Born 29 December 1913, in Hagen in Westphalia, at present in Nurnberg, Fuerther Str. 185, IV, had been told that it is an offense for me to give a false affidavit. I state on oath that my statement is true, and has been given to be submitted as evidence to the Military Tribunal No. 2, in the Palace of Justice, Nurnberg, Germany. My father was a protestant priest for over forty years in Hagen in Westphalia. During the war I and all my children were for a long time with my parents. At that time of the year we received an Ukrainian servant girl as a servant, and her name was Dussia. That girl was at first very reserved and hostile, but in the course of the years she became more and more attached to my family, and after the collapse in 1945 she protected our family to the best of her ability, and she gave us food. That girl, once we had won her confidence told us that she had been given orders to kill Germans during the uprising; that she would kill us first because we had been decent, and not torture us first. The same remark had been made quite independently to families known to us by other Russian girls; Dussia, received the same food as we did. She was allowed to go out and visit her Russian girl friends. Signed; Frau Ursula Milch. The above signature of Frau Ursula Milch, in Hagen, Westphalia, Florerstr. 223, at present Nurnberg, Fuertherstr. 185-IV, was given before Dr. Friederich Bergold, is hereby certified and testified by me, Nurnberg, 19 March 1947. Signed: Dr. Friederich Bergold."
Your Honor, this shows that there was a propaganda campaign, among the foreigners from abroad to threaten the Germans with such statements. The French did it, and the Poles and the Russians, and they did it in the very same way. I myself came across such a case, that the German population were fooling depressed about this, anyway, while they were suffering from the bombing and shelling. You must understand that the German people went through more difficulties than any other nation in the world. It is not purely a propaganda lie on the part of the German National Socialist Party, but these statements have really been made.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Bergold, do I understand you to say seriously that the German people were depressed because of the chatter of a little servant girl?
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, the German people had the feeling at the time that the war will be lost, and they were afraid of the foreigners everywhere who made these remarks. You must understand if you are being bombed night after night, and had to stay in cellars, and see so often that which we are recollecting, and you have fire all around you -- you were spared that experience in America; you are to be graceful to your creator for that. Your country's attitude is so weak that these statements excite you rather heavily.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Do you suppose that any one of these servant girls or anybody else that was brought into Germany had not suffered that harrowing experience which you are now so graphically describing? They know just as much as the Germans did about bombing and fire and collapse and destruction, did they not -- these Russians, the Ukranians, the Italians, the French, the Poles? They received it long before Germany did -- the English. How you can make that comparison is a little mysterious.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, you must take only what these people had the hope of once to be victorious, and our people were afraid to lose the war, and to face the eternal mystery. That is a great difference.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: There is no difference. The others had the same fear, and in fact, suffered even more. However, that is beside the issue.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, now I come to NOKW 413, Exhibit No. 150. This is the question of using and employing three-thousand concentration camp inmates. You told us yesterday that these people probably were employed on the airfield Rechlin. Is that the same airfield where the witness Koenig had been working?
A. I assume that from What I have heard so far, because constructions were being made there, and, as Koenig said, building workers from a concentration camp were working.
Q. Witness, is it true, as Koenig said, that you gave orders to give supplementary food rations to these concentration camp inmates?
A. Yes. The commander of the testing station came to see me and told me that he did not think that the food was sufficient. As the testing station had its own agricultural assignment, I ordered that sufficient food should be given from those agricultural products.
Q. Now, I come witness, to NOKW-272, Exhibit 151. This is the incident in Wernigerode, where you suggested that foreigners be given only half their food supplies and only supplementary rations if they worked. Witness, you told us yesterday that the simple food ration cards were given in Germany to people who did not do any work. How did you mean that? Did not work where?
A. Did not work in the industry. That is to say, the employees of my ministry were given these small rations, as were the rest of the population. I myself was mobile, and I could claim the bigger ration, but as I was in Berlin, it was quite impossible for me for reasons of my own moral attitude to claim the bigger rations there, so I was also given the smaller ration. I expected all other soldiers in the RLM to do the same so that there would be no discrimination among the masses of the population. Workers, on the other hand, in the industry, according to the heaviness of their work, were given supplementary rations of a larger or a smaller extent, as the case may be.
