THE PRESIDENT: The witness may retire.
[_The witness left the stand._]
M. FAURE: I ask the Tribunal kindly to take the presentation file and
the document book constituting the end of the section on the seizure of
sovereignty, which bears the title “France.”
France, like Belgium, was placed under the regime of the military
occupation administration. There was, moreover, in France a diplomatic
representation. Finally, it must be noted that the police administration
always played an important role there. It became increasingly important
and was extended, particularly during the period which followed the
appointment of General Oberg in 1942.
As regards this last part of my section on the seizure of sovereignty, I
should like to limit myself to mentioning a few special features of
these usurpations in France and certain original methods employed by the
Germans in this country, for this question has already been extensively
dealt with, and will be further dealt with by me under the heading of
consequences of German activities in France.
I wish to draw the attention of the Tribunal to four considerations.
First, the German authorities in France, at the very beginning, got hold
of a special key to sovereignty. I speak of the splitting up of the
country into five different zones. This splitting up of the country by
the Germans compensated to a certain extent for the special situation
which the existence of unoccupied French territories created for them.
I have already indicated that the Armistice Convention of 22 June, which
has already been deposited with the Tribunal, provided for the
establishment of a line of demarcation between the occupied zone and the
so-called unoccupied zone. It might have been thought at that time that
this demarcation between the occupied and the unoccupied zone was
chiefly drawn to meet the necessity of military movements in the
occupied zone. It might also have been concluded that the separation of
the zones would be manifested only through the exercise in the occupied
zone of the ordinary rights of an armed force occupation. I have already
had occasion to quote to the Tribunal a document, the testimony of M.
Léon Noël, which contained the verbal assurances given in this respect
by General Keitel and by General Jodl, who are now the defendants before
you bearing these names.
Now, in fact, this demarcation of zones was interpreted and applied with
extreme rigor and in a manner that was wholly unforeseen. We have
already seen the far reaching consequences of this from the point of
view of the economic life of the country. There were also serious
consequences from the point of view of local administration, which was
continually hampered in its tasks, and from the point of view of the
life of the population, which could move from one part of French
territory to another only with great difficulty. In this way the Germans
acquired a first means of pressure on the French authorities. This means
of pressure was all the more effective as it could be used at any time
and was very elastic. At times the Germans could relax the rules of
separation of the zones, at others they could apply them with the
greatest severity.
By way of example, I quote an extract from a document, which I present
in evidence under the Document Number RF-1051.
This document is a letter of 20 December 1941 addressed by Schleier of
the German Embassy to the French Delegate De Brinon, a letter concerning
passes to German civilians wishing to enter the unoccupied zone. The
French authorities of the _de facto_ government had protested against
the fact that the Germans obliged the French authorities to allow any
person provided with German passes to enter the unoccupied zone where
they could take on any kind of work, particularly spying, as one may
imagine.
The letter which I quote is in answer to this French protest, and I wish
to mention only the last paragraph which is the second paragraph on page
2 of this Document Number 1051.
“In case the French Government should create difficulties
concerning requests for passes presented with the German
approval, it will no longer be possible to exercise that same
generosity as shown hitherto when granting passes to French
nationals.”
But what I have just said is only a first point concerning the division
of the country. This first division had as basis an instrument which was
the Armistice Convention, although this basis was exceeded and was
contestable. On the other hand, the other divisions which I am going to
mention were simply imposed by the Germans without warning of any kind,
and without the enunciation of any plausible pretext.
I must recall that a first supplementary division was that which
separated the annexed Departments of the Haut-Rhin, the Bas-Rhin, and
the Moselle from the rest of France; and in this connection I have
already proved that they had been really annexed.
A second division affected the Departments of Nord and the
Pas-de-Calais. These departments were in fact attached to the German
Military Administration of Belgium. This fact is shown by the headings
of the German Military Command decrees, which are submitted to the
Tribunal in the Belgian _Official Gazette_. Not only did this separation
exist from the point of view of the German Military Command
Administration, but it also existed from the point of view of the French
Administration. This last mentioned administration was not excluded in
the departments under consideration, but its communications with the
central services were extremely difficult.
