In all these matters energetic interference must be made. I am of the opinion that there should be only two types of punishment in such cases; firstly, concentration camps for foreigners and, secondly, capital punishment."
Do you recall saying that?
A. I recall the following, that, indeed, there were several reports made through our intelligence service that such statements had been made by foreigners; that if we treated them well they would shoot us at once and torture us first. These were official reports which were available at the time and which we regarded as a danger signal.
Q. You continue: "If a certain number of such hostile elements are removed and the others are informed, they will then work better. Their love for us certainly won't become any greater; but neither will their hate, for that is already strong enough. In this respect, too, energetic interference must be made and in no case must the works put up with it. The best method to give one with a sledge-hammer to the person concerned; and I shall treat with distinction every man who docs something like that whenever he hears such stupid nonsense. We are living in a total war; and the workers must be told that they don't have to put up with anything. Now the question is whether or not the gentlemen believe on the whole that we achieve something worth mentioning about work and production in France."
Do you recall saying that?
A. No, I do not recall that. That, once again, is my well-known burst of temper. I simply let myself go.
Q. These are voluntary workers, I assume, that you are treating them this way?
A. It was never really my intention to do that. That is just one of my sayings which I used to make.
Q. Many of the witnesses have testified and I note on your direct examination that you were very careful to delete from the record any derogatory remarks that you made about Hitler, or Himmler, or Goering, or any of 2169 the other people.
A Only if my attention had been drawn to these statements. If something slipped out in my rage, I didn't even remember it myself.
Q Then you say that all these things were said when you were mad?
A Yes; and I was enraged here through the report which had been submitted to me, because our people were being threatened with death. That enraged me considerably; and I exploded.
Q Well, it doesn't seem to have been a very strange thing in the Third Reich. You and everybody else were threatening other people with death all the time.
A Who tells you this?
Q This comes from one of those German intelligence agencies that you are sure are telling the truth.
A I was convinced of that at the time.
Q The same people had told you that Poland attacked Germany and the same people had told you that France attacked Germany, I suppose?
A No, it wasn't the same people. They were entirely different departments and agencies. Political reports came through the progaganda machine whereas this one came from official agencies which had no cause to invent such things.
Q So the report, of the invasion of Poland so far as you a.re concerned was a political report; that wasn't a military affair?
A I never saw a military report about that. All I knew was the propaganda as broadcast by the radio and the press.
Q Did you hear Speer when he referred to the 190,000 Italian prisoners of war in Exhibit 147 in the meeting of September 22?
A I saw it just now in the document submitted to me.
Q Do you remember hearing him say that?
A I cannot remember that meeting any more; but it may well be.
Q The Italian armistice was hardly concluded in September of 1943, was it?
A. I cannot recall the date. I do not know it. But it must have been after Italy collapsed.
Q. The war with Italy was just barely over and now you are talking about splitting up 190,000 prisoners of war of your recent ally?
A. I do not speak of that myself.
Q. Speer spoke of it and you say you heard it?
A. Yes; I don't knew what that has to do with it. Italy had let us down and then again the Italians who were spoken against Mussolini were taken against it, and the other people who were concerned here.
MR. DENNEY: The next document is No KW 414, which we offer as Exhibit No. 149 for identification.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Mr. Denney.
MR DENNEY: Yes, sir.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: The last part of the statement objected to by the defendant as contained in Prosecution's Exhibit No. 148.
MR DENNEY: I meant to read that, Your Honor.
BY MR. DENNEY:
Q. At the end of this speech again talking about the French workers, you said: "But in the abstract; I see no difficulties in the way of getting 100,000 or 200,000 French workers to Germany, nor do I see any difficulties in the way of keeping them in order. If a case of sabotage occurs in one area, every tenth man in that area will be shot. Then such acts of sabotage would cease of themselves. The Western peoples are very much afraid of death, while it is a quite different matter with the Russians."
Do you recall saying that?