In this case, in the case of the Italian prisoners, for instance, some of whom did not wish to do any work, my suggestion was to give them the normal portion -- that is to say, the same as I had myself -and the supplementary rations for heavy work. That is to say, in the foundries, near Rautenbach where work was prescribed as very heavy because people worked in front of the hot stoves; this work was always regarded as being very heavy, and these people were given more than double rations compared with the normal al rations.
That was true only as long as they really did the work. If they did not, they could not claim more rations. I do not think that was inhumane, but a just proposition.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, throughout the war I myself received normal rations, although I worked ten hours a day. Intellectuals were not given more food in Germany. Intellectuals did not count for much in Germany at the time.
THE PRESIDENT: Intellectuals don't win wars.
DR. BERGOLD: Too true, too true. I want to add, your Honors, that by order of the Control Council at present in Germany, a person is only given a food ration card as long as he works, unless the doctor certifies that he cannot do any work of in the case of a woman who has many children and must stay at home to look after them. Every time a German wants to have his ration card today, he must submit a certificate from the labor Office that he does do some work.
Q. Witness, I come now to NOKW-242, Exhibit 152. That is a letter from the Inspector of Armament of the Wehrkreis VI, dated Muenster, 13 October 1941. It says that Field Marshal Milch had told the Inspectorate that Director Berchert of the Bochum Union had been given a special task by Goering. You told us yesterday that at the time you were not the GL.
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have any possibility to give such an order within the sphere of your position as Inspector General?
A. No.
Q. You said your name had been misused?
A. That is what I assume.
Q. Yesterday you said there were many examples. Can you give us one example, at least?
A. One day the commandant of an airfield, a man called von Gatow, buttonholed me. My aircraft were actually stationed there. He told me that an aircraft had landed from Greece and that there were things for me aboard, according to the statement made by a Ministerial Councillor who had been on board and who was in the Reich Air Ministry.
Every aircraft which landed from abroad was always supervised very carefully to find out whether they had food and merchandise for the black market aboard. It was forbidden to buy things abroad unless you did it through official channels who had special permits for this. I had never given orders of that sort, and first of all I ordered that the aircraft and all its crew should be arrested and that the legal officer of the airfield should interrogate them at once. It was shown then that this Ministerial Councillor had bought carpets in Greece for his own purposes, and in order to get away with it as far as customs were concerned, he simply misused my name. The crew, who wore ignorant of this, were released at once. The Ministerial Councillor was arrested and by courtmartial -- not my courtmartial but somebody else's -- was given two and a half years in prison because he had bought things abroad. A particularly incriminating circumstance was quoted as the fact that he had misused the name of a superior officer. I know ten or twenty cases of that sort.
Q. Thank you very much. Witness, I now come to NOKW-260, Exhibit 154. This is the decree by Goering of 4 September 1943 concerning the Planning Office with the Plenipotentiary for armament Tasks. Witness, I asked you once before whether that Planning Office, apart from preparing the meetings of the Central Planning Board, had other tasks?
A. A large number of tasks. The majority of its tasks were contained in the Speer Ministry in his capacity of Minister for Armament and also in his capacity as Plenipotentiary for Armaments in the Four Year Plan. Both these things were not connected with the Central Planning Board. This was only to save personnel and to avoid having to establish an office of its own.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I now submit another exhibit, Number 55. Unfortunately, it has not been translated into English, although it was supplied to the Translating Section on Monday. I shall submit it later on in English. I cannot read it all now. These are two charts concerning Speer's tasks, on the basis of his own decrees, according to Document 1510-PS:
also, a 2235 a chart showing Milch's tasks as GL; also a list of the collaboration between Speer and the GL and GL and the industry.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, these lists have been drawn up by you, have they not?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you say also that they are correct?
