The information relating to this is given by the French administration in a chart which I shall summarize briefly and which I submit as Document Number RF-264. The value of requisitions made in the three French departments of the east—requisitions not paid for by the Germans—reaches the sum of 27,315 million francs.
To conclude the question of the departments in the east, I should like to point out to the Tribunal that my colleague, who will discuss the question of Germanization, will show how the firm, Hermann Göring Werke, in which the Defendant Göring had considerable interests, appropriated equipment from mines of the large French company called the “Petits-Fils de François de Wendel et Cie.” (See Document RF-1300.)
I now come to the Section 8, concerning miscellaneous levies.
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 of the same sort as those in other parts of the country?
M. GERTHOFFER: Mr. President, it is similar; there is only one difference, 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 labor. I shall conclude my summary, however, by pointing out to the Tribunal that French economy suffered enormous 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 million 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 enterprises 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. While 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. He only succeeded, however, in bringing forth unwittingly 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 Göring particularly. He writes as follows:
“According to the directives formulated on 5 July 1940 by the Reich Marshal and Delegate of the Four Year Plan, concerning the existing legal situation, the Armistice Convention does not give us rights in the economic domain of the unoccupied parts of France, not even when loosely interpreted.”
A little farther on he admits blackmail with regard; to the demarcation line with these words (Page 3 of the translation):
“The Pétain Government manifested from the beginning a strong desire to re-establish rapidly the destroyed economy by means of German support and to find work for the French population in order to avoid the threat of unemployment, but above all to reunite the two French zones, separated by the demarcation line, into a unified economic and administrative territory. They were at the same time willing to bring this territory into line with German economic direction, under French management, thoroughly reorganizing it according to the German model.”
Then Hemmen adds:
“In return for considerable relaxations regarding the demarcation line, the Armistice Delegation has come to an agreement with the French Government to introduce into French legislation the German law, relating to foreign currency.”
Farther on, concerning pressure, on Page 4, and Page 7 of the translation, Hemmen wrote:
“Thereby the automatic rise of prices aggravated by the unchecked development of the black market was felt all the more strongly, since wages were forcibly fixed.”
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—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 defense 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 percent in France, while in Germany it increased only 7 percent. Now, gentlemen, it is, I am quite sure, through the increase in the cost of living that one measures the impoverishment of a country.
Last of all, on Page 4, and this is my last quotation from the Hemmen report, he admits the German crime in these terms:
“Through the removal, for years, of considerable quantities of merchandise of every kind without economic compensation, a perceptible decrease in substance had resulted with a corresponding increase in monetary circulation, which had led ever more noticeably, to the phenomena of inflation and especially to a devaluation of money and a lowering of the purchasing power.”
These material losses, we 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.
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 particularly, many persons died solely because of undernourishment and because of lack of heat. It was estimated that people require from 3,000 to 3,500 calories a day and heavy laborers about 4,000. From the beginning of the rationing in September 1940 only 1,800 calories per day per person were distributed. Successively the ration decreased to 1,700 calories in 1942, then to 1,500, and finally fell to 1,220 and 900 calories a day for adults and to 1,380 and 1,300 for heavy laborers; old persons were given only 850 calories a day. But the true situation was still worse than the ration theoretically allotted through ration cards; in fact, frequently a certain number of coupons were not honored.
The Germans could not fail to recognize 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 fat content amounted to only 3 percent. 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, and the fact that frequently neither schools nor hospitals were heated, one may easily understand what the physical condition of the population was.
Incurable sicknesses 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