As I do not wish to develop this point at length, I should like simply
to quote a document which will serve as an example, and which I submit
as Document Number RF-1052. This is a letter from the military commander
under the date of 17 September 1941, which communicates his refusal to
re-establish telegraphic and telephonic communications with the rest of
France. I quote the single sentence of this letter:
“Upon decision of the High Command of the Army it is so far not
yet possible to concede the application for granting direct
telegraphic service between the Vichy Government and the two
departments of the North.”
A third division consisted in the creation within the unoccupied zone of
a so-called forbidden zone. The conception of this forbidden zone
certainly corresponded to the future projects of the Germans as to the
annexation of larger portions of France. In this connection I produced
documents at the beginning of my presentation. This forbidden zone did
not have any special rules of administration, but special authorization
was required to enter or to leave it. The return to this zone of persons
who had left it in order to seek refuge in other regions was possible
only in stages, and with great difficulty. Administrative relations, the
same as economic relations between the forbidden zone and the other
zones were constantly hampered. This fact is well known. Nevertheless, I
wish to quote a document also as an example, and I submit this document,
Number RF-1053. It is a letter from the military commander, dated 22
November 1941, addressed to the French Delegation. I shall simply
summarize this document by saying that the German Command agreed to
allow a minister of the _de facto_ government to go into the occupied
zone, but refused to allow him to go into the forbidden zone.
In order that the Tribunal may realize the situation of these five zones
which I have just mentioned, I have attached to the document book a map
of France indicating these separations. This map of France was numbered
RF-1054, but I think it is not necessary for me to produce it as a
document properly speaking. It is intended to enable the Tribunal to
follow this extreme partitioning by looking, first at the annexed
departments, and then at Nord and the Pas-de-Calais, the boundaries of
these departments being indicated on the map, then at the forbidden
unoccupied zone, which is indicated by a first line; and, finally, the
line of demarcation with the unoccupied zone. This is, by the way, a
reproduction of the map which was published and sold in Paris during the
occupation by Publishers Girard and Barère.
To conclude this question of the division I should like to remind the
Tribunal that on 11 November 1942 the German Army forces invaded the
so-called unoccupied zone. The German authorities declared at that time
that they did not intend to establish a military occupation of this
zone, and that there would simply be what was called a zone of
operations.
The German authorities did not respect this juridical conception that
they had thought out any more than they had respected the rules of the
law of the occupation; and the proof of this violation of law in the
so-called operational zone has already been brought in a number of
circumstances and will be brought again later in the final parts of this
presentation.
Apart from this division, the inconveniences of which can well be
imagined for a country which is not very extensive and whose life is
highly centralized, I shall mention the second seizure of sovereignty,
which consisted in the control by the Germans of the legislative acts of
the French _de facto_ government.
Naturally, the German military administration, in conformity with its
doctrine, constantly exercised by its own decrees, a real legislative
power in regard to the French. On the other hand—and it is this fact
which I am dealing with now—in respect to the French power the
sovereignty of which the Germans pretended still to recognize, they
exercised a veritable legislative censorship. I shall produce several
documents by way of example and proof of this fact.
The first, which I submit as Document Number RF-1055, is a letter from
the Commander-in-Chief of the Military Forces in France to the French
Delegate General; the letter is dated 29 December 1941. We see that the
signature on this letter is that of Dr. Best, of whom I spoke this
morning in connection with Denmark, where he went subsequently and where
he was given both diplomatic and police functions. I think it is not
necessary for me to read the text of this letter. I shall read simply
the heading: “Subject: Bill Concerning the French Budget of 1942, and
the New French Finance Law.”
The German authorities considered that they had the power to take part
in the drawing up of the French _de facto_ government’s budget, although
this bore no relation to the necessities of their military occupation.
Not only did the Germans check the contents of the laws prepared by the
_de facto_ government, but they made peremptory suggestions. I shall not
quote any document on this point at the moment, as I shall be producing
two: One in connection with propaganda and the other in connection with
the regime imposed upon the Jews.
