[Note: The characters in brackets, eg, (2233-N-PS) refer to the official document numbers included in the series Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression.  A list of legal references and documents relating to Seyss-Inquart is on pages 1004-1014.  For information on the referencing of Internet sources see Chapter 4 of S D Stein Learning, Teaching and Researching on the Internet. Addison Wesley Longman 1999-published Nov.1998]

Error Submission Form

Individual Responsibility of Defendants

Artur Seyss-Inquart

[Nuremberg Tribunal Charges]

Part IV

Part I
Part II
Part III

Participation in Conspiracy to Commit Crimes Against Humanity

Austria
Poland
The Netherlands

E. SEYSS-INQUART PARTICIPATED IN THE CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AS SET FORTH IN THE INDICTMENT.

(1) Austria.

(a) Persecution of the Jews. While Seyss-Inquart was the

Reich Governor of the Province of Austria, laws were issued against Jews and against those who opposed the Nazi Regime politically. As has been shown, this usually took the form of decrees providing for the sequestration and confiscation of the property of these so-called "enemies of the State."

In the early days of November 1938, pogroms against the Jews took place all over the German Reich, including Austria. These pogroms resulted from the killing of von Rath, a diplomatic of-ficial at the German Embassy in Paris, by a young Jew named Grynszpan. Jewish synagogues, homes and shops were smashed and destroyed by fire. Large numbers of Jews were arrested, jailed, or placed in concentration camps. A partial report as to what occurred during the 9th and 10th of November 1938 is found in a letter written by the Reich Commissar for the Reunion of Austria with the German Reich, Josef Buerckel, to Goering, dated 18 November 1938. This report reveals that the fire department was not utilized to control the flames consuming Jewish homes, stores, shops, and synagogues. The school children in Vienna were given an opportunity to participate. in the demonstration "according to the order." Buerckel's report also discloses that . enormous quantities of valuables, jewelry, and merchandise were stolen from the Jews during these pogroms. (2237-PS)

A more detailed description of what happened in Vienna during the 9th and 10th of November 1938 is found in the stenographic report of a meeting on "The Jewish Question" under the chairmanship of Goering (1816-PS).

This meeting was held on 12November 1938. It appears from this report that altogether 101 synagogues were destroyed by fire, 76 synagogues demolished, and 7,600 stores ruined in the Reich, including Austria. In this same meeting, a member of the official family of Seyss-Inquart (Reich Governor of the Province of Austria) related the efficiency with which the Civil Administration in Austria dealt with the so-called "Jewish Question." This official was Fischboeck, and in his verbal report to Goering he said:

To "Your Excellency, "In this matter we have already a very complete plan for Austria. There are 12,000 Jewish artisans and 5,000 Jewish retail shops in Vienna. Before the National Revolution, we had already a definite plan for tradesmen, regarding this total of 17,000 stores. Of the shops of the 12,000 artisans about 10,000 were to be closed indefinitely and 2,000 were to be kept open. 4,000 of the 5,000 retail stores should be closed and 1,000 should be kept open, that is, were to be Aryanized. According to this plan, between 3,000 and 3,500 of the total of 17,000 stores would be kept open, all others closed. This was decided following investigations in every single branch and according to local needs, in agreement with all competent authorities, and is ready for publication as soon as we receive the law which we requested in September; this law shall em-power us to withdraw licenses from artisans quite independ-ently from the Jewish Question."( 1816-PS)

To this Goering replied:

"I shall have this decree issued today."(1816-PS)

The stenographic report of this meeting further reveals that the solution of the so-called "Jewish Problem" adopted in Austria by Seyss-Inquart and his official family was most efficient from the viewpoint of Nazi objectives. The plan adopted in Austria became a model for the entire Reich.( 1816-PS)

A report of the Bureau of Statistics for the Provinces of Aus-tria on the Jewish population in Vienna and in Austria, dated 15. December 1939, shows that after the Nazi conspirators assumed power in Austria, the Jewish population in that country decreased approximately 100,000. (1949-B).

While the reasons for the decreases in the Jewish population of Austria would seem to be obvious, yet tangible evidence of at least one reason is provided by Seyss-Inquart himself in a letter writ-ten by him to Himmler, dated 4 November 1939. In substance Seyss-Inquart, while Deputy Governor General of the Polish Occupied Territory, stated that an official in Cracow had informed him that there was a plan to send Jews from Vienna to Poland, whereupon he gave instructions that such action should be carried out only in cooperation with the SD and by the SD, since he would not permit wild-cat actions. (3398-PS)

(b) Persecution on political grounds.

