VAN DER ESSEN: Yes.
M. FAURE: You have stayed in Belgium during the whole period of the
occupation?
VAN DER ESSEN: To the end; from the end of July 1940 I never left
Belgium.
M. FAURE: Can you give information on the destruction of the Library of
Louvain?
VAN DER ESSEN: It will be remembered that in 1914 this library, which
was certainly one of the best university libraries in Europe, containing
many early printed books, manuscripts and books of the 16th and 17th
centuries, was systematically destroyed by means of incendiary material
by the German soldiers of the 9th Reserve Corps, commanded by General
Von Ston. This time, in 1940, the same thing happened again. This
library was systematically destroyed by the German Army; and in order
that you may understand, I must first say that the fire began, according
to all the witnesses, during the night from the 16th to the 17th of May
1940 at about 1:30 in the morning. It was on the 17th at dawn that the
English Army made the necessary withdrawal maneuver to leave the Q. W.
line of defense. On the other hand, it is absolutely certain that the
first German troops entered on the morning of the 17th, only about 8
o’clock. This interval between the departure of the British troops, on
the one hand, and the arrival of the Germans on the other, enabled the
latter to make it appear as if the library had been systematically
destroyed by the British troops. I must here categorically give the lie
to such a version. The library of the University of Louvain was
systematically destroyed by German gun fire.
Two batteries were posted, one in the village of Corbek, and the other
in the village of Lovengule. These two batteries on each side
systematically directed their fire on the library and on nothing but the
library. The best proof of this is that all the shells fell on the
library; only one house near the library received a chance hit. The
tower was hit 11 times, 4 times by the battery which fired from
Lovengule, and 7 times by the battery which fired from Corbek.
At the moment when the Lovengule battery was about to begin firing the
officer who commanded it asked an inhabitant of the village to accompany
him into the field; when they arrived at a place from where they could
see the tower of the library, the officer asked, “Is that the tower of
the university Library?” The reply was “Yes.” The officer insisted, “Are
you sure?” “Yes,” replied the peasant, “I see it every day, as you see
it now.”
Five minutes later the shelling began, and immediately a column of smoke
arose quite near the tower. So there can be no doubt that this
bombardment was systematic and aimed only at the library. On the other
hand, it is also certain that a squadron of 43 airplanes flew over the
library and dropped bombs on the monument.
M. FAURE: M. Van der Essen, you are a member of the official Belgian
Commission for War Crimes?
VAN DER ESSEN: Yes.
M. FAURE: In this capacity you investigated the events of which you
speak?
VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, indeed.
M. FAURE: The information which you have given the Tribunal, then, is
the result of an inquiry which you made and evidence by witnesses which
you heard yourself?
VAN DER ESSEN: What I have just stated here is most certainly the result
of the official inquiry made by the Belgian War Crimes Commission,
assisted by several witnesses heard under oath.
M. FAURE: Can you give information on the attempt at nazification of
Belgium by the Germans, and especially the attempt to undermine the
normal and constitutional organization of the public authorities.
VAN DER ESSEN: Certainly. First, I think it is interesting to point out
that the Germans violated one of the fundamental principles of the
Belgian Constitution and institutions, which consisted of the separation
of powers, that is to say, separation of judicial powers, of executive
powers, and legislative powers; because in the numerous organizations of
the New Order, which they themselves created either by decree or by
suggesting the creation of these organizations to their collaborators,
they never made a distinction between legislative and executive powers.
Also, in these organizations freedom of speech for the defense was
never, or very little, respected. But what is much more important is
that they attacked an organization which goes far back in our history,
which dates back to the Middle Ages; I mean the communal autonomy which
safeguards us and safeguards the people against any too dangerous
interference on the part of the central authority. This is what happened
in this domain: It would be sufficient to read, or to have read for a
short time, the present day Belgian newspapers, to observe that the
burgomasters, that is to say the chiefs of the communes, the aldermen of
the principal Belgian towns, such as Brussels, Ghent, Liège, Charleroi,
and also of many towns of secondary importance—all these aldermen and
burgomasters are either in prison or about to appear before
courts-martial.
That shows sufficiently, I think, that these burgomasters and these
aldermen are not those who were appointed by the King and by the Belgian
Government before 1940, but all of them were people who were imposed by
the enemy by means of groups of collaborators, VNV or “Rexists.”
