Q. But you did initial tho letter, didn't you?
A. I do not know. I do not recall it at all. It must have boon submitted to me because I put my i *I on it. As far as tho figures are concerned, I can't, of course, say anything about them. I see that prisoners of war wore mainly French and Russians, whereas the figures concerning Poland and Belgium were only a fraction of the actual prisoners, and, as far as I am concerned, I knew that those two nations will had prisoners of war in Germany.
Q. Did you get any other reports from Sauckel about labor?
A. I cannot recall a single one at this moment, but I may add, I did not say that Sauckel occasionally sent reports to me. I, personally, quite apart from the Central Planning Board, did not negotiate with Sauckel, because Sauckel did not come and see me, nor did I go to see him. I know certainly that I do not know where Sauckel's office was. When, if he had it in the Labor Ministry, where Minister Seldte was in office, all I can say is that I never went there.
Q. Where was Mehrenstrasse, M-E-H-R-E-N-S-T-R-A-S-S-E, in Berlin?
A. That was in central Berlin.
Q. Well, even if you didn't know where his office was, somebody found the address for you and sent the letter off?
A. Yes; of course. It was quite well known. Only I didn't know it, because I didn't take any interest.
Q. Do you notice the figure on there in English, "45,000"?
A. One moment. Yes, yes, I see here, 45,000.
Q. I suppose English are listed as employed foreign workers; isn't that it?
A. All I can imagine here is that perhaps they worked in the forests, or something like that, because if prisoners of war volunteered for that, they could be given work of that nature, but I know very well that in the armament industry of the Luftwaffe, there were no English workers, because I would have noticed that immediately when I paid a visit.
Q. And, as long as were on the subject of the Luftwaffe, you also say there no Americans that ever worked there?
A. No; never, because, under the Geneva Convention, which was concluded with those two countries, and which had not been renounced by a treaty, as in the case of France, it was forbidden.
MR. DENNEY: On the copy that Your Honors have, I believe it's apparent up in the upper lefthand corner of the first page, the defendants initials appear there, as well as on the original letter.
We are sending for the original and it will be apparent from that that the same pencil which was used on the outside was also used to make some marks on the inside of the speech.
Q. You have said that you were interested in seeing the foreigners who were working be well treated in order that they would produce as much as possible for the German war economy?
A. I did not send workers myself but whenever there was an opportunity we pointed out that these people would be well fed, because we said somebody who doesn't eat well cannot work well.
Q. And you certainly tried to give them as good treatment as you gave the German workers?
A. Yes, quite.
Q. And the 84-hour week had been ordered by you at the beginning of the war, had it not?
A. Not by me, but it was ordered quite generally at the time. The decision of how many hours should be worked was not within the power of the Air Ministry, but the office of labor Assignment. That was not Sauckel at that time, when war broke out, but the Reich Minister of Labor.
Q. How was that 84-hour week broken up? Was it seven 12-hour days or six 14-hour days?
A. Six days, eight hours. Each weekday eight hours as far as I know. Those were the normal working hours in peacetime. I believe there were factories which, on certain days apart from Saturday, worked eight hours and a half, and therefore on Saturdays closed down at lunchtime. Whether they were able to do so under their own initiative or by permission from the Ministry of Labor I am unable to say.
Q. Perhaps you did not understand my first question. Maybe the interpreters reversed the figures. Didn't you order an 84-hour week at the beginning of the war?
A. I was not in a position to order it.
Q. Well, in any event in the letter yesterday which Dr. Bergold submitted to you, which is NOKW-287, it appears on page 101 of Document Book 2-C, a letter addressed to the Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, General Plenipotentiary for Labor Assignment, the third paragraph, it says, "In the field of the Air Force industry I already ordered at the beginning of the war the 84-hour week for these sectors so that no further increase can be made with those working hours, for otherwise there would be an increase of illness which would bring about a further unwarranted weakening in the numbers of personnel."
Do you recall that?
A. No, there must be a mistake somewhere. At the beginning of the war I was not in that position, at the beginning of the war. An 84-hour week I think was quite impossible. I think it is cut of the question. I think that figure I recall vaguely from the time of the Jaegerstab and that is much too much. Nobody could work that long. And at the beginning of the war it is quite impossible that that existed.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Denney?
MR. DENNEY: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: I think this exhibit will have to be Number 133.
MR. DENNEY: 133? Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: The letter of George Scapini was 132.
MR. DENNEY: Yes, sir.
