A Now, generally speaking, probation. The sentences were, if my recollection is correct, between six months and one year. However, they did not serve their sentences because the people had the opportunity to go to the front in order to be free from this sentence there. The normal sentence which was always applied form from above was higher.
Q Was anyone over sentenced to death for that?
A. In other places yes, I have heard about it.
Q As far as you know, the other prisoners of war working in the Luftwaffe were 22,000 Frenchmen; is that right?
A I was not able to count them. However, I can only say that during all visits I only saw French and Russian prisoners of war and spoke to them also.
Q You never heard anything about any other kind working for you?
A In a report, of which I have no knowledge myself and which was submitted here a short time ago, other nationaliities were discussed also. I saw, for instance, yesterday that Belgians were mentioned at one spot. However, if they were in the Luftwaffe industry, I do not know. I did not see them there.
Q Do you know a man named Rothanbach?
A Yes, indeed.
Q We now offer N.O.K.W. 417, which will become Prosecution's No. 146 for identification. Do you recall presiding over a conference of the General Juftzeugmeister on 31 March, 1944?
A Yes.
MR. DENNEY: This next exhibit, if Your Honor please, the German copies aren't here yet. However, we have one German copy which we will show the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: They are being distributed?
MR. DENNEY: Yes, Your Honors, they are being distributed Q (By Mr. Denney) Will you look on the outside and see if the note appears, "Z.M.A., to my files," or to my records, with your signature underneath it?
A Yes, it does appear, and also my initials, "Mi" are there, and the date.
Q On page 9579, you are making a little talk about the Jaegerstab. "All the of as made during the previous months to increase this production were made in vain because the Luftwaffe lacked the primary requisites, firstly with regard to staff, including specialists and supervisory personnel, secondly for repair construction and everything connected with it, and thirdly for transport and everything connected with it. The demands we made were not satisfied.
"In the last days of February, I therefore approached Minister Speer. Together with him and his division chiefs, we agreed to create a Special Staff for the promotion of the Fighter production, in the same way as we created a special Ruhr Staff by which we successfully overcame the emergency created in the Ruhr by the summer attacks of last year.
Here the question supplying parts made of forged iron or of cast iron, etc. in addition to the questions questions mentioned above, were of real importance. All these are tasks which lie tied up in the armament supply office of the Speer Ministry. Minister Speer and his division chiefs who saw the situation quite clearly, enthusiastic 2161 a tically joined us in our demand, and thus in the course of one single day, even in the course of only six hours we came to an agreement and set up the Jaegerstab.
Minister Speer, at that time, was sick and I had gone to Hohenly chen to discuss these questions with him.
"The plan was then submitted to the Reichsmarshall who welcomed it very much, and then it was submitted to the Fuehrer who agreed wholeheartedly to the proposal. Thereby the Jaegerstab was born and recognized.
"Right at the beginning of March we started work, and we set up a special organization for these tasks, an organization in which all important questions are dealt with, independent of official regulations, normally existing in the central and medium government agencies. Minister Speer and myself took charge of the Jaegerstab. Hauptdienstleiter Saur is the Deputy Chief of Staff. The Staff includes a Planning Division under Dr. Wegner, a Construction Division under the Engineer Schlempp, Lt. General Kammler of the Daffen SS takes care of questions of Special Construction, Director Schaaf, right hand man of Staatsrat Schieber in the Armament Supply Office deals with the Supply Question, Ministerialrat Speh is in charge of the Confiscation of Dispersal Sites, Nagel, chief of the Transport Units in the Ministry of Armament and War Production handles the Questions of Transport, the Power Supply is the task of Director Gen. Fischer, Otto Lange deals with Machinery, Nobel with Repairs, Pueckel, president of the Reich Railway Directory, handles Transport by the Reich Railway, Reich Postal Matters are taken care of by Oberpostrat Zerbel, Workers' Health by Dr. Perschmann, Social Welfare by Ministerialrat Birkenholz, and Dr. Engineer Stoffregen is in charge of the Raw Materials and Quotas. These are the gentlemen who form the Jaegerstab. From the list of names you see that entirely independent persons are involved, while the enumeration of the different spheres of work shows you that all spheres which are of interest to us are included, in the Jaegerstab." It looks as though you and Speer were boss men, doesn't it?