The third seizure of sovereignty which the Germans exercised consisted
in their intervention in the appointment and assignment of officials.
According to the method which I have already followed, I submit, on this
question, documents by way of example. First I submit a document which
will be Document Number RF-1056, a letter of 23 September 1941, from the
Commander-in-Chief Von Stülpnagel to De Brinon. This letter puts forth
various considerations, which it is not necessary to read, on the
sabotage of harvests and the difficulties of food supplies. I read the
last paragraph of Document RF-1056.
“I must, therefore, peremptorily demand a speedy and unified
direction of the measures necessary for assuring the food
supplies for the population. A possibility of achieving this aim
I can see only by uniting both ministries in the hands of one
single and energetic expert.”
It was, therefore, a case of interference on the very plane of the
composition of a ministry, of an authority supposedly governmental. As
regards the control of appointments, I produce Document Number RF-1057,
which is a letter from the Military Command of 29 November 1941. I shall
simply summarize this document by indicating that the German authorities
objected to the appointment of the President of the Liaison Committee
for the Manufacture of Beet Sugar. You see, therefore, how little this
has to do with military necessities.
I next produce Document Number RF-1058, which is likewise a letter from
the Military Command. It is brief and I shall read it by way of example:
“I beg you to take the necessary measures in order that the
Subprefect of St. Quentin, M. Planacassagne, be relieved of his
functions and replaced as soon as possible by a competent
official. M. Planacassagne is not capable of carrying out his
duties.”
I shall now quote a text of a more general scope. I produce Document
Number RF-1059, which is a secret circular of 10 May 1942, addressed by
the Military Command Administrative Staff to all the chief town majors.
Here again we find the signature of Dr. Best.
“Control of French policy as regards personnel in the occupied
territories.
“The remodelling of the French Government presents certain
possibilities for exercising a positive influence on French
police in the occupied territories as regards personnel. I,
therefore, ask you to designate those French officials, who,
from the German point of view, appear particularly usable and
whose names could be submitted to the French Government when the
question of appointing holders for important posts arises.”
Thus we see in the process of formation this general network of German
control and German usurpation. I now produce Document Number RF-1060.
This document is an interrogation of Otto Abetz, who had the function of
German ambassador in France. This interrogation took place on 17
November 1945 before the Commissioners Berge and Saulas at the General
Information Bureau in Paris. This document confirms German interferences
in French administration and likewise gives details about the
duplications of these controls by the military commander and the
Gestapo. I quote:
“The Military Commander in France, basing himself on the various
conventions of international law”—this is Otto Abetz who is
speaking and it is not necessary to say that we in no way accept
his conception of international law—“considered himself
responsible and supreme judge for the maintenance of order and
public security in the occupied zone. This being so, he claimed
the right to give his approval for the appointment or the
retaining of all French officials nominated to occupy posts in
the occupied zone. As regards officials residing in the free
zone who were obliged by reason of their functions to exercise
them subsequently in the occupied zone, the Military Commander
also stressed the necessity for his approval of their
nomination. In practice the Military Commander made use of the
right thus claimed only when the officials were nominated and
solely in the sense of a right to veto, that is to say, he did
not intervene in the choice of officials to be nominated and
contented himself with making observations on certain names
proposed. These observations were based on information which the
Military Commander received from his regional and local
commanders, from his various administrative and economic
departments in Paris, and from the police and the Gestapo, which
at that time were still under the authority of the Military
Commander.
“From 11 November 1942 on, this state of things changed because
of the occupation of the free zone. The German military
authorities settled in this zone demanded that they should give
their opinion in regard to the nomination of officials in all
cases where the security of the German Army might be affected.
The Gestapo for its part acquired in the two zones a _de facto_
independence with regard to the regional and local military
chiefs and with regard to the Military Commander. It claimed the
right to intervene in connection with any appointment which
might affect the carrying out of their police tasks.