A. Yes, Perhaps I can repeat what has been said on the organization of the Speer Ministry. It comes exactly from the documents submitted by the Prosecution. What I have put down about the GL are the very same organizational parts which are put on the same basis as those of Speer, and the third is the difference in the question of collaboration between Speer and the GL. I can also testify on oath that it is correct in every detail.
DR. BERGOLD: I would ask permission, Your Honors, to submit the English translation later on. The translation section does not work very quickly.
Q. I shall now come to Exhibit 155, NOKW 180. I shall read from this a passage which the prosecution has not noted. In that conference Goering says that you suggest the best thing would be the Luftwaffe calls up these people, gives them leave, and from that moment onward nobody can interfere with their business. "Then these people are my soldiers and what I do as their C. in C., as how much leave I shall give them, is my business. Then this man is really safe for us. As soon as he would be called up again he puts on his blue coat and says, '"I have been a soldier for a long time and I am really here on leave.'" Is that in connection with your attempt to retain German workers in the air industry?
A. Oh, yes. That was the basis, for instance, for the 40,000 I talked about. I was very glad to have been able to persuade Goering to do this.
Q. Witness, then I come to page 6013 of the same document. You may recall that the prosecution put to you that Goering had demanded Italians should be beaten up, and you also recall that according to the records you answered, "I gave the order that they may be beaten if they don't work but I also permitted to have Italians who are caught doing sabotage, to be sentenced to death." You recall that the President, His Honor Judge Toms, put to you whether you told Goering lies here. I shall now ask you, witness, did you have a chance at all to order this sentence?
A. No.
Q. Did Goering know that he was the only man in the Luftwaffe who was in a position to order a death sentence?
A. Oh, yes, because he himself had given the order.
Q. Witness, why if Goering knew that did he not tell you too, "You are lying"?
A. I am convinced that it was not said like that. I do not recall this passage. Had I said it it would have been a lie and then Goering, in my view, would have told me at once, "Don't exaggerate.
You are in no position to do so. You have not the right to do so. "
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, may I remind you that a number of witnesses said here on oath, particularly General Roeder, that Goering by giving express orders reserved the right to give death sentences. That passage, therefore, must be wrong. In the course of this day after the recess I shall show through some other means how wrong the records were.
I assume that the court wishes now to take its recess?
THE PRESIDENT: We were rather late getting started, Dr. Bergold. I think we will run until eleven o'clock.
DR. BERGOLD: Very well, your Honor.
Q. Witness, I now come to the big document, Exhibit 134, NOKW 195. This is a conference with Goering on 28 October 1943. I am very glad that this document has been submitted because there a number of statements made by the defendant which are borne out. Witness, according to the record Goering says at first the Reichsmarshall is dealing with the question of the discrepancies in figures of assigned workers. He says he drew the Fuehrer's attention to this problem and noted the numbers of workers. "If I take out last month, the figure has remained the same although millions of persons, recently recruited workers, and women worker's, have been assigned to German economic life." The Fuehrer replied that he couldn't understand this at all. "I refer to what Field Marshall Milch reported to me about the industrial situation, what Milch and the Industrial Council reported to me." He then said, "In any case it is quite clear that the figures remain the same. Once before we looked for our Easter eggs in Berchtesgaden." By that he means the correct figures, and at that time we couldn't get a very clear result. He says that the Fuehrer thinks that with so many millions of workers the air armament would need at least five million workers, and under these circumstances should have at least five million. Speer points out that in the armament of the army they had started with 1.6 million and now they had 1.9 million. Milch replied that the question was when we began two years ago, how things were then and what we have today and how we stand, today.
The conclusion is reached that it cannot be done below 200,000. There is a loss here, an additional figure which is far below 100,000. Witness, is that the same which you told the Court the other day when you told about the false figures supplied by Sauckel?
A Yes.
Q You continue, "It is very interesting to see how the figures were before Hitler's. As we thought, they did remain on the same level from January to August. From January to August the Russian figures sank from 22,000 to 19,000, and the others from 48,000 to 28,000. In the summer the prisoners of war became loss, from 70,000 to 10,000." Is that correct in this form? Was that your opinion at the time?