Q. (By Mr. Denney) Now, do you ever recall saying that you would put the German workers into concentration camps, the ones who did not work well?
A. When I talked about slackers, I referred to education by Himmler, but not of sending them into concentration camps, but Himmler had other training places for workers where such people who were disciplined to work were being trained by making their supplementary rations dependent on their production.
Q. Don't you recall that you asked that certain camps be set up to especially take care of these German workers who weren't doing well?
A. I said not that we should make a special camp, but they should go to the training camps which already existed and we could get them back from there. I do wish to emphasize here these are people, Germans, who did not do their duty towards their fatherland.
Such people I thought it was justified to educate them.
Q Did you know a man named Brueckner?
A Yes.
Q What was his job?
A He was with the chief of my planning office. Originally, as far as I know, ho came from the army and he took care of statistics and personnel questions.
Q Don't you recall asking him whether or not camps had been set up for these people?
A No, I can not recall that. I spoke with him very rarely because quite generally his chief reported to me; that is to say, the chief of the planning office.
Q Well, you knew around the middle of 1942, did you not, that Sauckel had brought a substantial number of foreign workers to Germany; as a matter of fact, over a million?
A. I am certain I did not know that at the time because Sauckel at that time had just taken over office and at that time I was not interested in those questions personally because I had quite enough to do as I had to direct armament by the end of 1941, and I could not interfere in all these very difficult questions of technical processes. I was unable at the time to see what these four thousand people who were on our records did and so forth. At first they were four thousand; later on they were two thousand four hundred people who worked. They work and write an awful lot and that makes it necessary to write many replies. Overworked as I was, I was unable to take note of everything; that would have teen quite impossible. I was quite glad if the things which reached me would be passed on to the people who had to work on it.
Q So you didn't know in the middle of 1942 that Sauckel had already brought over a million workers to Germany?
A No, I do not recall anything there. Sauckel may have said so; that's quite possible, but I did not recall it. I did not make note of it.
2088 a
Q. Now, what was your attitude on these foreign labor contracts? What did you think about then?
A. I never saw the contracts nor did I know them.
Q. Well, didn't you have something to do with extending these foreign labor contracts?
A. personally, certainly not. That we made a statement on that score, that they should be extended, for instance, is quite possible, but it was not our task to make contracts or extend contracts.
Q. Well, you don't know then whether or not there was anything that had to do with the compulsory extension of these contracts?
A. I am unable to recall a detail of that sort at this moment.
Q. You knew in 1942 that these concentration camp workers were available, didn't you?
A. As I said before, I don't recall that year. I don't think I knew that particular year.
Q. You knew that Himmler could deal with people outside the law, didn't you?
A. What he did and whether that was within or without the law I did not know as a positive fact, nor was I informed as to the type of people who were in concentration camps at the time. My sole knowledge comes from 1935.
Q. In other words, except for what you saw in 1935 and what you learned after the war, you did not know anything about who went into concentration camps?
A. I knew that they existed, of course. As I said, I only knew the names of those two. That there would be others, although I didn't know where or how, is quite possible. The term concentration camp was used quite often in Germany because it moved everybody. But I had no knowledge of the conditions there and what they looked like.
Q And you didn't know who went into them...?
A In my view, people who had opposed and offended against Germany's interests... That is to say, apart from criminal - in the legal sense; political prisoners.
Q Did you know that they sent foreigners to them?
A It had not come to my knowledge at the time.
Q You never knew that until after the war was over?
A I heard that after the war, yes. I didn't see it, but I only heard about it.
Q Do you recall at any time making a statement about shooting or beating or hanging workers, other than the ones that have already been testified to here in Court, either through statements or documents?
A I do not recall that at this moment, but it is quite possible, but in tho same sense as I did at the time.
Q How many people used to go to the Jaegerstab meetings?
A That depended, and varied. I can recall there were conferences of about twenty people. At the beginning there sometimes were less, usually, and sometimes there were more. When the conferences were held in Tempelhof, they were bigger , tho attendance was bigger. It is quite possible that perhaps it went up to fourty people, but at that time I seldom attended.
Q Well, at those general Luftzeugmeister meetings how many people were there?
A I should say between thirty and forty; there may have been a conference with more but that would have been about a special question. But there were a great many conferences attended by less than thirty people. I never counted them; I can only make an estimation. Also, there was a coming and going. Some people attended at first that left later on for their work, and others came in. The same applied, of course, to the Jaegerstab.
Q Now, about the prisoners of war. You said the only Italians that you recalled were some so-called Minis or Imis...