“Having been recalled to Germany from November 1942 to December
1943, I did not myself witness the conflicts which resulted from
this state of things and which could not fail to compromise in
the highest degree the so-called sovereignty of the Vichy
Government. When I returned to France the situation was
considerably worse because the Gestapo claimed, in the occupied
as well as in the unoccupied zone, the right to make the
nomination of prefects subject to its consent. It even went so
far as to propose itself the officials to be nominated by the
French Government. Seconded by me, the Military Commander took
up again the struggle against these abusive demands and
succeeded in part in restoring the situation to what it was
before November 1942 . . . .”
The document which I have just read constitutes a transition to the
fourth consideration which I should like to submit to the Tribunal. In
putting this consideration I should like to stress the juxtaposition and
the collaboration of the various agents of usurpation, that is to say,
the military command, the embassy, and the police. As regards the latter
I shall deal at greater length with its role in the last part of my
brief.
With regard to the setting up of the German Embassy in France, I produce
before the Tribunal Exhibit Number RF-1061. This document was in my file
as a judicial translation of a judicial document in the file concerning
Otto Abetz in Paris. On the other hand, it is also contained in the
American documentation and bears the Document Number 3614-PS. It has
not, however, as yet been submitted to the Tribunal. It deals with the
official appointment of Otto Abetz as ambassador. I should like to read
this Document RF-1061.
“Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 3 August 1940.
“In answer to a question of the General Quartermaster, addressed
to the High Command of the Armed Forces and transmitted by the
latter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Führer had
appointed Abetz, up to now minister, as ambassador and upon my
report has decreed the following:
“I. Ambassador Abetz has the following functions in France:
“1. To advise the military agencies on political matters.
“2. To maintain permanent contact with the Vichy Government and
its representatives in the occupied zone.
“3. To influence the important political personalities in the
occupied zone and in the unoccupied zone in a way favorable to
our intentions.
“4. To guide from the political point of view the press, the
radio, and the propaganda in the occupied zone and to influence
the responsive elements engaged in the molding of public opinion
in the unoccupied zone.
“5. To take care of the German, French, and Belgian citizens
returning from internment camps.
“6. To advise the secret military police and the Gestapo on the
seizure of politically important documents.
“7. To seize and secure all public art treasures and private art
treasures, and particularly art treasures belonging to Jews, on
the basis of special instructions relating thereto.
“II. The Führer has expressly ordered that only Ambassador Abetz
shall be responsible for all political questions in Occupied and
Unoccupied France. Insofar as military interests are involved by
his duties, Ambassador Abetz shall act only in agreement with
the Military Command in France.
“III. Ambassador Abetz will be attached to the Military
Commander in France as his delegate. His domicile shall continue
to be in Paris as hitherto. He will receive from me instructions
for the accomplishment of his tasks and will be responsible
solely to me. I shall greatly appreciate it if the High Command
of the Armed Forces (the OKW) will give the necessary orders to
the military agencies concerned as quickly as possible.
“Signed: Ribbentrop.”
This document shows the close collaboration that existed between the
military administration and the administration of foreign affairs, a
collaboration which, as I have already said on several occasions, is one
of the determining elements for establishing responsibility in this
Trial, a collaboration of which I shall later on give examples of a
criminal character.
I now wish to mention to the Tribunal that I eliminate the production of
the next document which was numbered RF-1062. Although I am personally
certain of the value of this document which comes from a French judicial
file, I have not the original German text. This being so, the
translation might create difficulties, and it is naturally essential
that each document produced should present incontestable guarantees. I
shall therefore pass directly to the last document, which I wish to put
in and which I submit as Document Number RF-1063. This is a detail, if I
may call it such, concerning this problem of the collaboration of the
German administrations, but sometimes formal documents concerning
details may present some interest. It is a note taken from the German
archives in Paris, a note dated 5 November 1943, which gives the
distribution of the numbering of the files in the German Embassy. I
shall read simply the first three lines of this note: “In accordance
with the method adopted by the military administration in France, the
files are divided into 10 chief groups.” There follows the enumeration
of these methods and groups used for the classification of the files. I
wish simply to point out that under their system of close collaboration
the German Embassy, a civil service department of the foreign office,
and the Military Command had adopted filing systems under which all
records and all files could be kept in the same way.