A That was how the statistical department supplied the figures to mo, because without our knowledge people were taken away from us and sent somewhere else.
Q Goering then says, "As I think about the figures which were given to me by Sauckel and see what the effects are in my case, then I ask myself, where are we heading for. Then I always told you there were fluctuations. This word is supposed to explain everything away which exists. I cannot understand that. It is not possible to that extent." I refer to a statement by Heyde, von der Heyde. He says, "We gave 71,000 men to the Wehrmacht this year." Is that a large figure compared to the air armament?
A Here we not only had the pure figures of the air armament but also additionally all that which the OKW gave to us as far as statistical figures were concerned. That started on a figure of roughly two million. We ourselves had only 300,000. In this case the 71,000 listed here refer to the two million and that is not a large figure.
Q Thank you. Then further down you say after a calculation of Speer of recent date, "We have a total figure of 1,832,000 employees. 817,000 are Germans, that is to say, 44 percent; German women, 25 percent; male foreigners, 23.
5 percent; female foreigners, 7 percent." Shortly before that the Reichsmarshall said, "In any case up to now I haven't found one enterprise which has told me it had more than 50 percent foreigners." Then you say these percentages apply only very generally. In certain cases of production the figures are different, is that so?
A Yes. The percentage quoted by you just now are the average. That applies to everything but within the armament the distribution was different in some cases.
Q Goering then says, "That is very interesting. I see with joy that German people are still twice as strep* as the foreigners and thus everything is kept going."
THE PRESIDENT: That will be a good place to stop.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribural is again in session.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, a little earlier I had mentioned the fact that newly submitted exhibits had not yet been submitted in the English translation. Naturally, far be it from me to accuse the translating branch. I know that for technical reasons it could not possibly have been translated in so short a time. The only reason why I said it was because I wanted to apologize for the fact that it was not yet available in the English.
Q. (By Dr. Bergold) Witness, in this document Goering states that "The decisive thing is that in the management of the camps a personnel strength is being maintained which if free would provide the most outstanding help for us in the field of labor or other military necessities.
Is this connected with any of your efforts , I mean towards the reduction of the excessive personnel numbers in the German Army.
A. Yes. Through these means I was trying to free German personnel which were not in fighting units, but which were being used for duty in stores and dumps, and I was trying to got these people free for work.
Q. Witness, you then state, and I quote: "The following considerations are to be made; how much power does the Army have today without Air Force and without Navy? I assume eight million men, and how many of those are actually fighting at the front? Certainly not much more than twenty-five to thirty per cent."
Would this reflect your correct point of view?
A. This was the point of view which I had reported to Hitler as early as the 5th of March 1943.
Q. Goering, a few passages later, says: "But in spite of all this, there remains the great discrepancy between the number of laborers actually supplied by Sauckel and that figure submitted, by the Central Planning Board.
Once again this is connected with the fact that Sauckel's figures were untrue; is that right?
A. Yes, the statement made by him, and it means that the figures could not be correct.
Q. Then follows a passage which says as follows: "Milch submits to the Reichsmarshal a program which, by means of graphs of aircraft production in Germany, comparing it with that in America, Great Britain and Russia."
Would this be the confirmation of the fact that at that time here too you were trying to got Goering to increase fighter production?
A. Yes.
Q. And then you state: "The enemy is proposing to reduce, not to increase, production further although he could, because in the air armament program they have first, place."
What does that actually mean?
A. I was showing Goering the increasing production figures, I think, in connection with the American aircraft, and this graph then does not rise so steeply, only rather more gradually. What I am trying to say with this is that they are now slowing down because they have enough. They could actually increase if they wanted to because they have the facilities for it and the facilities they have because in these countries air armament is occupying first priority. I was trying to point out that here in Germany air armament only occupied seventh place.
Q. Goering then goes on to say, "The Americans can't climb into space with this thirty millions, either." And he goes on to say, "If I look at the conscription figures of the Americans, well, they aren't arriving yet, are they. And that is quite different and there will be quite different crashes on the American side, too. The Americans aren't having any less difficulties than we are having."
