was favored or not by particular pressure according to the occasion in which they found themselves personally. the accusation does not consider, that the recruiting of traitors, whether in the Army or in other activities, is for the Nazi leaders an extenuating circumstance or an absolving one. On the contrary, it is one of the characteristics of their criminal activity and the responsibility of the traitors does in no way exclude their own. We hold, on the contrary, against them the corruption which they attempted to extend into the occupied countries by making appeals to what the population of a country may contain of elements of weak morality and by provoking and seeking in the minds of everyone, the possibilities of immoral service, immoral and criminal service against the country. troops. ing to the abolition of public freedom and the setting up of the Fuehrer principle. I shall quote by way of example some of these measures. September, 1941, which is in the Official Journal of 1940, page 19; an ordinance forbidding all activity in favor of the legitimate dynasty, ordinance of 7 October 1940, in the Official Journal of 1940, page 10; the guarantees of the status of officials are suppressed, they may be transferred or dismissed for political reasons, German ordinance of 4 October 1940, Official Journal 1940, page 24. Finally a Norwegian law of 18 December, 1943, setting up a very characteristic institution, that of Departmental Chief of the Party. I submit this under Document 928. I simply sant to quote from it an expression, according to which the Departmental Chief, representing the Party, "is subject to the Minister President and to no other authority of the State. He exercises in the department the supreme political control over all public authorities of the department."
associations with the application of the Fuehrer principle. of 11 August, 1941, Official Journal 1941, page 637, confirmed by decree of 21 June, 1940, Official Journal of 1940, page 54, the dissolution of political parties, ordinance of 4 July 1941, Official Journal 1941, page 513; creation of the Labor Fron, decree of 30 April 1942, Official Journal 1942, page 211; setting up of the Peasant Corporation, decree of the 22 of October 1941, Official Journal 1941, page 838. finally, a decree of the 12 of August 1941, Official Journal 1941, page 34, which creates a special judicial authority for all offenses and infractions against peace and order, against political interests or committed through political motives. In fact, the justices of the peace charged with exercising these oppressive powers were always chosen amongst members of the Nazi Party. as a systematic enterprise against the elite of the country and against the spiritual life of the country. It is always here that the Nazis find the greatest pressure of resistance against their designs. They attack the universities and teaching establishments. to the administration the right of closing arbitrarily all private institutions. In Holland, likewise, the University of Leyden was closed down on the 11 November, 1941. Journal 1943, page 127, forced the students to sign a declaration of Loyalty conceived in the following terms:
"The undersigned solemnly declares hereby that he will conform in honor and conscience to the laws, decrees and other dispositions in force in the Dutch occupied territory and will abstain from any act directed against the German Reich, the German Army or the Dutch authorities as actions and deeds which would imperil public order in the higher teaching institutions in view of the present circumstances of danger."
I offer in evidence before the Tribunal Document 933. I point out to the Tribunal that the order is not correct here, that Document 933 is the last in the document book.
This document Number 933 is an article of the "Deutsche Zeitung", of 1 December 1943, reproduced in a Norwegian newspaper. It is entitled, "A house-cleaning measure necessary in Oslo." I shall read simply a few paragraphs of this article, I begin with the second paragraph:
"The students of the University of Oslo" - will the Tribunal excuse me. I shall read also the first paragraph:
"By order of the Oberfuehrer and General of the SS Polise is made known the following to the students of the University of Oslo:
"The students of the University of Oslo have attempted since the occupation of Norway, that is, since 1940, to play as resistance against the German Army of occupation, and against the Norwegian Government recognized by the Reich."
I shall end the quotation here, and I continue at paragraph 5:
"To protect, the interests of the occupying power and to assure the maintenance of peace and order within this country, rigorious measures are indispensable. This is why, in the name of the Reichskommissar, I must advise you of the following;
"First, the students of the University of Oslo will be transferred to a special campaign Germany.
"Second, the woman students will be dismissed from the University and will have to receive to their communities where they will present themselves immediately to the names, until further orders they will be allowed to leave these communities only upon order of the police." before the last on the on the second page of this document 933.