A. No, I don't recall. That was still part of my madness.
THE PRESIDENT: Then you were mad at nearly every meeting; were you not
THE WITNESS: Not in every meeting. No.
Q. I said; nearly every meeting?
A. NO, not ever that.
Q. We have been shown in a great number of examples where you have spoken immoderately, putting in midly, and you explain then by saying that you were infuriated.
A. There were more than three-hundred of such reports as part of the GL activities of the Jaegerstab; and that of the Central Planning Board; and each one of these copies had a large number of pages, I should say about one--hundred or more, and these things have been exacted here. Then I exploded. 2172
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
THE WITNESS: In this case, for instance, I mentioned once again if there are uprising, or sabotage, that was always the question whether any uprising, they would be allowed here, once the Allied armies would come closer to Germany that question in a great many departments of uprising would be combatted in all countries of the world with very strong measures.
Q. Well, the minute you got mad, or angry, you began talking about shooting people indiscriminately, and of beating them, and you immediately said that you had given orders to shoot people and to beat them, or that you would'give orders. Your anger always seemed to take that particular manifestation?
A. Yes, I say, that was true; the head of the factory exercised here a statement, that no facts of orders were being given.
Q. Yes, I know you have told us that you did not say that, that you had given the order, but threatened to give some more.
A. No order was given. The record must be incorrect from what I see of something wrong at the time. I know very well that no such order was ever issued.
Q. That is hard to understand, why you said that you had given such orders when it was not true?
A. I assume that from the text that the stenographer did not keep the text correctly, there were mistakes on every page.
Q. Then you did not say those things when you were mad, and if you did say them at all, then the stenographer is mistaken?
A. I can hardly imagine that even when I am mad I say something which is wrong, of which I should be convinced that it is incorrect, therefore I assume that.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, Mr. Denney:
BY MR. DENNEY:
Q. You speak in this particular exhibit of the differences between the attitude of the Easterners and the Westerners when they were killed, in the very last sentence?
A. Yes, that is understood there.
Q. If people had not been killed, how did you know about the reaction towards these deaths?
A. These are experiences I made in the First World War.
Q. So you are relying on that to make these statements?
A. That is how I know this.
Q. You say of these workers that all were volunteers, you heave made that a great point, and that they were better treated at your hands than they were at the hands of any one else. If that is so, one would expect that they certainly would not want to bite the hand that fed them?
A. All that is mentioned here is what should happen if there would be sabotage and uprising. It was never said that under normal conditions these things should be done, but only if the conditions were very acute. Happily that hardly applied in reality, and as long as the relations were good between the industry and our workers from abroad, always, however, instances are applied concerning, the welfare and good treatment and these cases here have only provided that.
Q. Well, you just said you had received intelligence reports that these threats were made.
A. Yes, from certain agencies, but that did not allow for conclusions as far as normal conditions were concerned. I blew up because I had just been given that report, and I said that if that should happen something must be done, that our industry must not put up with it.
Q. Well, how many people were normally at these meetings, 20 or 30, weren't there?
A. Yes, it changed a bit. There were some lists this morning of people who had participated and that must have been roughly 25 to 30.
Q. And the personnel who went to the meetings changed; the same people were not always there?
A. One part of them was always the same -- the chiefs of offices and the heads of departments and the ones immediately under the second heads. Then there were some people who attended only temporarily to give information of some sort. These were specialists for special tasks. The majority would usually be the same ones, apart from the ones who changed.
Of course, there were special conferences, as, for instance, the address given to the generals and to their chief engineers and so forth. On that occasion we went beyond the 25 or 30 limit but that size was a unique event. On that occasion we discussed only a very special subject, special questions in which these people were interested.
Q. Are you speaking about the speech to the Generalluftzeugmeister on 25 March 1944? You ought to know what you are speaking about. You raised the question.
