The Nuremberg Trials (Vol.2). International Military Tribunal
of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and to Article 6 (b) of the Charter.
Particulars, by way of example and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases, are as follows:
In the Western Countries:
In France hostages were executed either individually or collectively; these executions took place in all the big cities of France, among others in Paris, Bordeaux, and Nantes, as well as at Chateaubriant.
In Holland many hundreds of hostages were shot at the following among other places: Rotterdam, Apeldoorn, Amsterdam, Benshop, and Haarlem.
In Belgium many hundreds of hostages were shot during the period 1940 to 1944.
M. CHARLES GERTHOFFER (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic) [Continuing the reading of the Indictment]:
(E) Plunder of public and private property.
The defendants ruthlessly exploited the people and the material resources of the countries they occupied, in order to strengthen the Nazi war machine, to depopulate and impoverish the rest of Europe, to enrich themselves and their adherents, and to promote German economic supremacy over Europe.
The defendants engaged in the following acts and practices, among others:
1. They degraded the standard of life of the people of occupied countries and caused starvation by stripping occupied countries of foodstuffs for removal to Germany.
2. They seized raw materials and industrial machinery in all of the occupied countries, removed them to Germany and used them in the interest of the German war effort and the German economy.
3. In all the occupied countries, in varying degrees, they confiscated businesses, plants, and other property.
4. In an attempt to give color of legality to illegal acquisitions of property, they forced owners of property to go through the forms of “voluntary” and “legal” transfers.
5. They established comprehensive controls over the economies of all of the occupied countries and directed their resources, their production, and their labor in the interests of the German war economy, depriving the local populations of the products of essential industries.
6. By a variety of financial mechanisms, they despoiled all of the occupied countries of essential commodities and accumulated wealth, debased the local currency systems and disrupted the local economies. They financed extensive purchases in occupied countries through clearing arrangements by which they exacted loans from the occupied countries. They imposed occupation levies, exacted financial contributions, and issued occupation currency, far in excess of occupation costs. They used these excess funds to finance the purchase of business properties and supplies in the occupied countries.
7. They abrogated the rights of the local populations in the occupied portions of the U.S.S.R. and in Poland and in other countries to develop or manage agricultural and industrial properties, and reserved this area for exclusive settlement, development, and ownership by Germans and their so-called racial brethren.
8. In further development of their plan of criminal exploitation, they destroyed industrial cities, cultural monuments, scientific institutions, and property of all types in the occupied territories to eliminate the possibility of competition with Germany.
9. From their program of terror, slavery, spoliation, and organized outrage, the Nazi conspirators created an instrument for the personal profit and aggrandizement of themselves and their adherents. They secured for themselves and their adherents:
(a) Positions in administration of business involving power, influence, and lucrative prerequisites;
(b) The use of cheap forced labor;
(c) The acquisition on advantageous terms of foreign properties, raw materials, and business interests;
(d) The basis for the industrial supremacy of Germany.
These acts were contrary to international conventions, particularly Articles 46 to 56 inclusive of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and to Article 6 (b) of the Charter.
Particulars, by way of example and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases, are as follows:
1. Western Countries:
There was plundered from the Western Countries from 1940 to 1944, works of art, artistic objects, pictures, plastics, furniture, textiles, antique pieces, and similar articles of enormous value to the number of 21,903.
In France statistics show the following:
Removal of raw materials:
Coal, 63,000,000 tons; electric energy, 20,976 Mkwh; petrol and fuel, 1,943,750 tons; iron ore, 74,848,000 tons; siderurgical products, 3,822,000 tons; bauxite, 1,211,800 tons; cement, 5,984,000 tons; lime, 1,888,000 tons; quarry products, 25,872,000 tons; and various other products to a total value of 79,961,423,000 francs.
Removal of industrial equipment: total—9,759,861,000 francs, of which 2,626,479,000 francs of machine tools.
Removal of agricultural produce: total—126,655,852,000 francs; i.e. for the principal products:
Wheat, 2,947,337 tons; oats, 2,354,080 tons; milk, 790,000 hectolitres, (concentrated and in powder, 460,000 hectolitres); butter, 76,000 tons, cheese, 49,000 tons; potatoes, 725,975 tons; various vegetables, 575,000 tons; wine, 7,647,000 hectolitres; champagne, 87,000,000 bottles; beer 3,821,520 hectolitres; various kinds of alcohol, 1,830,000 hectolitres.
Removal of manufactured products to a total of 184,640,000,000 francs.
Plundering: Francs 257,020,024,000 from private enterprise, Francs 55,000,100,000 from the State.
Financial exploitation: From June 1940 to September 1944 the French Treasury was compelled to pay to Germany 631,866,000,000 francs.
Looting and destruction of works of art: The museums of Nantes, Nancy, Old-Marseilles were looted.
Private collections of great value were stolen. In this way, Raphaels, Vermeers, Van Dycks, and works of Rubens, Holbein, Rembrandt, Watteau, Boucher disappeared. Germany compelled France to deliver up “The Mystic Lamb” by Van Eyck, which Belgium had entrusted to her.
In Norway and other occupied countries decrees were made by which the property of many civilians, societies, et cetera, was confiscated. An immense amount of property of every kind was plundered from France, Belgium, Norway, Holland, and Luxembourg.
As a result of the economic plundering of Belgium between 1940 and 1944 the damage suffered amounted to 175 billions of Belgian francs.
(F) The exaction of collective penalties.
The Germans pursued a systematic policy of inflicting, in all the occupied countries, collective penalties, pecuniary and otherwise, upon the population for acts of individuals for which it could not be regarded as collectively responsible; this was done at many places, including Oslo, Stavanger, Trondheim, and Rogaland.
Similar instances occurred in France, among others in Dijon, Nantes, and as regards the Jewish population in the occupied territories. The total amount of fines imposed on French communities adds up to 1,157,179,484 francs made up as follows: A fine on the Jewish population, 1,000,000,000; various fines, 157,179,484.
These acts violated Article 50, Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.
(G) Wanton destruction of cities, towns, and villages, and devastation not justified by military necessity.
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