"You must be thankful to the Kommissar of the Reich for the fact that other much more drastic measures are web, being applied. Moreover, thanks to this measure, most of you escaped for the future the danger of losing your lives and your property," End of quotation.
As concerns religious life, the Germans multiplied the attacks. By way of example, I offer in evidence Document 929, which I shall read:
"Oslo, 28 May 1941: to the Commanders of the SIPO and the SD in Bergen, Stavanger, Drontheim, Tromso,. Subject: Surveillance of religious services during the Pentecostal Festival. Result: nothing:
"You will kindly supervise the religious services and address to this address a report on the result.
It is signed - "The Commander" - the signature is illegible, but it is for the SIPO. End of quotation. I offer in evidence this document as Number 930. I shall read this document, which is very brief.
"Trondheim, 5 June 1941.
"The surveillance of religious services during the Pentecostal Festival gave no new essential elements. Domprost Fjellbu continues his activity as a conscientious preacher, but he does it in a sufficiently skillful manner to be able to defend each turn of phrase as being of a religious and not political nature," the one hand the constant immorality of the German methods, and, on the other hand, the just protests to which they gave rise on the part of the most qualified authorities. The first example concerns Holland. arrests, and by the concentration camps, found occasion to make known their disapproval under a form which entered into the normal carrying out of their juridical functions. On the occasion of a particular affair the Court of Appeals of Leeuwarder made a declaration, which I quote to you. This is submitted to you as Document 931. I read to you an extract from this document, 931:
"Considering that the Court cannot declare itself in agreement in the matter of the penalty inflicted upon the accused by the head Judge and its presentation of motives, the Court is of the opinion that this penalty would be determined as follows:
"Regarding the penalty that is to be inflicted: That the Court desires to take account of the fact that for some time various penalities of imprisonment inflicted by the Dutch Judge upon delinquents of masculine sex, in violation of legal principles and in violation of the intention of the legislator and of the Judge, have been executed or are being executed in camps in a manner aggravating the penalty to such a degree that it was impossible for the Judge to foresee it or even to assume it in determining the degree of the penalty.
"Whereas the Court, in taking account of the possibility of this manner of executing the penalty to be inflicted at present, will abstain from condemning the suspect to an imprisonment 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 indicated here above.
"Whereas the Court, basing itself upon this consideration, will limit itself to condemning the defendant to a penalty of imprisonment or confinement to be determined hereafter, with deduction of the time spent by him in preventive detention of such a duration that the penalty at the moment of the making of this decree or the pronouncing of the penalty will almost entirely have experied during the period of preventive detention." that as a result of this decision of the Court of Appeals, the defendant Seyss-Inquart dismissed the president of the Court by a decree of the 9th of April 1943, which is equally offered in evidence, but under the same document number, 931. These two documents will constitute a single document.
"By virtue of paragraph 3 of my decree," et cetera, "I remove from his office as councillor of the Court of Appeals Leeuwarder to take effect imme diately, Doctor of Law FF Viehoff," Signed, "Seyss-Inquart."
End of quotation. Norway, and this involves a solemn protest made by the Norwegian Bishops, The special occasion of 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 of suppressing for priests the obligation of professional secrecy, and provided that priests who had refused to break the secrecy of the confession box would be subject to imprisonment. Public Education and Church Affairs and handed to it a memorandum. In this memorandum they made known their protests against this extraordinary intervention of the police, and at the same time they protested against other abuses, violent acts committed by Nazi organizations, and illegal acts in the judicial field. This protest of the Norwegian Bishops is transcribed in a pastoral letter addressed to their parishes in February 1941. I submit it as Document 932. I shall read an extract from this document on page 9, top of the page:
"The decree of the Ministry of the Police, dated 13 December 1940, just published, gravely affects the mission of the priest. According to this decree, the obligation of professional secrecy for priests and ministers may be suppressed by the Ministry of the Police.