A. I believe it was 31 March, not 25 March.
Q. You are talking about the Generalluftzeugmeister conference on 31 March, the one that was put in?
A. Yes, with the DVL pages attached. There was a large number of people taking part there, but I believe that was 31 March.
Q. That's right. Now, 149 for identification, which is NOKW 414.
This is a partial excerpt of a minute of November 30, 1943. Do you remember that you initials appear on the outside? Oh, I don't think you have an exterior page in this one. I withdraw the question. It is 7970 of the original and 7971.
The defendant is speaking: "The question is whether the material will be delivered from down there. My reflection is the following. The Italians have had a certain capacity which they themselves have not fully exhausted. If that is to be achieved, only one type of plane should be constructed down there. They have many skilled workers there while from us they are always withdrawn again. We cannot get these workers to Germany, or else another political and military leadership would have to exist down there. But for that, the preliminary conditions do not exist. They ought to be told: Either you work or starve. If they are starving they could be induced to cone to us. But as one does not have the power to let them starve, what I say to myself is: down there they will work. There are good workers in plenty there. The men are there, so is the capacity, and a large part of the necessary raw materials and accessories, which we cannot get to Germany in this quantity because we have no possibilities of transportation."
Do you recall saying that?
A. I do not recall those words in detail, of course, but I do know that the question of establishing steel factories in Italy or, as we had been ordered, production in Germany with Italian prisoners of war had been debated.
Q. Well, if you could have let them starve, you would have?
A. Starving is not mentioned here. The question is only that those who do work should be given ration cards. That ha.d been ordered by the Italian government but the Italian government was not strong enough to execute its own orders. In other countries - we, for instance, we were only given food if we worked for the fatherland. That was obvious in our case. In Italy, of course, it was no longer so.
Q. You are speaking of the Mussolini government?
A. Yes, I speak only of Mussolini, of course.
MR. DENNEY: That is 149 for identification, if Your Honor please. The next dccunent is NOKW 413, which becomes Exhibit 150 for identification. This is a partial excerpt of a meeting presided over by the defendant on 27 April 1943.
BY MR. DENNEY:
Q. Will you look at your notes and see whether or not they indicate that you were there?
A. Yes, they are my initials.
Q. I did not ask you about your initials. I asked you to see whether or not they indicate that you were present.
A. And I said yes.
THE PRESIDENT: "Diary", Mr. Denney.
Q. I asked you to look at your diary and see whether or not you were present.
A. Yes.
Q. You were present?
A. Yes.
Q. Those are your initials on the top page?
A. Yes.
Q. Perhaps you can explain to us this notation here. Von der Heyde is talking and says, "I have one more question. How many inmates is this concentration camp to include?" And Stahns says, "These concentration carps are always 3,000 men strong," and then you say, "Against a withdrawal of 3,000 foreign workers who can be used elsewhere. I attach importance to then being assigned to the Luftwaffe."
A. From these brief words I cannot see the context. I do not know what is being debated here. May I just read through this?
I assume from this brief passage here that this must be the extension of an airfield near Rechlin for the purposes of hone-based fighters. The airfield at Rechlin had been given orders by the Luftgau to execute the extension of the airfield. These were steel and subterranean shelters for the personnel and for that purpose young German people had been detailed but they were unsuitable for the work because they had too much training themselves.
They had to give a lot of time to other purposes. For that reason, somehow or other, the column from a concentration camp had been detailed for that purpose, or had been promised. Other workers, also German workers, were there. They had to be removed and replaced by 3,000 people from a concentration camp. I was very anxious for those German workers to be sent to another department of the Luftwaffe. I see that that is the question debated here, because, apart from Petersen - his right hand man is speaking, man called Stahms. This man Stahms was a part of the testing station and usually did not attend the meetings.