Would this be expressing his view that he doesn't believe you?
A. Yes; the submission of these latest graphs -- which were always brought up-to-date -- was carried, out to Goering by me very often. During every report I had them in my briefcase, and Goering didn't believe these figures, and kept saying that difficulties over there were just as great as they were in our country, and that they were also only 'boiling with water'".
Q. Later on you are saying, I quote Milch: "May I report in this connection that requests which I have made are aiming at an increased fighter production program." And Goering follows by saying that, "We may possibly reduce fighter production in favor of bomber production because I simply can not forego these bombers -- at least not those six hundred. I would rather forego eight hundred fighters."
Is that, once again, part of his resistance against you?
A. Yes.
Q. Near the end you are saying in this connection, "I am thinking of vital questions connected with these confronting us, namely, whether our home country in the following Spring is being sufficiently defended when the American bombers arrive. And Goering says, "And if every town in Germany is razed to the ground, the German people will nevertheless survive. Certainly this would be terrible, but the German people lived before there were towns." Would this once again be a final refusal to your proposals?
A. At least on that day everything that I was indicating to him--everything that I was aiming at in connection with the increase of defense -- was being turned down by him.
Q. I now pass on to the last passages in this document, page 73 in the German, and Speer is saying: "At this one point the 1-8 million reserved in this department 2243 are the best people in the industry"; and you are saying, "Yes, they are the best -- as far as quality is concerned."
You are talking about people of reserved occupations. What are they exactly?
A. "UK" means: people who, according to their ages and their state of health, ought to have been competent soldiers; who, however, for reasons of professional work rendered by them, were allowed to remain in industry, a position which could at any time be reversed.
Q. In Germany they always had the two letters UK?
A. Yes.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I beg you -- and this is of great importance -- to look at Document NOKW 245, Exhibit 157, and I should like you look at page 5408, where the defendant is supposed to have stated: "The best workers we have are the concentration camp people. They are our elite.
This meeting was on February the twenty-second, 1943, and, Your Honors, yesterday the witness testified that he could not have said this since he has only, always, referred to free German workers as being the best. Your Honors, quite obviously it has been established here how wrongly these minutes were being prepared; obviously the stenographer heard the word "UK" and he put the letters "UK" there, couldn't read, his own handwriting any more and wrote "KZ" -Concentration Camps.
In the Document, Exhibit 134, NOKW 195, the witness is expressly speaking of the fact that the best workers were those who were designated UK, so that obviously here, once again, a serious error has crept into the record. The stenographer put down letters which he put down quickly couldn't read any more and which he then, with a great deal of imagination renamed into the letters "KZ" referring to concentration camp inmates. Whereas, obviously the defendant spoke of the elite of German workers, namely those who had been put "UK" and. whom he referred to before Goering as his elite during the same year.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Who are the UK ? What does UK mean?
DR. BERGOLD: UK means unabkoemmlich -- people who can not be spared, people, who in Germany are reserved...in comparison to those people who are liable to be called up as soldiers. Someone who was UK could not be called up as a soldier.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Then they would necessarily be Germans -- would they not?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, necessarily Germans. People who are UK must be free German workers who are unabkoemmlich, as we call it, in Germany -- reserves for the Wehrmacht.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: How do you explain that in that very same paragraph in which you eulogize, as you say, the German workers, he refers to twenty thousand of these German workers as pigs?
DR. BERGOLD: Those are different ones; those are the shirkers.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: But they are still Germans?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, Germans, too; yes.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: They were net members of the Master Race -- these?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: You mean they were -- they did belong to the Master Race -- these twenty thousand pigs?
DR. BERGOLD: They were Germans, yes; but those were people who defendant has described as traitors, traitors to their country, and the elite, on the other hand, are those with UK, the very good German workers. And the stenographer put UK -- two letters -- and apparently afterward he couldn't read it any more, He could still see the K and decipher it, and made the K a Z -- concentration camp out of it.