"Our obligation to maintain professional secrecy is not only established by law but has also been a fundamental condition for the work of the Church and of the ministers in the exercise of their care of souls and when they receive the confession of persons in distress. This is an inalterable condition for this work of the Church, that a person may have absolute and unlimited confidence in the commitment of the priest, the unreserved commitment of the priest, to his obligation to maintain professional secrecy, as it has been normally 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 conscience is a blow against the vital cord of the work of the church, an attack which is of utmost gravity because of the fact that paragraph 5 of the decree stipulates that the Ministry of the Police may imprison the priest in question in order to obtain in this manner, by force, an explanation without the case having been submitted to a tribunal."
but already the highest spiritual authorities of Norway found themselves in a situation, not only of having to protest against a particularly intolerable act, but also to bear upon the whole of the occupation, an exposition which appears on page 16 in the pastoral letter, and which I shall read to the Tribunal, last paragraph:
"This is why the Bishops of the Church have placed before the Ministry some of the acts and official proclamations in regard to the government of the society of these latter times, acts and proclamations which the Church finds in contradiction with theCommandments of God, and which give the impression that there exists a revolutionary state in the country, and not a state of occupation under which the laws are maintained to the degree to which this is not directly incompatible with the state of occupation." 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, the Church then is the guardian of consciences. A human soul, is of more importance than the entire world."
I shall ask the Tribunal now to Lake the file entitled "Belgium." I point out immediately to the Tribunal that this file does not include the document book. This statement, which is relative to very general facts, will be supported by way of proof by the report of the Belgian Government, which has already been submitted by my colleagues under member 394. The section which I take up now is a general section, relative to the military administration with Belgium and France, taken as two specific cases, and I shall begin by the file concerning Belgium. can be imputed to the military command which affected them either by direct ordinances or by enjoining the administrative authorities of Belgium, who in this case were the Secretaries General of the Ministries.
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 and to London, that is to say, the highest officials in the hierarchic order, who by virtue of Article 5 of the law of 10 May 1940, exercise in the framework of their professional activity and for casesof urgency, all the powers of higher authority." first months of the occupation by the intention of keeping the occupying authorities as much as possible free of the administration of the country, gathered into their hands the Governmental powers and powers of regulation. On the order of the Germans this power of regulation became in the long run a real legislative power. to theseposts Belgians so they could maintain in Belgium all appearance of legality. They could carry out absolutely radical reforms, which would make of this country a National Socialist state. hold on the public power through the local authorities, the Germans did not hesitate by an ordinance of 14 May 1942, which is related in the official report, to suppress the jurisdictional control of the legality of the decrees of the Secretaries General, which was a violation of Article 107 of the constitution of Belgium. The Belgian report specifies in the following paragraphs what is the responsibility in this matter of threats of assault upon public law and order, and I shall quote here the very precise terms of this report on page 4, paragraph 3:
"In conclusion, whether the transformation of the legal institutions be the consequence of German ordinances or that of decrees emanating from the Secretaries General makes no difference. It is the Germans who bear the responsibility for these, the Secretaries General being in respect to them only faithful agents to carry out their instructions." paragraphs of the report, for they reveal characteristic facts as to German methods in their seizure of power.
"If it is necessary to furnish a new argument to support this thesis further, let it suffice to recall that the occupying power has employed all means to introduce into the structure for transforming, from top to bottom, the devoted agents and National Socialists. This was real termites work.
"The ordinance of march 7, 1941, under the pretext of renewing the cadres of 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 Ministries 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, Buergermeisters, et cetera, and use his rights to proceed to certain appointments of Commissaires d'arrondissement, for instance, by setting into position creatures of the enemy." violations by the Germans of the Belgian public order, classifying these under two headings. The first is entitled "Modification made in the constitutional structure that existed before." ordinance of 18 July 1940, which immediately abolished all public activity; then a series of decrees by which the Germanssuppressed electing of aldermen and decided that these aldermen would henceforth be designated by the central power.
This was the subversion of the traditional democratic The second heading of the report is entitled, "Introduction into State dominated inspiration."
Such institutions were, in fact, created by the German authorities.
The most remarkable are the of merchandise.
The report analyses the characteristics of these liberties.