Apart from Rechlin it could also apply to another testing station of curs where the same conditions prevailed, a question which did not concern the GL as such, but these were construction matters of the Luftgau. The testing stations were under two different departments. Technically they were under my leadership. As far as the ground organization was concerned, installations and so forth, they were subordinate to the Luftgau, to the Air Fleet Reich, and these gentlemen, of course, came to see me in order to enlist my support. I myself cannot give you details of the arrangements made here. Of course, we always were anxious to appear helpful if one of our own agencies applied to us, even when the question was not within my sphere, I can see here that it must have been a construction matter which was not my concern.
Q. Well, anyway they talked with you about it, didn't they?
A. Yes, it seems that this conference took place. I have no personal recollection.
Q. About the matter of the initialing of these communications. Did you initial everything that came to your desk?
A. Do you mean these initials on this report, those "Mi's"? As I recall it I always put my "Mi" there. Whether the date was always there or not depended. Normally I usually put the date with it. Only in cases when I dealt with the matter very quickly so that it could be put with the files, then I often only put "Mi". All these were things which I didn't read myself. That would have taken up many hours. That was impossible for me.
Q. Did you always initial everything that came to your desk?
A. I assume so, yes. I am convinced of that but perhaps I may have omitted to do so. Whether or not I omitted to do so I am unable to say now but on the whole I think I was very reliable as far as signing was concerned, because otherwise my people outside wouldn't know whether it had reached me or not, and then it would be submitted to me again normally until it was finally initialed and disappeared.
Q. Now, about the people of foreign extraction who worked -withdrawn. About the people who were non-Germans who worked for the Luftwaffe - what ones did you know that you had besides French and Russians?
A. When I became G.L. at the end of 1941, Russians and Frenchmen were already working with us and if other nations were present there, although I cannot recall them, they must have been present at that time, too. I mean, for instance, Belgians, which I read something about just now.
Q. The next document is NOKW 272, which is a partial, extract from a conference held between the defendant and one Rautenbach on 22 February 1944. We don't have the cover page here. Do your notes show that you saw Rautenbach on that date?
A. Yes, on the 22nd of February I was in Wernigerode with the Jaegerstab and Rautenbach - the factory there.
Q. This is Prosecution's Exhibit 151 for identification, and midway on page 22 of the original, the defendant speaking, "How is the personnel made up proportionally, as regards Germans and foreigners, and men and women?"
Then Rautenbach says: "In Wernigerode we have some 6,000 and in Solingen some 4,000 work hands, all together some 10,000 people. Of these 76 percent in Wernigerode are foreigners and 24 percent Germans, end this includes the non-productive labor, though not office workers. Furthermore, we have 550 German women and 600 foreign ones in Wernigerode. Before the outbreak of the war we had hardly any women at all, only in the offices apart from the 'Kernmacherei' in Solingen. There were no foreigners employed there at all."
Then the defendant says, "To what nationalities do the foreigners belong?"
Engelke comes in, "We have almost all nationalities here, in the main there are: 2,000 Belgians and Frenchmen, about 1,000 Poles and Russians, in addition 800 concentration earn internees, among whom you can find the most widely different nationalities, and then some Czechs and Poles."
And then the defendant says, "With/what workers are you not satisfied? The Frenchmen are good, skilled workers, but lately by not returning from their furloughs they have become unreliable. The Eastern workers, particularly the women, turn out very well once they have been schooled and trained. In the foundries and 'Kernnacherei' they are perhaps our best workers."
Rautenbach: "That refers to Wernigerode. In Solengen we had the best results with Frenchmen and the worst with Italians, meaning the Italian workers and not the prisoners of war. For that reason we do not employ any Italians here in Wernigerode. They are only 50 to 60 percent efficient."
Then the defendant says, "Could not the following be done: give the Italians in principle only half of their food rations, letting them earn the other half when they do their work well?"
Rautenbach: "We introduced that already but the pilfering that starts ---"
Milch interrupted and said, "Then we must take counter measures against such pilfering. Diesing, we will discuss that with the Reichsfuehrer SS."
I am sorry, in the original it just says Reichsfuehrer. It doesn't say "SS". I don't believe there is any other Reichsfuehrer besides Himmler. Do you recall that?
