Fortieth Day:
Tuesday, 22nd January, 1946
[Page 73]
(1) Spoliations in Tunisia.
The Germans went into Tunisia on 10 November 1942, and were
driven out by the Allied Armies in May 1943. During this
period they indulged in numerous acts of spoliation.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think that it is necessary to go into
details of the seizures in this part of the country, if they
are on the same sort of level as they were in other parts of
the country?
M. GERTHOFFER: Mr. President, it is similar; there is only
one detail, and that concerns the amount. I believe the
principle cannot be contested by anyone; therefore I shall
go on.
Gentlemen, I shall also pass over the question of compulsory
labour. I shall conclude my summary, however, by pointing
out to the Tribunal that French economy suffered losses from
the deportation of workers, a subject which was discussed by
my colleague. We have calculated the losses in working hours
and we estimate - and this will be my only remark - that
French economy lost 12,550,000,000 working hours through the
deportation of workers, a figure which does not include the
number of workers who were more or less forced to work for
the Germans in companies in France.
If you will permit me, gentlemen, I shall conclude this
presentation concerning France by giving you a general
review of the situation, and I shall refer once more to
Hemmen, the economic dictator who actually ruined my country
upon the orders of his masters, the defendants.
In the first five reports submitted, despite their
apparently technical nature, the author shows the assurance
of the victor who can allow himself to do anything. In the
last report, of 15 December 1944, at Salzburg - the only one
I shall refer to - Hemmen sought visibly, while giving his
work a technical quality, to plead the case of Germany, that
of his Nazi masters and his own case, but he succeeded,
unwittingly, only in bringing forth an implacable accusation
against the nefarious work with which he was entrusted. Here
are some short extracts, gentlemen, of Hemmen's final
report.
On Page 1 of his report, Page 2 of the French text, he
implied the co-responsibility of the German leaders, and of
Goering particularly. He writes as follows:
[Page 74]
Last of all, on Page 4, and this is my last quotation from
the Hemmen report, he admits the German crime in these
terms:
If the other German crimes, such as deportations, murders,
massacres, make one shudder with horror, the crime which
consisted of deliberately starving whole populations is no
less odious.
In the occupied countries, in France notably, many persons
died solely because of undernourishment and because of lack
of heat. It is estimated that people require from 3,000 to
3,500 calories a day, and manual labourers about 4,000. From
the beginning of the rationing in September 1940 only 1,800
calories per person per day were distributed. Successively
the ration decreased to 1,700 calories in 1942, then to
1,500, and finally fell to 1,200 and 900 calories a day for
adults and to 1,380 and 1,300 for manual labourers; old
persons were given only 850 calories a day.
But the true situation was still worse than the ration
theoretically allotted through ration cards, for, in fact,
frequently a certain number of coupons were not honoured.
The Germans could not fail to recognise the disastrous
situation as far as public health was concerned, since they
themselves estimated in the course of the war of 1914-1918
that the distribution of 1,700 calories a day was a regime
of slow starvation, leading to death.
What aggravated the situation still more was the quality of
the rations which were distributed. Bread was of the poorest
quality; milk, when there was any, was skimmed to the point
where the percentage of fat content amounted to only 3 per
cent. The small amount of meat given to the population was
of bad quality. Fish had disappeared from the market. If we
add to that an almost total lack of clothing, shoes and fuel-
frequently neither schools nor
[Page 75]
Incurable diseases such as tuberculosis developed, and will
continue to extend their ravages for many years. The growth
of children and adolescents is seriously impaired. The
future of the race is a cause for the greatest concern.
The results of economic spoliation will be felt for an
indefinite period.
THE PRESIDENT: Could you tell me what evidence you have for
your figures of calories?
M. GERTHOFFER: I am going to show you this at the end of my
presentation. It is a report of a professor at the Medical
School of Paris who has been specially commissioned by the
Dean of the University to make a report on the results of
undernourishment. I am to quote it at the end of my
statement. I am almost there.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
The results of this economic spoliation will be felt for an
indefinite length of time. The exhaustion is such that,
despite the generous aid brought by the United Nations, the
situation of the occupied countries, taken as a whole, is
still alarming. In fact, the complete absence of stocks, the
insufficiency of the means of production and of
transportation, the reduction of livestock and the economic
disorganisation, do not permit the allotting of sufficient
rations at this time. This poverty, which strikes all
occupied countries, can disappear only gradually over a long
period of time, the length of which no one can yet
determine.
