"Their food consisted generally of about one-half a pound of black bread per dry and a bowl of watery soup for noon and night, and not always that. Owing to the great numbers crowded into a small space and to the lack of adequate sustenance, lice and vermin multiplied, disease became rampant, and those who did not soon die of disease or torture began the long, slow process of starvation. Notwithstanding the deliberate starvation program inflicted upon these prisoners by lack of adequate food, we found no evidence that the people of Germany as a whole were suffering from any lack of sufficient food or clothing. The contrast was so striking that the only conclusion which we could reach was that the starvation of the inmates of these camps was deliberate.
"Upon entrance into these camps, newcomers were forced to work either at an adjoining war factory or were placed "in commando" on various jobs in the vicinity, being returned each night to their stall in the barracks. Generally, a German criminal was placed in charge of each "block" or shed in which the prisoners slept. Periodically, he would choose the one prisoner of his block who seemed the most alert or intelligent or showed the most leadership qualities. These would report to the guards' room and would never be heard from again. The generally accepted belief of the prisoners was that these were shot or gassed or hanged and then cremated. A refusal to work or an infraction of the rules usually meant flogging and other types of torture, such as having the fingernails pulled out, and in each case usually ended in death after extensive suffering. The policies herein described constituted a calculated and diabolical program of planned torture and extermination on the part of those who were in control of the German Government. These camps, on the whole, were conducted and controlled by the SS and the Gestapo, who acted under orders from their superiors or who were given wide discretion in the methods which they were to adopt in perpetrating these hideous and inhuman sufferings.
"It is the opinion of your committee that these practices constituted no less than organized crime against civilization and humanity and that those who were responsible for them should have meted out to them swift, certain, and adequate punishment."
If Your Honor please, there is one document which is in Book Number 2, to which I would like to call your attention. I shall have to get my copies out before I can tell you which one it is. A speech by Himmler was omitted. We should like to offer it at this time.
If Your Honor please it was given Exhibit Number 44 at the time it was offered. Judge Dixon tells me that is correct. This document appears in Document Book Number 2A, Page 14. It is on Page 13 of the German Document Book. It is 1919-PS. And we offer this at this time as Prosecution Exhibit Number 45. This is a speech given by Reichsfuehrer SS, Heinrich Himmler, at a meeting of the SS Major Generals (SS Gruppenfuehrer) at Posen, on October 4th 1943. The first part appears on Page 3, I believe, of the German original and is now on Page 13 of the German Document Book.
"The Russian Army was herded together in great pockets, ground down, taken prisoner. At that time we did not value the mass of humanity as we value it today, as raw material, as labor. What after all, thinking in eras of generations, is not to be regretted, but is now deplorable by reason of the loss of labor, is that the prisoners died in tens and hundreds of thousands of exhaustion and hunger."
I will skip the next paragraph, and I go down to the next full one which I believe is one the same page of the Document Book, it is Page 23 of the initial speech.
"One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the SS man: We must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and to nobody else. What happens to a Russian, to a Czech does not interest me in the slightest. What the nation can offer in the way of good blood of cur type, we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our Kultur; otherwise, it is of no importance to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interests me only insofar as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be rough and careless when it is not necessary, that is clear. We Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude toward animals, will also assure a decent attitude towards those human animals. But it is a crime against our own blood to worry about them and give them ideals, thus causing our sons and grandsons to have a more difficult time with them. When somebody comes to me and says, "I cannot dig the anti-tank ditch with women and children, it is inhuman, for it would kill them" then I have to say, "You are a murderer of your own blood because if the anti-tank ditch is not dug, German soldiers will die, and they are sons of German mothers. They are our own blood." That is what I want to instill into this SS and what I believe I have instilled into them as one of the most sacred laws of the future. Our concern, our duty, is our people and our blood. It is for them that we must provide and plan, work and fight, nothing else. We can be indifferent to anything else. I wish the SS to adopt this attitude to the problem of all foreign, non-Germanic peoples, especially Russians. All else is vain, fraud against our own nation and obstacles to the early winning of the war."
Now, if Your Honor please, that concludes, with the exception of the reading of some transcript from the initial case into the record, the presentation of the general background on Slave Labor.
In Book 2-A, Document Number NO-1179; which appears on page 6, of your Honors' Document Book; starting with Page 16910 of the original opinion of the International Military Tribunal. We offer this as Exhibit Number 46. It is Pages 16910 to 16917. It goes from Pages 6 to 13 in Your Honors' Document Book.
"Slave Labor Policy "Article 6 (section b) of the Charter provides that the "ill treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose, of civilian population of or in occupied territory" shall be a War Crime.