A No, at this moment I know of none else.
Q How many of those were there; do you recall?
A No idea. I never knew it.
2090 a
Q. Do you recall what the living conditions which you advocated were for these foreign laborers?
A. That depended, I suppose. When I paid visits and when I put questions to then the replies would show that everything was in order. But sometimes there were complaints from other sources that food was insufficient or that clothes weren't good enough --particularly, shoes were lacking; and there were cases when we parsed on a recommendation to correct these things.
Q. Yon don't ever recall tolling people that, or saying that the workers should sleep in the factories?
A. That had become necessary with the Jaegerstab as all the apartments had been destroyed and, actually, German and foreign workers lived in special rooms in the factory itself, provided always, of course, that the factory was still standing and was not destroyed. Whereas the dwellings and the hones of those people had been destroyed. In the Ministry, a largo part of our people slept in their offices because their flats in Berlin had been destroyed by bombs. That was quite a normal, if regrettable, state of affairs.
Q. You don't recall getting men from Himmler in 1943?
A. It is quite possible. At this moment I do not know what this is supposed to be about.
Q. Well, concentration camp people ...
A. Yes; but I mean, for what purposes; where was this? And to whom it was addressed?
Q. Well, it would have to do with something that you were interested in if you wore getting people from Himmler for the Air Force industry.
A. I am unable to say anything about this at this time because I don't know the process.
Q. Do you recall the orders that you gave in the event that there were any uprisings in the factories by these foreign workers?
A. I don't recall this at the moment, but I can well imagine that I would have taken very strong measures.
Q. Do you recall talking to Himmler about that?
A. I can't recall that, no. But it is quite possible because I myself, would have been unable to take stops myself. All I could do if I heard about 2091-A something --I could only pass it on, unless it had already been dealt with in the normal manner, which is the most likely thing.
Q. Do you recall a speech by Goering on the seventh of November, 1941, which is Document 1206, PS Exhibit 9, in evidence, which has to do with the employment of laborers in war industries?
A. I see that on that day there was a conference of the Four Years' Plan.
Q. Where was that held?
A. I am unable to tell you. Perhaps in the Reich Air Ministry because when Goering had a larger number of people he wanted to address, he needed our big halls; and then he used to come to the Reich Air Ministry.
Q. You have seen Exhibit 9, in evidence of the Prosecution, which are notes on the outline laid down by Goering in this meeting, have you not?
A. I don't recall it at the moment.
Q. Were you at this meeting?
A. I don't recall it. At that time I was not interested in that question yet; and from the list which is attached underneath, I see that none of my officials were present.
Q. Then you don't have anything in the notes that you have to indicate whether you were there or not?
A. No; there is nothing there. Whenever Goering came to the Ministry --which didn't happen very often--he usually came to see me first --the few times. Then, when he needed a room somewhere in the Ministry I used to accompany him to this place, but I did not remain with him unless it was a meeting which was in my sphere of tasks, which was the general military custom throughout Germany.
Q. Did you ever hear anything about the changing of exchange rates with reference to these foreign workers?
A. No, all that I recall is that sometimes there were complaints that there were difficulties with the offices concerned with that business, with the transfer of wages to the hone countries of the foreigners. I heard that occasionally, but that was not our task. I believe that one document I saw here shows that I am trying to do something about this; that what I said was that something should be done about it because these people should be helped.
MR. DENNEY: I have here a document which I shall read from. This is NOKW-195. We don't have the German copies of it yet, your Honor, and we will submit then this afternoon. I am just going to read from it now, Dr. Bergold. This is NOKW-195. It is a stenographic record of a discussion with the Reichsmarschall on 28 October 1943, held at noon at Karinhall. The subject is the allocation of manpower, the effects of the drafting of laborers. The participants arc rather an interesting list: the Reichsmarshall, Speer, Milch, Sauckel, General von der Heyde, Staatsrat Gritzbach, Dr. Groenner, Ministerial Director Hildebrandt, Landrat Berg, Colonel Biesing, Colonel von Brauchitsch, Director Frydag. The copy which we have is the fourth and bears the signature of the defendant on the outside.
Reading from page 6020 of the original:
"Milch: Interesting are the figures on the decrease of prisoners of war where one had believed they would remain stable. Between January and August the figure went down for the Russians from 22,000 to 19,000 and for the others from 48,000 to 28,000. In the summer the prisoners of war decreased from 70,000 to 48,000."