If, in certain rich agricultural regions, the producers were
able, during occupation, to have, and still do have a
privileged situation from the point of view of food supply,
the same is not true in the poorer regions nor in urban
centres.
If we consider that in France the urban population is rather
more numerous than the rural population, we can state
clearly that the great majority of the French population
was, and still remains subject to a food regime definitely
insufficient.
Professor Guy Laroche, delegated by the Dean of the Faculty
of Medicine of Paris to study the consequences of
undernourishment in France as a result of German levies, has
just sent a report on this question.
I do not wish to prolong my explanation by reading the
entire report. I shall ask the Tribunal's permission to
quote the conclusion, which I submit as Exhibit RF 284-bis.
I received the entire report only a few days ago. It is
submitted in its entirety, but I have not been able to have
50 copies made of it. Two copies have been made and are
being submitted. Here are Dr. Laroche's conclusions:
Nevertheless, without overestimating, we may well
believe that, including patients in institutions, the
loss of human life from 1940 to 1944 amounted to at
least 150,000 persons. We must add a great number of
cases, which were not fatal, of physical and
intellectual decline, often incurable, of
underdevelopment of children, and so forth.
We think that we can draw from this presentation, which
unfortunately is incomplete, three conclusions:
(2) Everything happened as if they had wished to
organise, in a rational
[Page 76]
(3) Unweaned children and young children received a
normal ration it is probable that this privileged
position can be explained by the fact that the Nazi
leaders hoped to spread their doctrine more easily among
beings who would not have known any other conditions of
life and who would, because of a planned education, have
accepted their doctrine, since they knew they could not
expect to convince adolescents and adults through use of
force."
This report, gentlemen, has attached to it a photograph,
which you will find at the end of the document book. I
permit myself to hand it to you. The unfortunate beings that
you see in that picture are not the victims of a
concentration or reprisal camp. They are simply the patients
of an asylum in the outskirts of Paris who fell into this
state of physical weakness as a result of undernourishment.
If these men had had the diet of the asylum prior to
rationing, they would have been as strong as normal people.
Unfortunately for them they were reduced to the official
rationing and were unable to obtain the slightest
supplement.
Let not my adversaries say that the German people have
reached any such degree of starvation.
I should reply that, in the first place, this is not
correct. The German was not cold for four years; he was not
undernourished. On the contrary, he was well fed, warmly
clothed, warm, with products stolen from the occupied
countries, at the expense of the minimum which was necessary
for the existence of the peoples of these countries.
Remember, gentlemen, the words of Goering when he said "If
famine is to reign, it will in any case not reign in
Germany."
Secondly I should say to my adversaries, if they made such
an objection that the Germans and their Nazi leaders wanted
the war which they launched, but had no right to starve
other peoples in order to carry out their attempt at world
domination. If today they are in a difficult situation, it
is the result of their conduct, and they seem to have no
right to plead the famous sentence: "I did not want that."
I have concluded my explanatory remarks. If you will permit
me, I will finish in two minutes the whole of this
presentation, by reminding the Tribunal, in a few words,
what the premeditated crime was, of which the German
administrators have been accused from the economic point of
view.
The application of racial theories and theories of living
space was to engender an economic situation which could not
be solved and which was to force the Nazi leaders to war.
In a modern society, because of the division of work, of its
concentration and of its scientific organisation, the
concept of national capital takes on more and more a primary
importance, whatever may be the social principles of its
distribution between nationals, or its possession in all or
in part by States.
Now, national capital, public or private, is constituted by
the joint effort of labour and of savings of successive
generations.
Saving, or the putting in reserve of the products of labour
as a result of privations which were freely consented to,
must exist in proportion to the needs of the concentration
of industrial enterprises of the country.
In Germany, a country highly industrialised, this
equilibrium did not exist. In fact, the expenditures,
private or public, of this country surpassed its means;
saving was insufficient. The establishment of a system of
compulsory savings was formulated only through the creation
of new taxes, and has never replaced true savings.
[Page 77]
After Hitler's accession to power her policy became more
definite. She isolated herself in a closed economic system,
utilising all her resources for the preparation of a war
which would permit her - or at least that is what she hoped
- to take, through force, the property of her Western
neighbours, and then to turn against the Soviet Union in the
hope of exploiting, for her own profits, the immense wealth
of that great country.
This is the application of the theories formulated in "Mein
Kampf" which had as a corollary the enslavement and then the
extermination of the populations of conquered countries.