The laws relating to forced labor by the inhabitants of occupied territories are found in Article 52 of the Hague Convention, which provides:
'Requisition in kind and services shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants except for the needs of the army of occupation. They shall be in proportion to the resources of the country, and of such a nature as not to involve the inhabitants in the obligation of taking part in military operations against their own country.'
The policy of the German occupation authorities was in flagrant violation of the terms of this convention. Some idea of this policy may be gathered from the statement made by Hitler in a speech on November 9, 1941:
'The territory which now works for us contains more than 250,000,000 men, but the territory which works indirectly for us includes now more than 350,000,000. In the measures in which it concerns German territory, the domain which we have taken under our administration, it is not doubtful that we shall succeed in harnessing the very last man to this work."
The actual results achieved were not so complete as this, but the German occupation authorities did succeed in forcing many of the inhabitants of the occupied territories to work for the German war effort, and in deporting at least 5,000,000 persons to Germany to serve German industry and agriculture.
In the early stages of the war, manpower in the occupied territories was under the control of various occupation authorities, and the procedure varied from country to country. In all the occupied territories compulsory labor service was promptly instituted. Inhabitants of the occupied countries were conscripted and compelled to work in local occupations, to assist the German war economy. In many cases they were forced to work on German fortifications and military installations. As local supplies of raw materials and local industrial capacity became inadequate to meet the German requirements, the system of deporting laborers to Germany was put into force. By the middle of April 1940 compulsory deportation of laborers to Germany had been ordered in the Government General; and a similar procedure was followed in other eastern territories as they were occupied. A description of this compulsory deportation from Poland was given by Himmler. In an address to 68 officers he recalled how in weather 40 degrees below zero they had to "haul away thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands." On a later occasion Himmler stated:
'Whether ten thousand Russian females fall down foam exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interests me only insofar as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished...We must realize that we have 6-7 million foreigners in Germany...They are none of them dangerous so long as we take severe measures at the merest trifles.'
During the first two years of the German occupation of France, Belgium, Holland and Norway, however, an attempt was made to obtain the necessary workers on a voluntary basis. How unsuccessful this was may be seen from the report of the meeting of the Central Planning Board on the 1st of March 1944.
The representative of the defendant Speer, one Koehrl, speaking of the situation in France, said:
'During all this time a great number of Frenchmen were recruited, and voluntarily went to Germany.'
148 a He was interrupted by the defendant Sauckel:
'Not only voluntary, some were recruited forcibly.'
To which Koehrl replied:
'The calling up started after the recruitment no longer yielded enough results.'
To which the defendant Sauckel replied:
'Out of the five million workers who arrived in Germany, not even 200,000 came voluntarily.' and Koehrl rejoined:
'Let us forget for the moment whether or not some slight pressure was used. Formally, at least, they were volunteers.'
Committees were set up to encourage recruiting, and a vigorous propaganda campaign was begun to induce workers to volunteer for service in Germany. This propaganda campaign included, for example, the promise that a prisoner of war world be returned for every laborer who volunteered to go to Germany. In some cases it was supplemented by withdrawing the ration cards of all laborers who refused to go to Germany, or by discharging them from their jobs and denying them unemployment benefit or an opportunity to work elsewhere. In some cases workers and their families were threatened with reprisals by the police if they refused to go to Germany. It was on the 21st of March 1942 that the defendant Sauckel was appointed Plenipotentiary-General for the Utilization of Labor, with authority over 'all available manpower, including that of workers recruited abroad, and of prisoners of war.'
The defendant Sauckel was directly under the defendant Goering as Commissioner of the Four Year Plan, and a Goering decree of the 27th March 1942 transferred all his authority over manpower to Sauckel. Sauckel's instructions, too, were that foreign labor should be recruited on a voluntary basis, but also provided that ' where, however, in the occupied territories, the appeal for volunteers does not suffice, obligatory service and drafting must under all circumstances be resorted to.' Rules requiring labor service in Germany were published in all the occupied territories.
The number of laborers to be supplied was fixed by Sauckel, and the local authorities were instructed to meet these requirements by conscription if necessary. That conscription was the rule rather than the exception is shewn by the statement of Sauckel already quoted, on the 1st March 1944.
The defendant Sauckel frequently asserted that the workers belonging to foreign nations were treated humanely, and that the conditions in which they lived were good. But whatever the intention of Sauckel may have been, and however much he may have desired that foreign laborers should be treated humanely, the evidence before the Tribunal establishes the fact that the conscription of labor was accomplished in many cases by drastic and violent methods. The "mistakes and blunders" were on a very great scale. Manhunts took place in the streets, at motion picture houses, even at churches and at night in private houses. Houses were sometimes burnt down, and the families taken as hostages, practices which were described" ........