It is of capital importance to establish that fact, because the
burgomaster, as soon as he was directly responsible to the central
authority—in other words, as soon as the Leadership Principle was
applied—could interfere in all kinds of ways in the administrative,
political, and social life. The burgomaster appointed the aldermen; the
aldermen appointed the communal officials and employees, and the moment
the burgomaster belonged to that Party and was appointed by that Party,
he appointed as communal officials members of the Party who could refuse
ration cards to refractory people, or order the police to give, for
instance, the list of Communists, or of those suspected of being
Communists; in short, they could interfere in almost any way they
wished, and by every possible means, in the communal life of Belgium.
If we examine the big towns and the small towns, we can say that
everywhere there was truly a veritable network of espionage and
interference following the events or acts of which I have just informed
you.
M. FAURE: It is true, then, to say that this meddling by the Germans
with the administration of the communes constituted a seizure of Belgian
national sovereignty?
VAN DER ESSEN: Certainly, since it made the fundamental principle of the
Belgian constitution disappear, that is to say, the sovereignty that
belongs to the nation and more especially to the Communal Council which
appointed aldermen and burgomasters. From then on it was impossible for
them to make themselves heard in the normal way, so that the sovereignty
of the Belgian people was directly attacked by the fact itself.
M. FAURE: Since you are a professor of higher education, can you give us
information concerning the interference in education?
VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, sir, certainly.
First, there was interference in the domain of elementary and secondary
education through the General Secretary of Public Education, on whom the
Germans exercised pressure. A commission was set up which was entrusted
with the task of purging the text books. It was forbidden to use text
books which mentioned what the Germans did in Belgium during the 1914-18
war; this chapter was absolutely forbidden. The booksellers and
publishing houses could still sell these books, but only on the
condition that the bookseller or library should tear out this chapter.
As for new books which had to be reprinted or republished, this
commission indicated exactly which ones should be cancelled or removed.
That was serious and alarming interference with primary and secondary
education.
As regards higher education, the interference was unleashed, so to
speak, from the very beginning of the occupation; and first of all, for
motives which I need not explain here but which are well known, in the
free University of Brussels.
The Germans first imposed on the University of Brussels a German
Commissioner, who thus had in his hands the whole organization of the
university and even controlled it, as far as I know, from the point of
view of accountancy. Moreover they imposed exchange professors. But
serious difficulties began the day when, in Brussels as elsewhere, they
required that they should be informed of all projects of new
appointments and all new appointments of professors, in the same way as
the assignment of lecture courses and other subjects taught in the
university. The result was that in Brussels, by virtue of this right
which they had arrogated, they wished to impose three professors, of
whom two were obviously not acceptable to any Belgian worthy of the
name. There was one, notably, who, having been a member of the Council
of Flanders during the occupation of 1914-18, had been condemned to
death by the justice of this country and whom they wanted to impose as a
professor in the University of Brussels in 1940. Under these conditions
the university refused to accept this professor, and this was considered
by the occupying authorities as sabotage.
As a penalty, the President of the Board of the University, the
principal members of the board, the deans of the principal faculties,
and a few other professors, who were especially well known as being
anti-Fascists, were arrested and imprisoned in the prison of Witte with
the aggravating circumstance that they were considered as hostages and
that, if any act whatsoever of sabotage or resistance occurred, they,
being hostages, could be shot.
As far as the other universities were concerned, as I have just said
here, they wished to impose exchange professors. There were none at
Louvain because we refused categorically to receive them, the more so as
it appeared that these exchange professors were not, primarily, scholars
who had come to communicate the result of their researches and their
scientific work, but a great many of them were observers for the
occupying authorities.
M. FAURE: In this connection, is it true that the Belgian authorities
discovered the report made by one of these so-called “invited”
professors?
VAN DER ESSEN: That is indeed the case. The Belgian authorities got hold
of a report by Professor Von Mackensen, who was sent as an exchange
professor to the University of Ghent. In this report—drawn up with
infinite care and which is extraordinarily interesting to read because
of the personal and psychological observations which it contains
concerning the various members of the faculty of Ghent—in this report
we see that everyone was observed and followed day by day, that his
tendencies were labeled, that a note was made as to whether he was for
or against the system of the occupying power, or whether he had any
relations with students who were N.P. or Rexists. The slightest
movements and actions of all the professors were carefully noted; and I
add, with great care and precision. It was almost a scientific piece
. . .
M. FAURE: M. Van der Essen, I described this morning to the Tribunal
various incidents which occurred in the University of Louvain, of which
you were the General Secretary. Therefore I should like you to tell the
Tribunal briefly the actual facts connected with these incidents,
especially, those connected with the imprisonment of the Rector
Monseigneur Van Wayenberg.
VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, indeed, sir. Serious difficulties began in the
University of Louvain after the appearance of the decree of compulsory
labor of 6 March 1943, by which students of the university were forced
to accept compulsory labor. I would add, not in Reich territory, but in
Belgium. But this action, which was held out to the university students
as a sort of privilege, was entirely inacceptable to Belgian patriots
for the simple reason that, if the university students accepted to go
and work in the Belgian factories, they automatically expelled workmen,
who were then sent to Germany as the students took their place.
That was the first reason why they did not wish to work for the enemy;
the second was because, from a social point of view, they wanted to show
solidarity with the workers, who suffered very much because the students
had refused. At least two-thirds of the students of Louvain refused to
do compulsory work. They became refractory, the classes became empty,
they hid themselves as best they could, and several went into the
Maquis.
The German authorities, when they saw the way things were going,
demanded that the list of students be given to them, with their
addresses, so that they could arrest them in their homes or, if they
couldn’t find them, they could arrest a brother, or sister, or father,
or any member of the family in their place. This was the principle of
collective responsibility which was applied here the same as in all
other cases.
After having used gentle means, they resorted to blackmail and ended up
by adopting really brutal measures. They renewed the raids, they
dismissed Dr. Tschacke and Dr. Kalische, I think, and many others. They
ordered searches to be made in the university offices to lay their hands
on the list of students; but as this list was carefully hidden, they had
to go away empty-handed. It was then that they decided to arrest the
Rector of the University, Monseigneur Van Wayenberg, who had hidden the
lists in a place known only to him. He declared that he alone knew the
place so as not to endanger his colleagues and the members of the
faculty.
One morning in June two members of the Secret Police from Brussels,
accompanied by Military Police, came to the Hall. They arrested the
rector in his office and transferred him to the prison of Saint-Gilles
in Brussels, where he was imprisoned. Shortly afterwards he appeared
before a German tribunal which condemned him to 18 months imprisonment
for sabotage. To tell the truth, he was in jail for only 6 months,
because the doctor of Saint-Gilles saw that the rector’s health was
beginning to fail and it would be dangerous to keep him longer if one
wished to avoid a serious incident, also because of the many petitions
by all sorts of authorities. Thus the rector was freed. However, he was
forbidden to set foot on the territory of Louvain; and they enjoined the
university to appoint, immediately, another rector. This was refused.
M. FAURE: Very well. Is it true to say that the German authorities
persecuted, more systematically, persons who belonged to the
intellectual elite?
VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, there can be no doubt as to this. I might give, as
examples, the following facts:
When hostages were taken it was nearly always university professors,
doctors, lawyers, men of letters, who were taken as hostages and sent to
escort military trains. At the time when the resistance was carrying out
acts of sabotage to railways and blowing up trains, university
professors from Ghent, Liège and Brussels, whom I know, were taken and
put in the first coach after the locomotive so that, if an explosion
took place, they could not miss being killed. I know of a typical case,
which will show you that it was not exactly a pleasure trip. Two
professors of Liège, who were in a train of this kind, witnessed the
following scene: The locomotive passed over the explosive. The coach in
which they were, by an extraordinary chance, also went over it; and it
was the second coach containing the German guards which blew up, so that
all the German guards were killed.
On the other hand, several professors and intellectuals were deported to
that sinister camp of Breendonck, about which you know, some for acts of
resistance, others for entirely unknown reasons; others were deported to
Germany. Professors from Louvain were sent to Buchenwald, to Dora, to
Neuengamme, to Gross-Rosen, and perhaps to other places too. I must add
that it was not only professors from Louvain who were deported, but also
intellectuals who played an important role in the life of the country. I
can give you immediate proof. At Louvain, on the occasion of the
reopening ceremony of the university this year, as Secretary General of
the University, I read out the list of those who had died during the
war. This list included 348 names, if I remember rightly. Perhaps some
thirty of these names were those of soldiers who died during the Battles
of the Scheldt and the Lys in 1940, all the others were victims of the
Gestapo, or had died in camps in Germany, especially in the camps of
Gross-Rosen and Neuengamme.
Moreover, it is certain that the Germans hated particularly the
intellectuals because, from time to time, they organized a synchronized
campaign in the press to give prominence to the fact that the great
majority of intellectuals refused categorically to rally to the New
Order and refused to understand the necessity for the struggle against
bolshevism. These articles always concluded by stressing the necessity
of taking measures against them. I remember well certain newspaper
articles which simply proposed to send these intellectuals to
concentration camps. There can be no doubt therefore that the
intellectuals were deliberately selected.