In the course of the occupation, the invaded nations were
systematically pillaged and brutally enslaved, and this
would have permitted Germany to obtain her war aims, that is
to say, to take the patrimony of the invaded countries, and
to exterminate their populations gradually, had the valour
of the United Nations not freed them.
Instead of becoming enriched from the looted property,
Germany had to sink into a war, which she had provoked,
until the very moment of her collapse.
Such actions, knowingly perpetrated and executed by the
German leaders contrary to International Law, and clearly
contrary to the Hague Conventions, as well as the general
principles of penal law in force in all civilised nations,
constituted War Crimes, for which they must answer before
your High Jurisdiction.
Mr. President, I should like to add that the French
Prosecution had intended to present a statement on the
pillage of works of art in the occupied countries of Western
Europe. But this question has already been discussed in two
briefs of our American colleagues, briefs which seem to us
to establish beyond any question the responsibility of the
defendants. In order not to prolong the hearing, the French
Prosecution feels that it is its duty to refrain from
presenting this question again, but we remain respectfully
at the disposal of the Tribunal in case in the course of the
trial they feel they need further information on this
question.
The presentation of the French Prosecution is concluded. I
shall give the floor to Captain Sprecher of the American
Delegation, who will give a statement on the responsibility
of the defendant Fritzsche.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: May it please the Tribunal, I notice that
Dr. Fritz, the defendant's attorney, is not here, and, in
view of the late hour, it would be agreeable if we hold it
over until tomorrow.
THE PRESIDENT: It is five o'clock, so we shall adjourn in
any event now.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 1000 hours on 23 January 1946)
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(Part 8 of 8)
[M. GERTHOFER continues] "According to the directive lines formulated on 5 July
1940 by the Reichsmarschall in charge of the Four-Year
Plan, concerning the existing legal basis, the Armistice
Convention does not give us rights in the economic
domain in the part of France which is not occupied, not
even when loosely interpreted."
A little farther on he admits blackmail in regard to the
boundary lines, with these words, Page 3 of the translation:
"The Petain Government manifested from the beginning a
strong desire, on the one hand, to rapidly re-establish
the destroyed economy by means of German support, and on
the other hand, to find work for the French workers in
order to avoid the danger of unemployment, but above all
the strong desire to see these two French zones, which
were separated by this boundary line, once more joined
together, to bring about an economic and administrative
unity. It declared itself, at the same time, willing, to
a great extent, to direct this unity under French
management but in accordance with the German economic
system, and to reorganise it completely according to the
German model."
"In order substantially to mitigate the demarcation
line, the Armistice Delegation has come to an agreement
with the French Government to introduce German law in
monetary matters into French legislation."
Farther on, concerning pressure, on Page 4 and Page 7 of the
translation Hemmen wrote:
"Thereby the prices, which rose automatically, together
with an unhindered development of the black market, were
felt all the more strongly, because the salaries
remained fixed by force."
I pass over the passage in which Hemmen speaks of French
resistance. However, I should like to point out to the
Tribunal that, on Page 13 and Page 29 of the translation,
Hemmen tries to show, through financial evaluations and most
questionable arguments, that the cost of the war per head
was heavier for the Germans than for the French. He himself
destroys with one word the whole system of defence which he
had built up, by writing at the end of his bold calculations
that "from autumn, 1940, to February 1944, the cost of
living increased 166 per cent in France while in Germany it
increased only 7 per cent." Now, gentlemen, it is, I am
quite sure, through the increase in the cost of living that
one measures the impoverishment of a country.
"Through the removal, for years, of considerable
quantities of property of every kind without economic
compensation, a perceptible decrease in substance had
resulted, with a corresponding increase in monetary
circulation, which had led evermore noticeably to the
phenomena of inflation, and especially to a devaluation
of money and a lowering of purchasing power."
These material losses, one may say, can be repaired. Through
work and saving we can re-establish, in a more or less
distant future, the economic situation of the country. That
is true, but there is one thing which can never be repaired,
the results of privations upon the physical state of the
population.
"We see how great was the crime of rationing, which was
imposed by the Germans upon the French during the
occupation period from 1940 to 1944. It is difficult to
give exact figures for the number of human lives lost
due to excessive rationing. We would need general
statistics, and these we have been unable to establish.
The report is signed by Professor Guy Laroche.
(1) The German occupation authorities deliberately
sacrificed the lives of patients in public institutions
and hospitals.