DR. BERGOLD: The continuation is missing. If the Counsel for Prosecution is continuing I have no objection because the verdict is known to me because I was present at the first trial and I am familiar with this document.
MR. DENNEY: You are agreeable to let me continue reading it? I am sure if there are any errors I make his Honor will correct me.
MR. BERGOLD: Yes
MR. DENNEY: "... practices which were described, by the defendant Rosenberg as having their origin 'in the blackest periods of the slave trade. ' The methods used in obtaining forced labor from the Ukraine appear from an order issued to SD officers which stated:
'It will not be possible always to refrain from using force... When searching villages especially when it has been necessary to burn down a village, the whole population will be put at the disposed of the Commissioner by force... is a rule no more children will be shot... If we limit harsh measures through the above orders for the time being, it is only done for the following reasons... The most important thing is the recruitment of workers.'
The resources and needs of the occupied countries were completely disregarded in carrying out this policy. The treatment of the laborers was governed by Sauckel's instructions of the 20th April 1942 to the effect that:
'All the men must be fed, sheltered and treated in such a way as to exploit them to the highest possible extent, at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure.'
The evidence showed that workers destined for the Reich were sent under guard to Germany, often packed in trains without adequate heat, food, clothing or sanitary facilities. The evidence further showed that the treatment of the laborers in Germany in many cases was brutal and degrading. The evidence relating to the Krupp Works at Essen snowed that punishments of the most cruel kind were inflicted on the workers. Theoretically at least the workers were paid, mused and fed by the DAF, and even permitted to transfer their savings and to send mail and parcels back to their native country; but restrictive regulations took a proportion of the pay; the camps in which they were housed were insanitary; and the food was very often less than the minimum necessary to give the workers strength to do their jobs. In the case of Poles employed on farms in Germany, the employers were given authority to inflict corporal punishment and were ordered, if possible, to house them in stables, not in their own homes. They were subject to constant super vision by the Gestapo and the SS, and if they attempted to leave their jobs they were sent to correction camps or concentration camps.
The concentration camps were also used to increase the supply of labor. Concentration camp commanders were ordered to work their prisoners to the limits of their physical power. During the latter stages of the war the concentration camps were so productive in certain types of work that the Gestapo was actually instructed to arrest certain classes of laborers so that they could be used in this way. Allied prisoners of war were also regarded as a possible source of labor. Pressure was exercised on non-commissioned officers to force them to consent to work, by transferring to disciplinary camps those who did not consent. Many of the prisoners of war were assigned to work directly related to military operations, in violation of Article 31 of the Geneva Convention. They were put to work in munition factories and even made to load bombers, to carry ammunition and to dig trenches, often under the most hazardous conditions. This condition applied particularly to the Soviet prisoners of war. On the 16th February 1943, at a meeting of the Central Planning Board, at which the defendants Sauckel and Speer were present, Milch said:
'We have made a request for an order that a certain percentage of men in the Ack-Ack artillery must be Russians; 50,000 will be taken altogether. 30,000 are already employed as gunners. This is an amusing thing, that Russians must work the guns.'
And on the 4th October 1943, at Posen, Himmler, speaking of the Russian prisoners, captured in the early days of the war, said:
'At that time we did not value the mass of humanity as we value it today as raw material, as labor. What, after all, thinking in terms of generations, is not to be regretted, but is now deplorable by reason of the loss of labor, is that the prisoners died in tens of hundreds of thousands of exhaustion and hunger.'
The general policy underlying the mobilization of slave labor was dictated by Sauckel on the 20th April 1942. He said:
'The aim of this new gigantic labor mobilization is to use all the 'rich and tremendous resources conquered and secured for us by our fighting armed forces under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, for the armament of the armed forces, and also for the nutrition of the Homeland.
The raw materials, as well as the fertility of the conquered countries and their human labor power, are to be used completely and conscientiously to the profit of Germany and her Allies.... All prisoners of war from the territory of the West, as well as the East, actually in Germany, must be completely incorporated into the German armament and nutrition industries.... Consequently it is an immediate necessity to use the human reserves of the conquered Soviet territory to the fullest extent. Should we not succeed in obtaining the necessary amount of labor on a voluntary basis, we must immediately institute conscription or forced labor.... The complete employment of all prisoners of war, as well as the use of a gigantic number of new foreign workers, men and women, has become an indisputable necessity for the solution of the mobilization of the labor programme in this war.'