A. Himmler is meant here, of course, but there were other Reichsfuehrers, of course. I may say here that that factory did not belong to. the Luftwaffe industry. It was a foundry work that made semi-manufactured goods, and those factories were not part of the Luftwaffe industry. It did not concern the GL. We merely maid a visit there with some people from Speer in order to inspect this modern foundry equipment, and the preposition that they should be given only half the food ration does not mean that they should only be given half their ration. Half their ration should be given, which roughly corresponds to the ration for the German civilian and non-working German civilian families, etc. They should be given that in any case, but the supplementary rations, they should be only given the supplementary rations if they worked for us.
Q. Here you were advising a factory owner, you, a German field marshal, you say the factory had nothing whatever to do with anything you were concerned with and yet you were projecting yourself into his business and suggesting how he should out down on the rations of his employees.
A. He himself was not in a position to do so because the rations were not distributed by the factory, but that is merely a question put to him, whether that method had been tried out by the authorities con cerned with that sort thing.
THE PRESIDENT: Recess until one-thirty
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess until 1330 this afternoon (A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1300 hours, 19 March 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal II is again in session.
ERHARD MILCH - Resumed CROSS-EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. DENNEY:
Q Witness, do you recall the other day speaking about isolated instances with reference to the treatment of Polish people?
A I am not quite sure what you are driving at.
Q Well, if you will recall his Honor spoke to you about how Polish people were treated and you said in certain isolated instances they might have been mistreated.
A Yes, that was my idea.
MR. DENNEY: This document is 654PS which are notes on a discussion among Himmler, Dr. Rothenberger, and SS-Gruppenfuehrer named Streckenbach and SS-Obersturmbahnfuehrer named Bender. We offer this as prosecution's Exhibit 152 for identification. I will only read from it in part.
If your Honor, please, I thought that we had only offered part of this but it seems that we have offered all of it before, so we will withdraw this offer and I call your Honor's attention to Exhibit No. 16 in evidence which is at page 67 of Document Book 1a. Dr. Bergold has the German copy. This document expresses, as of that date, at least, the 18th of September 1942, the attitude so far as Polish people were concerned in Germany at that time, paragraph 2 stating the delivery of antisocial elements from the execution of their sentence to the Reichsfuehrer of the SS to be worked to death.
Persons under protective arrest, Jews, gypsies, Russians, and Ukrainians, Poles with more than three-year sentences, Czechs and Germans with more then eight-year sentences, according to the decision of the Reich Minister for Justice, first of all, the worst anti-social elements among them just mentioned are to be handed over. I shall inform the Fuehrer of this through Reichsleiter Bormann." And then they continue talking about the administration of justice by the people, and, over in the last paragraph, number 14, "It is agreed that a consideration of the intended aims of the government, for the clearing up of the Eastern problems, in the future, Jews, Poles, gypsies, Russian-Ukrainians, are no longer to be judged by the ordinary courts, so far as punishable offenses are concerned, but are to be dealt with by the Reichsfuehrer-SS. This does not apply to civil law suits, nor to Poles whose names are announced or entered in the German racial list." I think that is an example to which the Court's attention should be called at this time with reference to the way the Polish people were treated as early as 1942, and it is also worthy of note that they were denied the German judicial process, such as it was at that time, particularly with reference to the criminal courts. It does say that in civil law suits, it isn't applicable, but I should think so far as they were concerned they'd much rather be allowed the questionable benefit of German judicial processes as opposed to those of Mr. Himmler and his people.
Q. You didn't know anything about that, witness?
A. No.
Q. So far as you knew, the Poles were always very well treated here?
A. I never saw ill treatment of any kind, or myself ever heard about it.
Q. You never heard of foreigners being thrown into concentration camps for minor offenses?
A. In my opinion, only for serious perpetrations, only for the same crimes which would cause Germans to be put there too.