M. FAURE: I shall ask you no questions on anything relating to
deportations or to camps, because all that is already well known to the
Tribunal. I shall ask you, when replying to the following question, not
to mention deportation.
Now, my question concerns the whole of the atrocities which were
committed by the Germans in Belgium and, especially, at the time of the
December 1944 offensive by the German armies. Can you give information
concerning these atrocities?
VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, I can give you exact and
detailed information, if necessary, on the crimes and atrocities
committed during the offensive of Von Rundstedt in the Ardennes, because
as a member of the War Crimes Commission I went there to make an
inquiry, and I questioned witnesses and survivors of these massacres;
and I know perfectly well, from personal knowledge, what happened.
During the Von Rundstedt offensive in the Ardennes they committed crimes
which were truly abominable in 31 localities of the Ardennes, crimes
committed against men, women, and children. These crimes were committed,
on the one hand, as it happened elsewhere and as it happens in all wars,
by individual soldiers, so I shall let that pass; but what I
particularly want to stress are the crimes committed by whole units who
received formal instructions, as well as crimes committed by known
organizations; if I remember rightly, I think they were called Kommandos
zur besonderen Verwendung, that is to say, commandos with special tasks
which operated unchecked not only in the Belgian Ardennes but which also
committed the same kind of crimes, carried out in the same way, in the
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
As regards the first, the crimes committed by whole units, I should like
merely to give one very typical example, in order not to take up the
time of the Tribunal. It happened at Stavelot, where about 140
persons—the number varies, let us say between 137 and 140—first it was
137, then they discovered some more bodies—about 140 persons, of whom
36 were women and 22 were children, of which the oldest was 14 years and
the youngest 4 years, were savagely slaughtered by German units
belonging to SS tank divisions, one the Hohenstaufen Division, the other
the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Division. This is what the divisions
did. We have full information about this from the testimony of a soldier
who took part in it. He was arrested by the Belgian Security Police. He
deserted during the Von Rundstedt campaign, dressed himself as a
civilian, and then worked as a laborer on an Ardennes farm. One day as
he was working stripped to the waist, he was seen by Belgian gendarmes,
who saw by the tattooing on his body that he was an SS man. He was
immediately arrested and interrogated.
This is the method used by the soldiers of the Hohenstaufen Division.
There was a line of tanks, some were Königstiger (Royal Tigers),
followed and preceded by Schützenpanzer. At a certain moment the
Obersturmführer of this group stopped his men and delivered them a
little speech telling them that all civilians whom they encountered
should be killed. They then went back to their tanks, and as the tanks
advanced along the road, the Obersturmführer would point to a house.
Then the soldiers entered it with machine guns in their hands. If they
found people in the kitchen, they killed them in the kitchen; if they
found them sheltering in the cellar, they machine-gunned them in the
cellar; if they found them on the road, they killed them on the road.
Not only the Hohenstaufen Division, but also the Leibstandarte Adolf
Hitler Division, and others acted in this manner on formal orders
according to which all civilians were to be killed. And what was the
reason for this measure? Precisely because, during the retreat in
September, it was mainly in that part of the Ardennes that the
resistance went into action and quite a number of German soldiers were
killed during that retreat. It was therefore to revenge this defeat, to
avenge themselves for the action of the resistance, that orders were
given that all civilians should be killed without mercy during the
offensive launched in this region.
As far as the other method is concerned, this is still more important
from the point of view of responsibility, for it concerns persons
commanding troops of the Sicherheitspolizei, that is to say, of the
Security Police, who in most villages they came to immediately set about
questioning the people as to those who had taken part in the resistance,
about the secret army, where these people lived, whether they were still
there or whether they had fled. In short, they had special typed
questionnaires with 27 questions, always the same, which were put to
everyone in the villages to which they came.
Here again I shall proceed as I did in the first case. In order not to
take up too much of the Tribunal’s time, I shall simply give the example
of Bande, in the Arrondissement of Marche. At Bande one of these SD
detachments, the officers of which said they were sent especially by
Himmler to execute members of the resistance, seized all men between 17
and 32 years of age. After having questioned them thoroughly and after
sorting them out in a quite arbitrary manner—they didn’t keep any
people belonging to the resistance, for most of them had never taken
part in it; there were only four who were members of the
resistance—they led them away along the road from Marche to Basteuil
with their hands raised behind their heads. When they reached a ruined
house, which had been burned down in September, the officer who
commanded the detachment posted himself at the entrance of the house, a
Feldwebel joined him and put his hand on the shoulder of the last man of
the third row who was making his way towards the entrance to the house;
and there the officer, armed with a machine gun, killed a prisoner with
a bullet in the neck. Then this same officer executed in this manner the
34 young men who had been kept back.