A Yes, sir.
Q I see that Lieutenant General Hammier of the Waffen SS is listed here. 2162
A. Yes, he had also been sent there by his agency, and I wish to point out again the Jaegerstab was not an authority. All the work that was being done by the Jaegerstab could only be done on the basis of the authority to which these single members of the Jaegerstab belonged. That means then the Jaegerstab couldn't give any order of any effect, but it could only give certain requisitions which then on the basis of the liberations were either granted or not. The execution was in the hands of all those ministries and offices from which these people had been sent.
Q. You said yourself that you dealt independent of the official regulations.
A. Yes, in so far, according to the German administrative law such a compilation of many representatives of various ministries had not been known before but the man in the ministry had to go approach his minister to the minister of the other ministry, who only then could give it to his expert or then not one of the two. However, here there was a regular meeting of people from the various ministries. With regard to everyone of those actions the minister had to give his agreement to it, and so there was a greater independence in the collaboration and cooperation here.
THE PRESIDENT: Recess, Mr. Denney.
THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal is in recess fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal Number 2 is again in session.
Q. (By Mr. Denney) Turning now again, Your Honors, to Exhibit 146 for identification, which we just discussed, you will note that there is an excerpt from page 9603 which has been added, in which the defendant speaks and says: "I know our German research very closely. I have to do with it intimately since 1926, and I was always a member of the control board of the German Experiment Institute for the Luftwaffe."
The German Experimental Institute for the Luftwaffe was the DVL, was it not?
A. Yes, it was, but that applies up to 1933. From 1933 onward I was no longer on the board of directors of the DVL.
Q. So when you said that there you meant up until 1933; you didn't mean that you were now?
A. That is so, yes.
Q. You were interested in those matters, however, weren't you?
A. Only technically. As a pilot, of course, I was interested in research work.
Q. Well, the witness Vorwald testified here that when these experiments were made they were limited as to what height they could go?
A. Yes, that is, of course, a matter of course, that the GL should say what altitude he is anxious to reach, but that has nothing to do with whether I am still on the board of directors of the DVL or not, nor has it anything to do with the fact that I should have to be its superior officer. As I said, I was not the superior officer.
Q. You said you were above Foetster and Foetster was over Hippke?
A. Yes.
Q. And you talked to Hippke about these things in August of 1942?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. You told the Court that you had made sure that nothing had happened?
A. Yes, Hippke said that in the court.
Q. I seem to have forgotten a Luftzeugmeister minute or two here. Did you attend a Luftzeugmeister conference on 22 September 1943?
A. 22 September was it?
Q. 1943.
A. There was a conference of the GL with Speer.
Q. And you were there?
A. Yes, I was.
MR. DENNEY: This is NOKW 347, which is a partial excerpt from a General Luftzeugmeister conference of September 22, 1943, which we offer as Prosecution's Exhibit 147 for identification.
Q. Will you look on the outside and see whether or not your initials appear, please?
A. Yes, I find them.
Q. A man named Fluegge is speaking on Page 44 of the original: "Other branches are included in this figure 50, which refers to the red tickets of August. A part of the production has found its way into this column. Anyhow it is a question of certain sectors within these 35,000 red tickets. Thirty five per cent of these requirements have been covered. It is possible that it happens to be more unfavorable in this specific sector. For the time being we do not have to deal any longer with the question from where to get the people but with the technical question to withdraw them as quickly as possible from the Stalag's. That has to be achieved within the next few days. Up until now it did not work well. During these last days, only very few prisoners of war have been assigned. I wanted to deal with the matter already today. These people do exist."