Q. In other words, they ought to get the same treatment as the German people?
A. That is what I assumed.
Q. The next document is 242, NOKW, which is a letter of 13 October 1941 which would be Exhibit, -
THE PRESIDENT: 152.
MR. DENNEY: 152; yes, Your honor.
Q. (Continuing) This letter was not written to the defendant, but it concerns him. It's written to the president of the District Labor Office in Westphalia, and it has to do with the assignment of workers to a factory, specifically, a drop--forge installation, to increase the manufacture of airplane engines. Perhaps you can help us with the signature?
A. I can't read it. It is the armament Inspectorate, Army Defense District 6, according to the heading, and it states: "By order" and then there follow the names. The signature is not familiar to me.
Q. hell, in any event, the parts with which -
DR. BERGOLD: One moment. (Examining documents.)
Q. (Continued) The second letter, the one dated 28 august 1941, signed by one Schultz-Bless, bears the heading on it "Generalluftzeugmeister." The first letter indicates that the defendant has informed the Armament Inspection of this Wehrkreis, that they will need a certain number of workers to set up and develop a drop-forge to increase the manufacture of airplane engines, and the writer says that, for this purpose, "a thousand more workers must be assigned to the firm by the end of this month." It states, in addition, that "French prisoners of war will do." And he goes on further, and says: "A direct use of Russian prisoners of war is out of the question."
In the second letter (he) indicates that:
"Up to 1 October 1941 Goering will place 80 - 100,000 French 2185 (a) prisoners of war at the disposal of the aircraft armament industry for their employment in production."
And there's an interesting note down a little farther, that: "The prisoners of war are to receive about 75% of the net-wages of German workers." Do you recall having been advised of this at the time?
A No; that I cannot remember. At that time, both in August and in October, 1941, I had nothing to do with the question of manufacturing aircraft engines, nor can I recollect that at any time did I give information to that effect to the Armament Inspectorate. I consider that that's out of the question.
Q Well, that was the point I wanted to make. You've insisted that you had nothing to do with this prior to the time that Udet died, which was in November 1941, as I recall, and you became Generalluftzeugmeister on November 19 of that year, and yet here we find a letter from the Armament Inspection Office of Wehrkreis VI, saying that you are requesting laborers.
A Well, I can't believe that I should ever have done that because this was a problem which didn't concern me at all. It doesn't state here that I'm supposed to have asked for workers. It merely says that the union of Buchum had received a special task from the Reich Air Ministry which had special priority, and now the Inspectorate continues to say that we're concerned with construction of a drop-forge for the increase of production of aircraft engines, which, at the time, was not one of my tasks.
Q Well, but this was something that was being done at the request of the Supreme Commander of the Luftwaffe, who was Goering?
A Yes, but it didn't come to me. Something like that would have gone to Udet or his deputy.
Q Well, the man who wrote the letter here says that you have informed the Armament Inspection. He certainly would not dare to use your name if you didn't do it. He wasn't trying to sabotage you, was he? In 1941 things were pretty good.
A This could be some sort of a misunderstanding. Some other department might have used my name, that happened very often.
Q Yes, your name seems to have been used a great deal.
A Yes, and what's more, I can prove it by means of these very instances where it was done wrongfully. Might I draw your attention to one more point that becomes obvious to me, and that is this 75% of average wages which is being mentioned. That isn't a little since prisoners of war were drawing their rations from the camps as well as any other rations they needed, whereas the German laborer with his net wages had to purchase his food, take care of his lodgings, and buy his clothes.
Q Well, you know that the Geneva Convention provides that you have to feed prisoners of war with exactly the same rations that you give your own troops, don't you?
A Yes, yes, and I assume that in addition to this, that was being done. That brings you to the reduction of wages to 75%. What this amounts to is that expenses for food, lodging and clothing would amount to only 25%.
Q Of course, we had testimony here by one of the Frenchmen to the effect that they were forced to pay for some of these items. However, I won't argue with you about it.