Reeder informed me that this answer was due to a
misunderstanding.
“As President of the Board of the University of Louvain, I have
informed the Belgian bishops, who make up this board, of the
serious nature of the communication which I have received; and I
have the duty to inform you, in the name of all the bishops,
that it is impossible for us to advise Monseigneur the Rector to
hand over the lists of his students, and that we approve the
passive attitude which he has observed up to now. To furnish the
lists would, in effect, imply positive co-operation in measures
which the Belgian bishops have condemned in the pastoral letter
of 15 March 1943 as being contrary to international law, to
natural rights, and to Christian morality.
“If the University of Louvain were subjected to sanctions
because it refuses this co-operation, we consider that it would
be punished for carrying out its duty and that however hard and
painful the difficulties it would have to undergo temporarily,
its honor at least would not be sullied. We believe, with the
famous Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose, that honor is above
everything—‘_Nihil praeferandum honestati._’
“Moreover, Your Excellency cannot be ignorant of the fact that
the Catholic University of Louvain is a dependency of the Holy
See. Canonically established by the Papacy, it is under the
authority and the control of the Roman Congregation of
Seminaries and Universities and it is the Holy See which
approved the appointment of Monseigneur Van Wayenberg as Rector
Magnifique of the University. If the measures announced were to
be carried out, it would constitute a violent attack on the
rights of the Holy See. Consequently His Holiness the Pope will
be informed of the extreme dangers which threaten our Catholic
University.”
I shall end here the quotation of the letter, but I must point out to
the Tribunal that in spite of this protest and any considerations of
simple practical interest, which the Germans might have had in
maintaining correct attitude in this matter, the Rector Magnifique was
arrested on 5 June 1943, and was condemned by the German military court
to 18 months imprisonment.
Having recalled the painful facts which the Tribunal has just heard, I
should like to observe that they might almost give us the impression
that such an event as the arrest and sentence of a prelate, rector of a
university, for a wrongful reason was, since there were no tragic
consequences, of relatively secondary importance. But I think we should
not subordinate our intellectual judgment to the direct test of our
sensibility, now grown so accustomed to horrors; and if we reflect upon
it, we consider that such an outrage is in itself very characteristic,
and the fact that such treatment should have been considered by the
Germans as the expression of justice, that is truly characteristic of
the plan of Germanization with its repercussions on the world.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
[_The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours._]
_Afternoon Session_
MARSHAL: May it please the Court, I desire to announce that the
Defendant Kaltenbrunner will be absent from this afternoon’s session on
account of illness.
M. FAURE: May it please the Tribunal, I should like to call the witness,
Van der Essen.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
[_The witness, Van der Essen, took the stand._]