Before reading this article, I sincerely invite you to click "follow", not only can have a good experience, but also have a different sense of participation, thank you for your attention!
preface
As far as the administration of the occupied territories of Western Europe was concerned, the Germans at first more or less pretended to act in accordance with the principles laid down in the Hague Convention. This may seem strange in light of the approach they later employed.
Violation of the Hague Convention
Admittedly, they even say that since there is no formal peace treaty between them and the States concerned, and usually no armistice agreement, "relations between States" are "regulated only by general international treaties", such as the Hague Convention. In particular, they indicated their right to administer the occupied Power in accordance with article 43 of the Hague Convention, which provides that when the authority of the legitimate regime has been transferred to the occupying Power, the Occupying Power has the right to take all possible measures to restore and ensure public order and security, subject to absolute obstruction, to respect the laws in force in the occupied territories. The Germans argued that this "adds no obstacle to the restructuring of public life": "As long as there are no insurmountable obstacles, the executive branch needs only to act in accordance with the laws of land warfare." ”
Later, when their violations of the Hague Convention became well known, they argued forcefully that the changes in the nature of war that had taken place since the signing of the Convention in 1907 had rendered the Convention obsolete. According to one author, although the drafters of the Hague Convention considered war to be primarily a conflict between rival armies, with only occasional contact with civilians, "modern warfare affects entire peoples and all sectors of life".
As a result, the affairs of the civil administration in the occupied territories have become more complex than before. They must now deal with administrative issues and must intervene in all aspects of civilian life — "because this war is a war in general". However, even the Germans could see that this specious inference was not enough to justify the large-scale annexation of other countries' territories after 1939. In order to disguise this aspect of German policy, they then said, "the administration did not consider these areas to be 'occupied zones' within the meaning of the Hague Convention from the outset, although the occupying regimes in other areas (including 'non-Western') areas were essentially based on the Hague Convention's principle of military occupation." ”
This argument seems to suggest that even the administration of the Eastern region is governed by international law and practice. If we do the same, we completely ignore the purpose set out by Germany for the policy of occupation in that area. For example, according to official claims, in the General Viceroyalty, the purpose of the German occupation was:
To increase and control agricultural production to the greatest extent possible in order to ensure a food supply for the German people. For the local population engaged in important war work, sufficient food rations could be made and the surplus delivered to the armed forces and Germany itself;
(ii) to make the local labour force exclusively engaged in important wartime work, and to place at the disposal of Germany the labour not required for this work;
(iii) to strengthen the eastern border areas by increasing the Germanic component in general within the region, in particular by redistributing settlements and moving Germanic peoples from other areas;
(d) to ensure that the Viceroyalty becomes a transit zone for goods destined for the Eastern Front; 5. Recruit soldiers from among the local population to fight Bolshevism.
Whether Germany's occupation policy is legitimate
It is clear that when such a plan is developed, the principles of international law must be put to the back of mind. Thus, when it came time for the plunder of the occupied territories of the USSR, the pretense of trying to rule "according to the law" soon came off. Here, it is stated that "since the Soviet Union has collapsed, Germany is obliged to exercise all the powers and other sovereignty of government in the interests of the local population", so that the provisions of the Hague Convention cannot have anything to do with this. Thus, "all measures deemed necessary and appropriate by the German administration in carrying out this comprehensive task" are permissible.
Germany's administrative approach and policy shows that nothing is in line with the letter or spirit of the Hague Convention. For example, article 46 of the Hague Convention provides that the honour and rights of the family, personal life and private property shall be respected, but the entire SS planning for Hitler's Europe, including mass shootings and mass deportations and confiscation of property under the resettlement plan, was a flagrant violation of this article of the Hague Convention.
At the same time, they blatantly annexed large areas to Greater Germany, installed purely political regimes under the supervision of the Nazi Party, and forced people to swear allegiance to Germany and Hitler, which also violated the principles enshrined in the Hague Convention. Other violations of the principles of the Convention include the application of German law, the establishment of German courts, the granting of German citizenship, the change of customs borders, the imposition of collective fines, and the seizure and shooting of hostages in the event of resistance.
There is a well-established principle in international law that the occupied territories should be subject to trusteeship pending the conclusion of a formal peace treaty. But German policy ignored this principle. Instead, they were thinking only of bringing these countries into the new order in the fastest way possible. They always seem to have given little thought to the possibility of eventually concluding a peace treaty, since the Nazi propaganda apparatus has always emphasized the tasks that these countries will ultimately undertake in the new order, rather than the conditions they can expect to obtain in the final peaceful settlement.
In 1942, Quisling and Raeder made efforts to bring about a peaceful settlement for Norway, but Hitler replied to them that he himself had no intention of concluding a formal peace treaty, even with countries that had established puppet regimes and were completely subservient to German interests. For, in his view, the final annexation must be the constant goal of Germany. This applies even to Denmark. Although Denmark was not initially under direct German control like other occupied powers, it would eventually become "a German province".
Resources
Stulkalt, ed., Germany, People's Order, Living Space, vol. 2, pp. 21 and 43.
R· R.H. Koch: "Der Aufbau derdeutschen Verwaltung in Norwegen", in Stulkalt, ed., Germany, the People's Order, Living Space, vol. 3, p. 40.
F· A. Sycks, ed., Yearbook of World Politics, 1942 (Berlin, Junkel and Dinhaupt, 1942 edition), p. 94.
Translated from Rammers' memorandum of 12 April 1943 [International Military Tribunal for Nuremberg, vol. 29, pp. 338 ff. (2200-S)]; See Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 4, p. 856.
International Military Tribunal for Nuremberg, vol. 26, p. 602 (1056-S); See Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 3, p. 710.
International Military Tribunal for Nuremberg, vol. 39, pp. 137ff (077-K).
International Military Tribunal for Nuremberg, vol. 14, p. 101.
Wehrman's report on his conversation with Lammers on February 20, 1943, United States Military Tribunal, Case No. 11, p. 660