This is proof of the fact that the witness was speaking the truth yesterday because in 1943 he could not have described to Goering these UK people as the elite and previously describe concentration camp inmates as elite. That wouldn't make sense.
THE PRESIDENT: And of course the pigs weren't elite.
DR. BERGOLD: No, no, no. No, certainly not. There are, gentlemen, decent and rotten people in every nation, in every nation in this world.
THE PRESIDENT: So it isn't a matter of race; it's a matter of persons, isn't it?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, a matter of the individual, your Honor, quite. I shall now turn to Exhibit 157 which I have just had in my hand. Your Honors, I am terribly, terribly pleased about that exhibit, and I'm so glad that for once the prosecution submitted a document which helped me and which supplied my little beat with fresh winds to sail since I had already been promoted captain by some highly spirited person yesterday afternoon.
I beg you to look at page 5407 of that exhibit. There Milch is stating, "Speer and I are of the opinion that he" - this is referring to Sauckel - "should, somehow be included in the Central planning Board so that apart from the material, labor allocation, too, would, be under our control because now there isn't any possibility of steering the situation."
Your Honors, I have spent many an hour to prove to you that the Central Planning Board had nothing to do with the actual allocation of labor or labor problems as such. The witness has stated the same to you under oath. A number of witnesses, Vorwald, Haortel, Eschenauer, Pandele and Schmelter have told you the same story. And now here in 1943 on the 22nd of February Milch is stating with great exactness the very thing which we are trying to prove. Sauckel ought to be included in the Central Planning Board, and only then would the Central Planning Board, aside from raw materials, also have labor allocation under its control, whereas up to then it had had no possibility to steer and to direct the situation.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, was Sauckel ever included in the Central Planning Board?
A No.
Q Would this passage correspond with your views which you have stated here to a full extent?
A Yes, we did want that influence, but we didn't succeed. Hitler refused it point-blank.
Q I consider that this is a key document with reference to the Central Planning Board. May I ask the prosecution if I may have the original of NOKW-252? Witness, I am having this put before you, and I should like you to check Sauckel's speech. There in this speech of Sauckel you will find passages marked with red containing certain entries on the second page, the first page of the take, and also on page 11 and on page 12.
A I've seen it.
Q Witness, these entries marked in red - are those yours? Do they originate from you?
A I believe not.
Q Witness, what was your custom if you were marking such passages?
A I would affix my initials, "Mi".
Q So that if you did mark anything in some such document then you'd make that red mark with pencil?
A Yes, because my adjutant sometimes marked certain passages with red pencil for me in order to draw my attention to those. I see in the first instances that - the first paragraph is put in parentheses. I couldn't imagine for what purpose this would serve. I certainly never did. that.
Q Thank you.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, in that case I have no further questions to put to the witness ?
A May I add one more thing? This letter sent, along by Sauckel is dated the 1st of April 1943, and he is writing to Field Marshal Milch. The following day, April 2nd, he sends the same letter to the State Secretary Milch. This appears to be an indication that he hardly knew rue at the time.
DR. BERGOLD: Now I have no further questions to put to this witness, and I beg your permission to call witness Reinecke.
MR. DENNEY: With reference to what Dr. Bergold just said about this other exhibit, I'd like to call the Court's attention back to the fact that I read it into the record yesterday and we have no quarrel with what he said at that time. He said he wanted to got Sauckel as a member of the Central Planning Board. That's all the statement says.
THE PRESIDENT: His point there, Mr. Denney, was that that indicates that Sauckel, the labor procurement man, up to that time was not a member of the Central Planning Board.
MR. DENNEY: Yes sir.
THE PRESIDENT: That's the emphasis he makes?
MR. DENNEY: Yes, sir.
RECROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. DENNEY:
Q Witness, you were a rated pilot; you had wings?
A Pilot's wings, yes.
Q Until the end of the war?
A Yes.
MR. DENNEY: No further questions.
THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE MUSMANNO): Dr. Bergold, I'm going to put some questions to the witness and I'll refer particularly to the last statement which you made regarding the inability or the lack of authorization on the part of the Central Planning Board to allocate workers.