Reference should also be made to the policy which was in existence in Germany by the summer of 1940, under which all aged, insane, and incurable people, "useless eaters," were transferred to special institutions where they were killed, and their relatives informed that they had died from natural causes. The victims were not confined to German citizens, but included foreign laborers, who were no longer able to work and were therefore useless to the German war machine. It has been estimated that at least some 275,000 people were killed in this manner in nursing homes, hospitals and asylums, which were under the jurisdiction of the defendant Frick, in his capacity as Minister of the Interior. How many foreign workers were included in this total it has been quite impossible to determine."
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Denney, does this Exhibit come from the findings of the judgment of the International Military Tribunal? In other words, this is the Tribunal speaking?
MR. DENNEY: Pages 16910 to pages 16917 on tho record--but it is the decision in the conclusion of the trial at the time they returned their decision.
Now, if your Honors please, I would like to offer an exhibit which appears in Book No. 2-A No. NO-1171 which we offer as Prosecution Exhibit No. 47. This is excerpts from the Hague Convention 18 October 1907 and an annex to tho Geneva Convention 27 July 1929 which appears at pages 2 to 5 of your Honors' Document Book and has the same page in the German Document Book.
This will become Prosecution Exhibit 47, Annex to Hague Convention No. IV of 18 October 1907, embodying the regulations respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, Adopted by that Convention; Treaty Series Number 539; 35 Stat. 2295; Malloy Treaties, Vol. II, 2281.
"Article 4:
"Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Government, but not of the individuals or corps who capture them.
"They must be humanely treated.
"All their personal belongings, except arms, horses, and military papers, remain their property.
"Article 5:
"Prisoners of war may be interned in a town, fortress, camp, or other place, and bound not to go beyond certain fixed limits; but they cannot be confined except as an indispensable measure of safety and only while the circumstances which necessitate the measure continue to exist.
"Article 6:
"The State may utilize the labour of prisoners of war according to their rank and aptitude, officers excepted. The tasks shall not be excessive and shall have no connection with the operations of the war.
"Article 7:
"The Government into whose hands prisoners of war have fallen is charged with their maintenance.
"In the absence of a special agreement between the belligerents, prisoners of war shall be treated as regards board, lodging, and clothing on the same footing as the troops of the Government who captured them.
"Article 23:
"In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden**** "(b) To kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army.
* * * "(g) To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war.
"(h) To declare abolished, suspended, or inadmissible in a Court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party.
"A belligerent is likewise forbidden to compel the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent's service before the commencement of the war.
"Article 46:
"Family honour and rights, the lives of persons, and private property, as well as religious convictions and practices, must be respected.
"Private property cannot be confiscated.
"Article 52:
"Requisitions in kind and services shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants except for the needs of the army of occupation. They shall be in proportion to the resources of the country, and of such a nature as not to involve the inhabitants in the obligation of taking part in military operations against their own country. * * *" "Annex to Geneva Convention of 27 July 1929; relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War; Treaty Series No. 846; 47 Stat.
233; Treaties, etc., Between the U.S. and other Powers, 1923-1937, Vol. IV, 5224.
"Article 2:
"Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Power, but not of the individuals or corps who have captured them.
"They must at all times be humanely treated and protected, particularly against acts of violence, insults and public curiousity.
"Measures of reprisal against them are prohibited.
"Article 3:
"Prisoners of war have the right to have their person and their honor respected. Women shall be treated with all the regard due to their sex.
"Prisoners retain their full civil status.
"Article 4:
"The power detaining prisoners of war is bound to provide for their maintenance.* * * "Article 6:"All effects and objects of personal use -- except arms, horses, military equipment and military papers -- shall remain in the possession of prisoners of war, as well as metal helmets and gas masks.
"Money in the possession of prisoners may not be taken away from them except by order of an officer and after the amount is determined. A receipt shall be given. Money thus taken away shall be entered to the account of each prisoner.
"Identification documents, insignia of rank, decorations and objects of value may not be taken from prisoners.
"Article 10:
"Prisoners of war shall be lodged in buildings or in barracks affording all possible guarantees of hygiene and healthfulness.
"The quarters must be fully protected from dampness, sufficiently heated and lighted. All precautions must be taken against danger of fire.
"With regard to dormitories -- the total surface, minimum cubic amount of air, arrangement and material of bedding -- the conditions shall be the same as for the troops at base camps of the detaining Power.
"Article 13:
"Belligerents shall be bound to take all sanitary measures necessary to assure the cleanliness and healthfulness of camps and to prevent epidemics.