I have now concluded my second section which was devoted to the general
examination of this seizure of sovereignty in the occupied territories,
and I should like to point out that these files have been established
with the collaboration of my assistant, M. Monneray, a collaboration
which also included the whole brief which I present to the Tribunal.
I shall now ask the Tribunal to take the files relative to Section 3,
devoted to the ideological Germanization, and to propaganda.
When I had occasion to speak to the Tribunal about forced labor and
economic pillage I said that the Germans had taken all available
manpower, goods, and raw materials from the occupied countries. They
drained these countries of their reserves. The Germans acted in exactly
the same manner with regard to the intellectual and moral resources.
They wished to seize and eliminate the spiritual reserves. This
expression “spiritual reserves,” which is extremely significant, was not
invented by the Prosecution. I have borrowed it from the Germans
themselves. I have quoted to the Tribunal another extract from a work
which was submitted as a document under Number RF-5 of the French
documentation. This was a book published in Berlin by the Nazi Party.
The author was Dr. Friedrich Didier. This work has a preface by the
Defendant Sauckel and is entitled _Working For Europe_. The quotation
which I should like to make appears in the document book under 1100,
which is simply the order of sequence, as the book itself has already
been presented and submitted. The book includes a chapter entitled
“Ideological Guidance and Social Assistance.” The author is concerned
with the ideological guidance of the foreign workers who were taken away
by millions to the Reich by force. This preoccupation with the
ideological guidance of such an important element of the population of
the occupied countries is already remarkable in itself; but it is, on
the other hand, quite evident that this preoccupation is general with
regard to all the inhabitants of the occupied countries, and the author
in this case has simply confined himself to his subject. I have chosen
this quotation to begin my section because its wording seemed to me to
be particularly felicitous to enable us to get an idea of the German
plans in regard to propaganda.
Page 69 of the book that has been put in evidence reads:
“The problem of ideological guidance of the foreign worker is
not as simple as in the case of the German fellow worker. In
employing foreigners far more importance must be paid to the
removal of psychological reservations. The foreigner must get
accustomed to unfamiliar surroundings. His ideological scruples
must be dispersed, if he has any. The mental attitude of the
nationals of former enemy states must be just as effectively
refuted as the consequences of foreign ideologies.”
In the occupied countries the Germans undertook to eliminate the mental
reserves and to expurgate the ideology of each man in order to
substitute for them the Nazi conception. Such was the object of the
propaganda. This propaganda had already been introduced in Germany and
it was carried on there unceasingly. We have seen from the article just
quoted that there was also a preoccupation with the ideological guidance
of the German worker, although the problem was considered there to be
more simple. When we speak today of Nazi propaganda we are often tempted
to underestimate the importance of this propaganda. There are grounds
for underestimating it, but they are false grounds. On the one hand,
when we consider the works and the themes of propaganda, we are often
struck by their crudeness, their obviously mendacious character, their
intellectual or artistic poverty. But we must not forget that the Nazi
propaganda utilized all means, the most crude as well as the more subtle
and often skillful methods. From another point of view the crudest
affirmations are those that carry most weight with some simple minds.
Finally, we must not forget that if the Germans had won the war, these
writings, these films, which we find ridiculous, would have constituted
in the future our principal and soon our sole spiritual food.
Another remark that is often heard is that German propaganda achieved
only very poor results. Indeed, these results are quite insignificant,
especially if one takes into account the means which this propaganda had
at its disposal. The enslaved peoples did not listen to the news and to
the exhortations of the Germans. They threw themselves into the
resistance. But here again we must consider that the war continued, that
the broadcasts from the countries which had remained free gave out
magnificent counter propaganda, and that finally the Germans after a
time suffered military reverses.
If events had been different perhaps this propaganda would, in the long
run, have brought about an acquiescence on the part of the more
important elements of the populations which would have been worse than
the oppression itself. It is fortunate that only a very small minority
in the different countries were corrupted by the Nazi propaganda, but
however small this minority may have been, it is for us a cause for
sadness and of just complaint.