Then we go along twelve pages later at 6032 when Goering says:
"Here you report to me and to the Fuehrer: From 1 January to 30 September a total of 2,200,000 in manpower could be made available for armament production."
Sauckel interrupts: "But not for the first time."
Goering says: "Among which there were 770,000 prisoners of war. Through allocation 300,000 of these who have been drafted for armament and the armed services and those who left for other reasons were replaced. The labor for the most important armament industry was increased by 650,000, from 5,300,000 to 5,900,000."
Then over on page 6045 Goering says, "Then there is one more question which again belongs here and which in all seriousness must be discussed. Suppose that in the central sector of Holland between Arnheim, Utrecht, and Dortrecht I place at your disposal for three days 15,000 young German soldiers, recruits, who have been there eight days, together with their respective officer corps, for handling the executive, to catch the young Dutchmen. This would have to be carefully prepared, of course, Would you expect good results? It goes without saying that everything must be well organized in advance - transport to move then out, camps to receive them here far away from the Dutch frontier."
Sauckel: "Considering the Dutch population figures, that amounts to something. However, the same should be done in Poland and France."
Goering: "Naturally. After that has been done once, one has to modify the system for the second blow. Then the Dutch people will be no longer out in the streets on Sunday for pleasure promenades."
Speer: "Care should be taken now not to affect the protective industries which we have established there. Their workers are also out for walks on Sundays."
Goering: "First all the people must be brought together in a pen. Then they will be asked individually who works where. Then the men will be selected accordingly."
Sauckel: "We should like to set an example. However, I do not like to rely on this alone for the next year. I should like to ask that one have confidence in us that, reasonably speaking, we are doing things the right way. The factories which Speer has barred to us ---"
And then Goering interrupts: "Really I am not imposing, but when I constantly hear, 'I could do very much more if I only had the executive power', then I am ready to assist you, not permanently, but then for five days or one week, by putting my men at your disposal.
In France also we have training regiments, and the army too can arrange to make certain units available so as to make a big push."
Sauckel: "If I may be permitted to speak quite frankly, the conditions are as follows. All of our military commanders and all our general commissaries with the exception of Koch, the general governors, take the stand that in all of their regions the supreme law is tranquility and order. Also during the present era of war these German people still feel - after all, that is typically German - the inherent obligation of maintaining order in their country and of somehow protecting the local population."
Then they go on, and over here Goering replies to a statement by Sauckel in which says, "May I call attention to the following; That which makes things very difficult for me at the moment is the question of our currency. It is a fact that prices in France and in the entire West are very much out of proportion. If we bring the workers to Germany and according to German standards we pay them just as well as the German workers, that does not help then at all because their families living in the occupied territories can't buy anything with the money that the people transfer. I should like to ask you, Herr Reichsmarschall, to talk with Reichsminister Funk and with other competent officials so that under all circumstances and with all possible means the German Mark will preserve its purchasing power against the French franc just as it was done on the other side during the world war."
Reichsmarshall: "All we need to do is to fix the rate of exchange, just as was done at that time with the dollar, i.e., today the German mark equals 20 francs, tomorrow 23, then 27, then 40, and so forth, up to one million, or one billion. We have had all that. The same holds true for the guilder. One cigarette now costs in Holland 1.50 guilders; formerly it cost 10 cents. I merely have to say, 1.50 guilders equal 10 pfennig or one mark equals 15 guildiers."
Sauckel: "That would solve a big problem in the wage question."
Goering: "The same is done in Belgium. I shall schedule a discussion on that with Mr. Funk. With friendly nations it is more difficult; nevertheless, there, too, we have to do it."
Sauckel: "There is still something I should like to say. If this large-scale recruiting is carried into effect, even with coercion, it is nothing but compliance with laws which were promulgated there by their own governments, except that the governments declare they lack the executive power."
Goering: "That is always the excuse. I simply shall give them the executive power. Let me summarize it once more. We undoubtedly are agreed on the fact that what Sauckel brings to us here, and that which to us appears as stocking up, has been subject to a natural compromise and actually a greeter number of people was necessary to make up for the losses. If it had been impossible to obtain more labor, there would of , necessity have been a decrease merely by reason of the draft, the increased rate of disease during the war, deaths, etc. The decrease in prisoners of war should really be insignificant unless there are modifications. On the contrary, I should like to see that the prisoners of war who had been released, Norwegians and so forth, be taken again. Insofar as officers are concerned, this has been done to a certain extent. It was the greatest nonsense ever committed by us and for which nobody thanks us. We have made prisoners of entire armies and we let them go again. We do not get anything from Norway."