"Prisoners of war shall have at their disposal, day and night, installations conforming to sanitary rules and constantly maintained in a state of cleanliness.
"Furthermore, and without prejudice to baths and showers with which the camp shall be as well provided as possible, prisoners shall be furnished with a sufficient quantity of water for the care of their own bodily cleanliness.
"It shall be possible for them to take physical exercise and enjoy the open air.
"Article 31:
"Labor furnished by prisoners of war shall have no direct relation with war operations. It is especially prohibited to use prisoners for manufacturing and transporting arms or munitions of any kind, or for transporting material intended for combatant units.
***" Now, if Your Honors please, we will be concerned for sometime with Books Nos.
3(a) and (b). We won't have anything in Book 2, (a), (b), and (c) for a while.
I might say about these books that in 3 (a) appears the document 124, R-124. It is a series of meetings; that is, excerpts from meetings of the Central Planning Board. They are not in order. There are also included the minutes of some six Hitler conferences, and in one or two instances the Central Planning Board meetings may be notes which are the results of the meetings.
This first volume, which is R-124, appearing in Document Book No. 3(a), was presented in toto to the International Military Tribunal as R-124. For Dr. Bergold's information, because I know he remembers the document, the Book 3(a) is exactly the same. The reason that there are more pages is that some pages had to be re-typed. The stencils had been used so much that some pages had to be re-typed, and therefore it now contains 47 pages, instead of the initial 44 which it contained at the time that it was put in evidence in case Number 1, but the book is exactly the same, with that exception.
Incidentally, this Document Book is numbered in English at the top of each page, if Your Honors will notice, 1 to 47, consecutively. Now, unfortunately, that is only maintained in volume (a). Volume (b) did not have that happen, and I will ask Your Honors at this time if they have put page numbers on the upper right hand corner of Volume (b).
THE PRESIDENT: There are page numbers at the lower right hand corner in Volume 3 (b).
MR. DENNEY: Three (b), yes, sir. Does it start off, sir -- with what page?
THE PRESIDENT: Page 45.
MR. DENNEY: Well, if Your Honor please, we will have to take those and re-number them because there are 47 pages in the first book, and they apparently did not correct them. I am very sorry. Perhaps we could adjourn now and, if I could take those books, we can correct them during the noon recess.
THE PRESIDENT: I am talking now about Book 3 (a).
MR. DENNEY: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: It is numbered up to Page 44, and then, following that, are two more pages, which would be 45 and 46.
MR. DENNEY: And then 47 is the first page in 3 (b).
THE PRESIDENT: No, unfortunately 45 is the first page.
MR. DENNEY: If we may have Your Honors' books, we will correct them at the noon recess. I am really sorry that this happened. Apparently they may have omitted some pages. I am not sure. Unfortunately we never see those before they are given to the Court. Today we got together with the interpreters and have given them the German pages throughout. It doesn't help Your Honors.
Sir, I would appreciate it very much if Your Honor would do that, because there should be 47 pages in the first book, I will check all of them and make sure that they are proper.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess at this time and give you the opportunity of doing so.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Court will arise.
The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. DENNEY: If your Honor, please, Dr. Gergold hasn't returned as yet.
THE PRESIDENT: We will wait for him.
In the meanwhile, Mr. Denney, in the books 3-A. and 3-B, have they been properly paged?
MR. DENNEY: If your Honor, please, they have been corrected. Because of a table which I have made out it was necessary to renumber the second book starting from Page 1, so that the pages appear as 3-A, 1 to 47, or 3-B, 1 to 41, and I shall try to guide Your Honor through the various pages as we go along. The pagination for the first book, I believe, has been placed in the upper right hand corner for your convenience, and that agrees with the small number which appears at the center of the page.
The reason that Page 22-A, in Book B appears is because of the fact that the affidavit by the interpreter was left out of one of the books, and hence it went along, 21, 22, and 23; and therefore when we came to numbering them in order that they would correspond with mine we gave your Honor page 22-A.
(At this point Dr. Bergold entered the Courtroom.)
Turning for a moment to Dr. Bergold's objection to the offer of the Sauckel interrogation this morning, which was Prosecution offer of the Document in evidence, 41-A, being P.S. 3721, the prosecution would like to stress at this time that, at the time the long No. 7 was written, and it was stated therein that interrogations were admissible, it certainly was within the knowledge of those propounding the law that certain defendants in Case No. 1 would shortly be dead, and it is respectfully submitted to the Court that Ordnance No. 7 after establishing the jurisdiction, then also proceeds to set forth the limitations, if any, on the receipt of evidence, and also to prescribe what shall be received.
