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such circumstances subsequent to the confiscation constitutes conduct
in violation of the Hague Regulations.
These broad principles deduced
from the Hague Regulations will, in general, suffice for a proper consideration
of the acts charged as offenses against property under count two. But the
following additional observations are also pertinent to an understanding of our
application of the law to the facts established by the evidence.
Regarding terminology, the Hague Regulations do not specifically employ
the term “spoliation,” but we do not consider this matter to be one
of any legal significance. As employed in the indictment, the term is used
interchangeably with the words “plunder” and
“exploitation.” It may therefore be properly considered that the term
“spoliation," which has been admittedly adopted as a term of convenience
by the prosecution, applies to the widespread and systematized acts of
dispossession and acquisition of property in violation of the rights! of the
owners, which took place in territories under the belligerent occupation or
control of Nazi Germany during World Mar II. We consider that "spoliation" is
synonymous with the word "plunder" as employed in Control Council Law No. 10,
and that it embraces offenses against property in violation of the laws and
customs of war of time general type charged in the indictment. In that sense we
will adopt and employ the term spoliation in this opinion as descriptive of the
offenses referred to.
It is a matter of history of which we may take
judicial notice that the action of the Axis Powers, in carrying out looting and
removal of property of all types from countries under their occupation, became
so widespread and so varied in form and method, ranging from deliberate plunder
to its equivalent in cleverly disguised transactions having the appearance of
legality, that the Allies, on 5 January 1943, found it necessary to join in a
declaration denouncing such acts. The Inter-Allied Declaration [NI-11378,
Pros. Ex. 1057] was subscribed to by seventeen governments of the United
Nations and the French National Committee. It expressed the determination of
the signatory nations “to combat and defeat the plundering by the enemy
powers of the territories which have been overrun or brought under enemy
control.” It pointed out that “systematic spoliation of occupied or
controlled territory has followed immediately upon each fresh aggression.”
It recited that such spoliation: |
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" * * * has taken every sort of
form, from open looting to the most cunningly camouflaged financial
penetration, and it has extended to every sort of property — from works of
art to stocks of commodities, from bullion and bank-notes to stocks and shares
in business and financial undertakings. But the object is always the same
— to seize everything of value that can be put to the aggressors’
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