Then Speer says: "Which army districts have to be furnished with labor. Someone interpolates or interrupts: "Army district VI and also Schweinfurt Gerhardt speaks: "The labor officials also have to remain firm, even if the enterprises says that they cannot use Italians."
Then Speer says: "As far as the quantity is concerned, there is really no problem for the time being. According to reports received yesterday we have 190,000 Italian POW's in Germany which belong to us alone and which are as far as urgency is concerned, divided up in such a manner that after those fit for mining and those fit for the heavy industries, the supply industries absolutely receive the next priority. They arc secured for the armament industry. The OKU has received orders accordingly. Perhaps, Nicolai, you arrange it that way that by 5:00 p.m, a conference takes place between Hildebrandt, yourself a nd the other gentlemen. And then right after the conference you come over here, together with Hildebrandt, Gerhardt, Becker, and Mueller, and tell me what really is to be covered finally, and within what period of time.
And then we let the different enterprises give a summary report every second day as to what actually has been done with regard as well to the crankshafts as to the cylinders. On the whole this covers the whole area of the supply industries. The 30,000 we have mentioned are a total. We do not want to delay the others again. Otherwise they will get nothing at all."
Then you say: "If these people cannot be lodged right away -- I have seen how they have done it in the East -- then lodge them in the factory let them stay there until the barracks are constructed. This matter must not fail because someone says these people cannot be lodged. They can sleep near the machine."
Do you recall - suggesting that the workers sleep in the plants near their machines?
A. Yes, I recall that. At that time the cities where the factories were situated had been damaged by air raids; and our German workers had to sleep in their factories. The people you spoke of here, Fluegge, Nicolai, Hildebrandt, Gerhardt, Becker, Mueller, are not people of the GL. In this meeting we were concerned with the question of how Speer could help in the Luftwaffe industry; and these are deliberations and those of his people. I assume that in this report we discussed the question of lodging before; and with some delay I deal with it now.
Q. You could get almost anybody you wanted in one of those Luftzeugmeister meetings, couldn't you, to take up any problem?
A. No, I was unable to do that. For instance, in this case when I wished to enlist Speer's support, I had to apply to him; and he brought his expert workers with him.
Q. You asked Speer to come; and he came and brought whoever you wanted to have brought?
A. No, whomever he wanted to bring. I could not give Speer orders as to whom he was to bring along.
Q. You could suggest, couldn't you?
A. I did not know these people nor can I recall either Fluegge, Gerhardt, Becker, and Mueller. In the case of Hildebrandt I assume that he was an official from Sauckel, who did not belong to Speer's Ministry and Nicolai was an officer of Speer's Armament Ministry.
Q. Where was Speer's office?
A. It was in Berlin on the Pariser Piatz, Numbers 3 and 4.
Q. This meeting that we have just talked about was held in the Reich Air Ministry in your office, wasn't it?
A. Yes, it was held in my office. Speer came to see us for that purpose because we had issued the invitation to him. That used to change to and fro. Sometimes we would go to see him; and sometimes he'd come to see us.
MR. DENNEY: This next document is NOKW-449, which we offer as Prosecution's Exhibit 148 for identification.
Q. Will you look on the cover and see whether your initials appear there?
A. Yes.
Q. They do appear?
A. Yes, they do.
Q. This is a General Luftzeugmeister conference of March 2, 1943. Here you present at that conference?
A. Yes, I was.
Q. On Page 4505 of the original, you say: "Another question. All reports from France show that the French have got their heads full of political thoughts and ideas. On the basis of the news they tell themselves that they are retreating on the Eastern Fromt and the English and Americans are gradually getting afraid that the Russians alone will be victorious. The French go on to say: If the promises made to us by the Americans are really kept, our fortunes are made. That has already led to our foreign workers' slowly becoming hostile. On principle I have to be informed of every case of swinishness. I do not understand at all why Germany should put up with it when Poles and Frenchmen explain to the people -- today, indeed, you are still sitting in this work; but later we shall be the owners; and if you treat us properly we shall see to it then, that you are shot dead immediately and not tortured first.
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.