Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 2, p. 57
		20 Nov. 45 Afternoon Session THE PRESIDENT: Will the Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic continue the reading of the Indictment. M. MOUNTER: In Lorraine, civil servants were obliged, in order to retain their positions, to sign a declaration by which they acknowledged the "return of their country to the Reich", pledged themselves to obey without reservation the orders of their chiefs and put themselves "at the active service of the Fuhrer and of National Socialist greater Germany." A similar pledge was imposed on Alsatian civil servants, by threat of deportation or internment. These acts violated Article 45 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of international law, and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.) Germanization of occupied territories. In certain occupied territories purportedly annexed to Germany the defendants methodically and pursuant to plan endeavoured to assimilate those territories politically, culturally, socially, and economically into the German Reich. They endeavoured to obliterate the former national character of these territories. In pursuance of these plans, the defendants forcibly deported inhabitants who were predominantly non-German and replaced them by thousands of German colonists. Their plan included economic domination, physical conquest, installation of puppet governments, purported de jure annexation and enforced conscription into the German Armed Forces. This was carried out in most of the occupied countries especially in Norway, France (particularly in the Departments of Upper Rhine, Lower Rhine, Moselle, Ardennes, Aisne, Nord, Meurthe and Moselle), in Luxembourg, the Soviet Union, Denmark, Belgium, and Holland. In France in the Departments of Aisne, Nord, Meurthe and Moselle, and especially in that of the Ardennes, rural properties were confiscated by a German state organization which tried to work them under German management. The landowners of these holdings were dispossessed and turned into agricultural laborers. In the Departments of Upper Rhine, Lower Rhine, and Moselle the methods of Germanization were those of annexation followed by conscription. 1. From the month of August 1940 officials who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Reich were expelled. On September 21st the expulsion and deportation of population began, and on November 22d, 1940 more than 70,000 Lorrainers or Alsatians were 57
		Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 2, p. 57     Last modified: October 10, 1998 Copyright © 1998 The Mazal Library and The Holocaust History Project. All rights reserved. Technical/administrative contact: webmaster@holocaust-history.org Find a typo? Let us know.