They were organs of totalitarian inspiration in which the completely revealing, of the Belgian report on Germanization.
We in the economic statement and likewise in Mr. Dubost's expose and, manner bound to the regime of France.
The indications which I will the universities of Belgium.
We find here again the same phenomenon which I will present has been taken from the Appendix.
I must authenticity.
I shall later present these appendices, and I shall witness on the subject of these questions.
If this satisfies the
THE PRESIDENT: M. Faure, what are the annexes to which you are referring?
M. FAURE: They are documents which are in the Appendix of the Belgian report.
They are as follows.
report, which has already been submitted. On the other hand, another series of appendices.
For this reason the appendices were not this was only a part.
They are notes of the appendices in which we point by the hearing of a witness.
I thought, therefore, that I could Prosecution, and on which I would produce the testimonial proof.
On
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 Gand students, with a view to their Germanization.
They utilized, to this effect, an organization called, "Gentsch Studenten Verbond," but which they hoped for.
They set up in this University, and likewise established by this report what was being done and the complete failure of the German effort.
and students, and these operations occurred particularly when the students refused, rightly, to obey the German illegal orders which submitted them to forced labor. University had been, from the beginning, provided with a German Commisaar, and that forteen professors had been irregularly dismissed. Later, the University of Brussels found itself obliged to take note of this, and this was a result of a characteristic incident. accept the nomination of the candidates proposed by the University, and they decided to name themselves professors whose views suited them. This is an example of the German methods of interfering everywhere. the President of the University of this decision. The University decided to go on strike, as it were, and, in spite of all the efforts of the Germans, this strike of the University of Brussels lasted until the liberation. to the Tribunal. This has to do with the University of Louvain. Before reading this, I must indicate to the Tribunal the circumstances. students forced labor. This vie already know. But the reading that I shall presently make has to do with a supplementary requirement which is altogether shocking. Van Wayenberg, to give them a list with the addresses of the students who were eligible for obligatory service. They wished, therefore, to impose upon the Rector an act of informing, and this he did under threat of very severe sanctions. The Cardinal Archbishop of Malines intervened on this occasion, and on 4 June 1943 addressed a letter to General von Falkenhausen, military commander in Belgium.
I should like to read this letter to the Tribunal. This letter is reproduced in a work which I have here which is published in Belgium, which is 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 public work. This is what Cardinal Van Roey writes:
"By an oral communication', for which I have asked in vain in writing, the Chief of the Militarverwaltung Reeder has informed me that in case the Rector of the Catholic University of Louvain persisted in refusing the list with the addresses of the students of the first year, the occupying authority would take the following measures: closing down of the University; forbidding the students to enroll in another University; the subjection to forced labor in Germany of all the students; and, should they evade this measure, reprisals against their families.
"This indication is all the more surprising, as a few days previously, after receiving a note addressed to your Excellence, by Monseigneur the Rector, the latter received from the Kreiskommandant of Louvain a notification that the academic authority would no longer be disturbed with regard to the lists. It is true that President Reeder informed me that this answer was a misunderstanding.
"As President of the Board of Directors of the University of Louvain, I informed the Belgian Bishops who make up this board of the serious communication which I 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 to now. To furnish the lists, would, in effect, constitute a positive cooperation in measures which the Belgian Bishops have denounced in the Pastoral Letter of 15 March 1943, and is contrary to international law, to natural law, and to Christian morality.
"If the University of Louvain were subjected to sanctions because it refuses this cooperation, we consider that it would fall victim to its duty,. and that however hard and painful the difficulties that it would have to undergo temporarily, its honor at least would not be sullied.
We consider, with the famous Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose, that honor is above everything - "Nihil praeferendum honestati."