Seyss-Inquart has sup-plied evidence that the SS in Austria was responsible for the mur-der of Chancellor Dolfuss on 25 July 1934. (3425-PS)

Seyss-Inquart has also supplied evidence that his predecessor as Chancellor of Austria, von Schuschnigg, had been confined in a concentration camp after his forced resignation from office. (8254-PS)

(2) Poland.

The manner is which Polish Jews were treated and given "special handling" by the Nazi conspirators, although a matter of common knowledge, was described in detail in the "Black Book of Poland." This document tells of the establishment of special reservations for the Jews as well as ghettos in various parts of Poland. The report 'also relates how the Jews were starved and exterminated in large numbers. A great portion of these crimes were committed in Poland by the Nazis while Seyss-Inquart occupied the position of Deputy Governor General of the Polish Occupied Territory. (2613-PS)

During the time that Seyss-Inquart held this high office in the Nazi government of Poland, a special decree was issued by Frank, dated 26 October 1939, which required compulsory labor for Jews domiciIed in the General Government of Poland. The decree was to take effect immediately and the Jews were to be formed in forced labor groups. The execution of the decree was placed in the hands of the Higher SS and Police Leaders.( 2613-PS)

(3) The Netherlands.

Seyss-Inquart, in his capacity as Reich Commissar of the occupied Dutch territory, bears full individual responsibility for the execution in the Netherlands of the Nazi program of persecution of Jews. Acts against the Jews authorized, directed, or condoned by Seyss-Inquart, which constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined in Article 6 (b) and (c) of the Charter, included : stigmatization; disfranchisement; denial of civil rights, personal liberty, and economic freedom; religious and cultural persecution ; use of organized "spontaneous violence" against persons and property of Jews; ghettoization ; starvation; enforced labor; enslavement; mass deportation, and annihilation.

The intentions of Seyss-Inquart with respect to treatment of the Jews is a matter of record. In a speech before a gathering of all workers and trades of the NSDAP at Amsterdam on 13 March 1941 he left no doubt as to where he stood on the Jewish question.

He said:

"The Jews are the enemy of national socialism and the national socialistic Reich. From the moment of their emancipation, their methods were directed to the annihilation of the common and moral worth of the German people and to re-place national and responsible ideology with international nihilism. The fatal meaning of Judaism became completely clear to the German people during the years of the world war. It was really they, who stuck the knife in the back of the German army which broke the resistance of the Germans, and in the year 1918, it was they who wanted to dissolve and decompose all national tradition and also moral and religious beliefs of the German people. The Jews for us are not Dutch-men. They are those enemies with whom we can neither come to an armistice nor to peace. This applies here, if you wish, for the duration of the occupation. Do not expect an order from me which stipulates this, except regulations concerning police matters. We will beat the Jews wherever we meet them, and those who join them must bear the consequences. The Fuehrer declared that the Jews have played their final act in Europe, and therefore they played their final act."( 3430-PS)

Following his assumption of office in the Netherlands on 29 May 1940, Seyss-Inquart, pursuant to the authority vested in him as Reich Commissar of the Netherlands by the Fuehrer decree of 18 May 1940, systematically promulgated decrees designed to implement the Nazi program of persecution and elimination of Jews. He promulgated a law which prohibited the Jewish ritual slaughter of animals in the Netherlands Occupied Territories, thus making it impossible for devout orthodox Jews to live in accordance with their religious dietary laws.( 2705-PS)

Other anti-Semitic decrees of a like nature, all of which were signed by Seyss-Inquart and published in the Verordnungsblatt fuer die besetxen niederlandischen Gebiete(VOBL), may be summarized as follows:

Publication Date and VOBL No.	Summary of Subject Matter
3333-PS, Verordnungsblatt, No. 33, p.546, 26 Oct 1940	Order to register all businesses belonging to Jews, joint stock corporations including either one Jewish partner or one Jewish member in their Board of Directors, or those of which more than 25% of the capital stock belong to Jews or those in which half of all votes are to be exercised by Jews, or in general, businesses which in fact are placed under predominatingly Jewish influence. Section 4 defines the quality of a Jew. Property situated abroad is to be embodied in the declaration of registration. Failure wilfully of declaration is punished by imprisonment not exceeding 5 years and by a fine not exceeding 100,000 gulders or either of these penalties, while the same due to negligence entails an imprisonment not exceeding one year or a fine not exceeding 10,000 florins; in addition confiscation of the property concerned may be ordered.
3334-PS, Verordnusgsblatt, No. 42, p. 701,27 Dec 1940.	Prohibition to employ German citizens or persons, of cognate blood in Jewish households under a penalty not exceeding one year imprisonment and a fine of 10,000 guilders or either of these penalties.
3323-PS, Verordnungsblatt, No. 6, p. 19, 1.3 Jan 1941	Registration of all persons of part or full Jewish blood. Sec. 2 defines as a Jew any person one of whose grandparents was a full-blooded Jew. Any grandparent who belonged or belongs to the Jewish religious community is considered as such. Failure to register entails an imprison-ment not exceeding 5 years and the confiscation of property (Sec. 10).
3325-PS. Verordnungsblatt, No. 6, p. 99, 14 Feb 1941. 2112-PS, Verordnungsblatt, No. 34, p. 665, 16 Aug 1941.	Limitation of registration of Jewish students in Dutch universities and colleges. Obligation to register real estate, mortgages and real property belonging to Jews, other than farming estates and lands regulated by a previous ordinance. Power granted to the Dutch administration of real property to take over directly or through persons appointed for the purpose, the management of Jewish real property, with the right to alienate it in part or in whole.
3326-PS, Verordnungsblatt, No. 39, p. 785, 20 Sept 1941.	Freezing of property belonging to Jews who have emigrated from Holland which is located in Holland.
3334-PS, Verordnungsblatt, No. 44, p. 846, 23 Oct 1941.	Prohibitions to employ a non-Jew in households headed by a Jew or where a Jew is a member of the family, whether permanently or temporarily but for an unbroken term of more than four weeks. Any contract contrary to this provision is inoperative. Penalties for the employer: imprisonment up to one year and a fine up to 10,000 florins.
3328-PS, Verordnungsblatt, No. 44, p. 841, 23 Oct 1941.	No Jew can exercise any profession and trade without authorization from the administrative authorities which may refuse it or set up special conditions for its exercise. Adminstrative authorities may order the determination or the liquidation of any employment contract concerning a Jew. Any employer may terminate a contract with a Jew by giving notice on the first day of any calendar month if the general legal provisions of the contract provide for a longer term of notice, or if the contract is to expire normally at a date after 31 Jan 1942. An indemnity ranging from one to six times the monthly salary of the dismissed Jew may be, under certain circumstances, allocated as a settlement of all claims against the employer.
3329-PS, Verordnungsblatt, No. 47, p. 901, 25 Nov 1941.	Exclusion of Jews from Dutch Cham-ber of Arts in which membership is compulsory for all those active in the field of sculpture, architecture, artisan arts, music, literature, theater, fllm industry and the press. Prohibition for a Jew or a person related to a Jew to be a member of an association affiliated with the Chamber of Arts, to found or to take part in the foundation of such an association or to establish a foundation or to take part in its establishment or to benefit directly or indirectly from its property where such associations or foundations are affiliated with the Chamber of Arts. Penalty: not exceeding 5,000 florins.
3325-PS Verordnungsblatt, No. 11, p. 211, 1 May 1942.	Exclusion of Jews from the Dutch Arbeitsfront (N. A. F.).
3336-PS, Verordnungsblatt, No. 13, p. 239, 23 May 1942	Compulsory written declaration by Jews of claims of any kind of which they are beneficiaries to be made at banking firm Lippman, Rosenthal & Co., Amsterdam. Titles and other documents proving the claims are to be delivered to the bank at the time of the declaration, all rights to such claims being vested in the above mentioned bank. The debtor can liberate himself only in the hands of the bank and by so doing is released. The declaration embodies also rights on property or chattels real, participations as in corporations and partnerships; reversions, expectancies. Collections of all kinds of art objects, art articles, articles of gold, platinum, silver, as well as polished or rough di-amonds, semi-precious stones and pearls, belonging in part or in whole, legally or "economically" to a Jew, must be delivered to said bank, with exception of wedding rings and those of a de-ceased husband, siIver watches, used table silver, provided that each person belonging to the family of the owner may keep only a cover consisting of 4 pieces, a knife, a fork, a spoon and a dessert spoon; teeth-fillings of precious metals.

A full recapitulation of the crimes perpetrated against the Jews by the German civil occupation authorities through the instrumentality of orders, decrees, and laws is contained in the statement of the Netherlands Government Commissioner for Repatriation. (1726-PS)

The above statement is also evidence of the fact that in February 1941 the first mass deportation of Jews from the Netherlands took place. On that occasion 1000 Jews were arrested and within a few months sent to Buchenwald and/ or Mauthausen. Subsequently their ashes were returned to their relatives in Holland, against a payment of 75 florins for each. Deportation continued until September 1943, when the last of the Jews composed of the Jewish Council were sent to Westerbork (Holland). Of 140,000 registered "full" Jewish Netherlanders, 117,000 were deported to the East. (l726-PS)

Seyss-Inquart Nurmberg Charges Part III