Sauckel: "No, even Russians are being taken there, also French specialists. The tasks there are much bigger than the population can cope with."
BY MR. DENNEY:
Q. Do you recall this meeting?
A. I recall that there was a meeting there, but the content I do not recall in detail because, one, it happened a long time ago, and, second, because that meeting had been preceded by a personal talk with Goering, which I described this morning, when a terrific argument occurred between Goering and me.
That was the day when Goering, after Hitler had turned him down in the formation of a new cabinet, made me responsible for his failure. Consequently I was very preoccupied and depressed therefrom. There were so many conferences during the war and so much was talked over by everybody that even somebody who had a better memory than I would have been unable to recall a thing like that because of the fact that these subjects were only hurriedly touched upon, as it were, first of all. Everybody tried, like Goering or Sauckel, to help in this very difficult situation.
Q. What was the difficult situation? The obtaining of labor?
A. No, that was the extremely unhappy military situation. Others had seen, too, that a different kind of effort would be necessary in order to get out of this war relatively unscathed.
Q. Do you, recall anything about Goering's little lecture on economy there, foreign exchange values?
A. From that mooting you mean? No, I do not recall that.
MR. DENNEY: I wonder if we could adjourn now for lunch, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn until 1:30.
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal Number 2 is in recess until 1330 hours.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1340 hours.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. DENNEY: If Your Honor pleases, I would like to assign number 134 for Identification to the Document 908-PS, which was read from to the witness, it being a letter from Frank, the Governor General of Poland, to Sauckel, dated 21 November 1943.
THE PRESIDENT: We have not had copies of this yet, have we?
MR. DENNEY: No, sir, not yet, nor has Dr. Bergold.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you be good enough to give us the document number again?
MR. DENNEY: The exhibit number will be 134, and the document number is 908-PS.
THE PRESIDENT: That is a letter from -
MR. DENNEY: Frank, the Governor General of Poland, to Sauckel, dated 21 November 1943. The addressee is Fritz Sauckel, the Plenipotentiary for Labor.
CROSS EXAMINATION -- Continued ERHARD MILCH -- Resumed BY MR. DENNEY:
Q. Witness, I believe you said you kept a diary?
A. A diary? You could not call it exactly a diary. I only took some short notes concerning my stay, and I took down a few notes which contained generally the most important part.
Q. That was lost, was it, or destroyed, when you were captured?
A. It has not been lost. I still have it here, after all.
Q. That is what you are referring to?
A. If I look up where I was at a particular day or what personalities I met, I mean I refer only to the most important questions, not to everything, and I can refer to it and see whom I was with on that day. Sometimes there is a table of contents, too, which is more detailed, according to the interest I had in those questions.
For instance, for 28 October, which you referred to a while ago, I only have the following: My dispute with Goering he had reported to Hitler; he had not obtained anything, and now he started to get rid of his bad humor on me, and now we have a short note again that there was a conference afterwards with Goering. That was in Karinhall. It went on for the whole day. It was one hour from Berlin by car. I noted down that Speer was there, that Sauckel was there, Grawitz, von Der Heide, and some others. There is no mention what subjects were discussed, but the attendance of Sauckel clarifies the matter for me. That is an example of how I would enter these notes in this book.
Q. Insofar as you recall, you were at that meeting on 28 October?
A. Yes, indeed. I have found it here in my book.
Q. Do you recall that we were talking about Exhibit 133, Document NOKW 352, in three parts: the letter from Sauckel to you, together with a copy of his speech made to the gauleiters on 5 and 6 February 1943 in Poson, and your reply to Sauckel? Now, on the prior queries with reference to this, you stated that you do not know whether you read it or not. Your initials appear on the outside of the speech and also on the letter from Sauckel to you.
A. Yes, I said that before; also, that in both instances I made my sign. That moans that I initialed it because it had been submitted to me, but that does not mean that I have read it or that I did not read it. It is quite obvious that I have not read the whole of the speech. I know that perfectly well, but I might have glanced through it. I really couldn't tell whether I have glanced through it, and a notation with a red pencil somewhere is no proof that I made it because that might have been done by the expert who sent it in to me in order to awaken my interest and stress this particular point. After all, I was not the only man to use a red pencil. This red pencil was used in other instances in my office, also, and in other offices.
Q. What do you toll the Court about it now, that you did read it or that you did not read it?