"Moreover, Your Excellence cannot be ignorant of the fact that the Catholic University of Louvain depends or is subject to the Holy See. 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 Mgr. Van Wayenberg as Rector Magnifique of the University, If the measures announced were carried out, it would therefore be a violent attack against the rights of the Holy See, and His Holiness the Pope will be informed of the extreme dangers which threaten our Catholic University." out to the Tribunal that in spite of this protest, and the considerations of simple practical interest, which the interests of the Germans might find in a correct attitude in this matter, the Rector was arrested on the 16th of June, 1943, and was condemned by the German military justice to eighteen months' imprisonment, I should like to observe that we might also have the impression that such an event as the arrest and sentence of a prelate, rector of a university, for an unjust cause, since there were no tragic consequences - such an event has a relatively secondary importance. I think that we cannot subordinate our intellectual judgment to the direct proof of our sensibility, which is here again put in the face of horror. We can consider that such an attack is in itself very characteristic as an act of justice by the Germanization project of the German authorities,
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
(A recess was taken from 1300 to 1400 hours).
Official transcript of the International Military Tribunal in the matter of:
The
MARSHAL OF THE COURT: 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.
M. VAN DER ESSEN took the stand. BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q What is your name? the truth, and only the truth?
Raise your right hand and say "I swear."
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit, if you wish. BY M. FAURE:
Q M. van der Essen, you are a professor of history in the faculty of letters at the University of Louvain?
Q You are the General Secretary of the University of Louvain?
Q You have stayed in Belgium during the whole period of the occupation?
A To the end; from the end of the month of July 1940 I did not leave Belgium.
Q Can you give information on the destruction of the library of Louvain?
A Yes, sir. I should like to recall that in 1914 this library--which was certainly one of the best university libraries in Europe, built in the 16th century--was systematically destroyed.
It was burned by the German soldiers of the Ninth Reserve Corps, commanded by General von Boehm. This time, in 1940, the same thing was repeated. This library was systematically destroyed by the German Army. fire began, according to all testimony, on the night of the 16th or the 17th of May, 1940, about 1:30 in the morning. It was precisely at dawn of the 17th that the English Army made the necessary withdrawal maneuver to leave the line of defense of Q.W. On the other hand, it is absolutely certain that the first German troops entered on the morning of the 17th, about 8 o'clock in the morning. Between the departure of the English troops, on the one hand, and the arrival of the Germans on the other, that permitted the latter to proceed to a systematic destruction of the library and to attribute that systematic destruction to the British troops. I systematically opposed myself to such a version. This library was destroyed systematically by the German artillery.
There were two batteries. One was posted in the town of Coberlo, and the other battery was in the village of Lovengule. These two batteries, on each side, fired, in a systematic fashion, on the library, and nothing but the library. The best proof is that when these bombs fell, they all fell on the library. One house alone was touched by chance in the quarter where this library was found. The tower was hit four times by the battery, which fired from Lovengule, and seven times from the battery which fired from Coberlo. commanded it asked an inhabitant of the town to accompany him into the field. They went into the field and arrived in a place where they could perceive from afar the tower of the library. The officer asked, "Is that indeed the tower of the library?" The reply was "Yes." The officer then said, "Are you sure?" "Yes", replied the other, "since I know it, I see it every day, and I am familiar with it." arrived on the library, and immediately a column of smoke arose near the tower.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you try and speak a little bit slower? It is dif ficult for the translation to come through to us.
A (Continuing) So there can be no doubt that this bombardment was systematic and only aimed at the library. planes bombarded the library and dropped the bombs upon the monument. BY M. FAURE:
Q M. van der Essen, you are a member of the official Belgian Commission for War Crimes?
Q In this capacity you investigated into the events of which you speak? result of an inquiry which you made and a witness to which you heard yourself?
A That is something I wish to state here. It is the result of an official inquiry made by the Belgian War Crimes Commission, and with several witnesses heard under oath. by the Germans, and notably the attempt to undermine the morale, as well as traditional powers? one of the fundamental principles of the Belgian institution, which consisted of the separation of powers; that is to say, separation of the judicial, of the executive, and the legislative power. In numerous organizations which they created themselves, either through decree or in suggesting the creation of certain organizations to their collaborators, they always mingled the legislative and the executive powers. defending oneself, was very badly respected. And what is much more important is the fact that they took from an organization, which goes far back to the middle ages, their communal autonomy, a communal autonomy guaranteed to the people against any dangerous interference. I wish to speak of this; this is what happened.