The slogans of Nazi propaganda appear to us less childish and less
ridiculous when we consider the few wretches who, influenced by it,
enrolled in a legion or in the Waffen SS to fight against their
countries and against humanity. By their death in this dishonorable
combat or after their condemnation some of these men have expiated their
crimes. But Nazi propaganda is responsible for the death of each one of
them and for each one of these crimes.
Finally, we are not sure that we know today exactly the real effect of
Nazi propaganda. We are not sure that we are able to measure all the
harm which it has done to us. The nations count their visible wounds,
but propaganda is a poison which dissolves in the mental organism and
leaves traces that cannot be discerned. There are still men in the world
who, because of the propaganda to which they have been subjected,
believe, perhaps obscurely, that they have the right to despise or to
eliminate another man because he is a Jew or because he is a Communist.
The men who believe this still remain accomplices and, at the same time,
are victims of Nazism.
One of my colleagues has shown that while the physical health of the
occupied peoples was severely undermined, their moral health appears
more robust; but it must still be anxiously watched for a certain time
in the future.
For these reasons, the French Prosecution has considered that there was
room in this accusation for the section on spiritual Germanization and
propaganda. This propaganda is a criminal enterprise in itself. It is an
onslaught against the spiritual condition, according to the definition
of M. de Menthon, but it is also a means and an aggravating circumstance
of the whole of the criminal methods of the Nazis, since it prepared
their success and since it was to maintain their success. It was
considered by the Germans themselves, as numerous quotations show, as
one of the most reliable weapons of total war. It is more particularly a
means and an aspect of the Germanization which we are studying at this
moment. I should add that German propaganda has been constantly
developed for many years and over considerable areas. It assumed very
diverse forms. We have therefore only to define some of its principal
features and to quote merely a few characteristic documents, chiefly
from the point of view of the responsibility of certain persons or of
certain organizations.
Over a long period of time the Reich had developed official propaganda
services in a ministerial department created as early as 1933 under the
name of Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, with Goebbels
at the head and the Defendant Fritzsche performing important functions.
But this ministry and its department were not the only ones responsible
for questions of propaganda. We shall show that the responsibility of
the Minister and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is equally involved.
We shall likewise show that the Party took an active part in propaganda.
Finally, I mention here that in the occupied countries the military
commands constituted organs of propaganda and were very active. This
fact must be added to all those which show that the German military
command exercised powers wholly different from what are normally
considered to be military powers. By this abnormal extension of their
activities, apart from the crimes committed within the framework of
their direct competence, the military chiefs and the High Command have
furnished justification for the allegation of joint responsibility.
The German propaganda always presents two complementary aspects, a
negative aspect and a positive aspect: A negative or, in a sense, a
destructive aspect, that of forbidding or of limiting certain liberties,
certain intellectual possibilities which existed before; a positive
aspect, that of creating documents or instruments of propaganda, of
spreading this propaganda, of imposing it on the eyes, on the ears, and
on the mind. An authority has already said that there are two different
voices: The voice that refuses truth and the voice that tells lies. This
duality of restrictive propaganda and of constructive propaganda exists
in the different realms of the expression of thought.
I shall mention now, in my first paragraph, the measures taken by the
Germans as regards meetings and associations. The German authorities
have always taken measures to suppress the right of assembly and
association in the occupied countries. We are here concerned both with
the question of political rights and of thought. In France, a decree of
21 August 1940, which appeared in the _Official Gazette_ of German
Decrees of 16 September 1940, forbade any meeting or association without
the authorization of the German military administration.
It must not be thought that the Germans utilized their powers in this
matter only in regard to associations and groups which were hostile to
them, or even those whose object was political. They were anxious to
avoid any spreading of an intellectual or moral influence which would
not be directly subordinated to them. In this connection I present to
the Tribunal, merely by way of example, Document Number RF-1101, which
is a letter from the Military Commander dated 13 December 1941,
addressed to the General Delegate of the French Government. This deals
with the youth groups. Even with regard to associations or groups which
should have a general public character, the German authorities gave
their authorization only on condition that they would be able to
exercise not only their control over these organizations, but a real
influence by means of these organizations.