Not content with killing them, he kicked the bodies into the cellar; and
then fired a volley of machine gun bullets to make sure that they were
dead.
M. FAURE: M. Van der Essen, you are a historian; you have taught
scholars; therefore you are accustomed to submitting the sources of
history to criticism. Can you say that your inquiry leaves no doubt in
your mind, that these atrocities reveal that there was an over-all plan
and that instructions were certainly given by superior officers?
VAN DER ESSEN: I think that I can affirm it, I am quite convinced that
there was an over-all plan.
M. FAURE: I would like to ask you a last question: I think I understood
that you yourself were never arrested or particularly worried by the
Germans. I would like to know if you consider that a free man, against
whom the German administration or police have nothing in particular,
could during the Nazi occupation lead a life in accordance with the
conception a free man has of his dignity?
VAN DER ESSEN: Well, you see me here before you, I weigh 67 kilos, my
height is 1 meter 67 centimeters. According to my colleagues in the
Faculty of Medicine that is quite normal. Before the 10th of May 1940,
before the airplanes of the Luftwaffe suddenly came without any
declaration of war and spread death and desolation in Belgium, I weighed
82 kilos. This difference is incontestably the result of the occupation.
But I don’t want to dwell on personal considerations or enter into
details of a general nature or of a theoretical or philosophical nature.
I should like simply to give you an account—it will not take more than
2 minutes—of the ordinary day of an average Belgian during the
occupation.
I take a day in the winter of 1943: At 6 o’clock in the morning there is
a ring at the door. One’s first thought—indeed we all had this
thought—was that it was the Gestapo. It wasn’t the Gestapo. It was a
city policeman who had come to tell me that there was a light in my
office and that in view of the necessities of the occupation I must be
careful about this in the future. But there was the nervous shock.
At 7:30 the postman arrives bringing me my letters; he tells the maid
that he wishes to see me personally. I go downstairs and the man says to
me, “You know, Professor, I am a member of the secret army and I know
what is going on. The Germans intend to arrest today at 10 o’clock all
the former soldiers of the Belgian Army who are in this region. Your son
must disappear immediately.” I hurry upstairs and wake up my son. I make
him prepare his kit and send him to the right place. At 10 o’clock I
take the tram for Brussels. A few kilometers out of Louvain the tram
stops. A military police patrol makes us get down and lines us
up—irrespective of our social status or position—in front of a wall,
with our arms raised and facing the wall. We are thoroughly searched,
and having found neither arms nor compromising papers of any kind, we
are allowed to go back into the tram. A few kilometers farther on the
tram is stopped by a crowd which prevents the tram from going on. I see
several women weeping, there are cries and wailings. I make inquiries
and am told that their men folk living in the village had refused to do
compulsory labor and were to have been arrested that night by the
Security Police. Now they are taking away the old father of 82 and a
young girl of 16 and holding them responsible for the disappearance of
the young men.
I arrive in Brussels to attend a meeting of the academy. The first thing
the president says to me is:
“Have you heard what has happened? Two of our colleagues were
arrested yesterday in the street. Their families were in a
terrible state. Nobody knows where they are.”
I go home in the evening and we are stopped on the way three times, once
to search for terrorists, who are said to have fled, the other times to
see if our papers are in order. At last I get home without anything
serious having happened to me.
I might say here that only at 9 o’clock in the evening can we give a
sigh of relief, when we turn the knob of our radio set and listen to
that reassuring voice which we hear every evening, the voice of Fighting
France: “Today is the 189th day of the struggle of the French people for
their liberation,” or the voice of Victor Delabley, that noble figure of
the Belgian radio in London, who always finished up by saying, “Courage,
we will get them yet, the Boches!” That was the only thing that enabled
us to breathe and go to sleep at night.
That was an average day, a normal day of an average Belgian during the
German occupation. And you can well understand that we could hardly call
that time the reign of happiness and felicity that we were promised when
the German troops invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940.
M. FAURE: Excuse me, M. Van der Essen. The only satisfaction that you
had was to listen to the London radio; this was punished by a severe
penalty, if you were caught, I suppose?
VAN DER ESSEN: Yes, it meant imprisonment.