I wish to remind you of the discussion of the Reichsmarshal in Obersalz 1914A berg where there was a meeting--rather, the meeting did not succeed due to these unclarities and nothing happened therefore.
These statistics have to be based on that, and I might add at this point, apart from this conference in the Obersalzberg with Goering, there was one or more other discussions with ministers. They all failed because everyone who was there started out from a different basis, namely, it was the Tower of Babel. Every one of them spoke in a different language a language which the other one couldn't understand, and there was nobody there who could have interpreted. Sauckel's deputies also answered on these wishes that the Gauleiter Sauckel, as of the first of January 1944, intended to create such statistics. It was, according to our opinion, a little bit late.
Then, concerning the fighters, Sauckel's deputy, Mr. Berk said once, "Sauckel has actually brought three million additional workers for the industry in Germany than they had before." I believe that Sauckel, in the Spring of 1942, had been appointed. We were then in February 1944; in other words, it was a month and a year, and ten months of his office. Mr. Kehrl from the Planning Office of Speer says, "He has no new figures," when Sauckel had been there for one year. There was only one million. However, in 1943, the whole thing with the labor assignment became worse. "He wants to say that; however, he doesn't express it. It is absolutely impossible that in these ten months two million additional workers could be brought, and he could not possibly have brought that figure. And then later on I shall come back to a figure which will stress that point.
The gentlemen were getting excited, and I try to calm them saying again that, "The figures, no matter how inaccurate they are, are insufficient." I still think it's a progress because the figures we had so far were still more inaccurate and worse. Then there was, where we urge him to give us more accurate figures--that means Sauckel's deputy, Berk--"That the wage scales with the foreign exchange situation do not have a sufficient urge for the workers from the East, namely, to volunteer for the Reich." In other words, because of this foreign exchange, these people did not want to come to Germany.
This is one of the typical ways how Sauckel's people spoke in these meetings; namely, that they repeatedly expressed the point mainly that these foreign laborers 1915A came on a voluntary basis--absolutely voluntary--and if not their wishes were fulfilled on the monetary or foreign exchange question or problem, they would not fulfill their wishes and would not come.
Then again comes General Waeger from the Armament Office, by using strong words and expressions of indignation, when they say to those higher-ups, "You have received 160,000 people assigned to you." However, in reality, there were only 13,500. Sauckel's deputy says, "I have to reserve myself the right for those figures." However, he is not in a position to conceal those figures, and apart from that, he only brought 145,000 instead of 160,000, which he said. I asked General Waeger if these 13,500 laborers or workers were additional ones; in other words, if they were new workers, and he says, "No, not at all; all together. Whatever was brought in by red slips." in other words, the people who had already been working in Germany were comprised within that figure of 13,500. Then, in order to show you how very unclear these terms were, the fluctuation consisted of two parts; namely, a real one and a faked one. I asked, because this is not very clear to me, "What is the real fluctuation?" By that I mean these people who actually come from the whole working process, while the faked fluctuations were those who went from one factory to the other. Nobody could answer my question.
Then it is in the record again just like in any other record, that a request was made by me that we first of all must organize German workers. I say to that, if we looked at all these figures which were submitted to Sauckel, one gains the feeling that these labor requirements are absolutely impossible in their nature. It concerns the four million which we requested.
And I continue, it strikes me here that the house economy has an additional number of workers, 810,000. I might add here that apart from those forms which we have here, there were five or six large charts which had been pointed on the wall and which contained all sorts of statistics. That is where I was able to get that number, namely, the figure of 810,000. They were on the wall during the meeting of the Central Planning Board. The most interesting of them all is the last figure, namely, that of the employed German Women.
It is absolutely in favor of the mobilization of the German women for work and for armament. That can be seen. I continue, we have to say that these Russian prisoners of war, officers, namely, are right, to have been given the possibility to look around or look about in Germany.
Upon the question which struck him most, he said in Russia, they wage a war with 100 per cent of their population, whereas, in Germany, not even 40 per cent is used. Then I say that is not due to the German people because the German peoples acts in such a mature way, particularly in larger cities, that one can only praise them.
Then I return to the figure of the maids. This figure, in my opinion, is much too high. 950,000 Germans are included. Sauckel's deputy says to that the Fuehrer is against the assignment of women labor for biological reason. I told him what I was trying to do was to follow Hitler's decrees or directive, namely, to activate these women in such a way that they can take the place of men. This should be possible without any difficulty.
After that passage, I say, in the Luftwaffe, for instance, I have found out that Junkers, with respect to the figure of women he had before the war, not even been able to keep up that figure. In reality, the number of German women who today are at the disposal of the war economy is not quite as high as what other countries are able to produce, and what actually would be 1917A necessary in our country also.
There are still reserves which Sauckel could actually activate. With reference to the entire picture, I could see from the chart which was on the wall, that the armament and the war production figures sunk from 100 during peace time, until 89. That is the percentage.
I mentioned here that additional German people or German forces could be mobilized in the Ministries.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, this has deteriorated into a trial of Sauckel's business acumen. It is far beside the point in which we are interested. I think you should bring it to a conclusion fairly quickly. It is interesting to know what difficulties the armament ministry had, but that is not the purpose of this Tribunal. Much of this material was no connection whatever with what we are determining. I suggest that you make it brief. I think you will have to take charge of the examination and not let the witness have his head.
DR. BERGOLD: I wanted to do that, Your Honor. I thought it too long myself. I wanted to stop it.
Q Witness, we are not so much interested in all these details; that is not the question. I want you to look at the 54th Session or 54th Meeting. There was another discussion there concerning labor assignments. Why is that such a short time after the 16th of February there was another meeting concerning labor assignment?
AAfter the 16th of February, it had not been possible to be able to get some sort of a result from Hitler. When he gave his consent, the increase of armament stopped. Sauckel, in the meantime, had returned from Italy on the 29th of Feb. I was called to the meeting of the first of March suddenly. That invitation also came from Speer's Ministry. Speer was in a hospital that evening, approximately 80 kilometers from Berlin. Speer told me that Sauckel had started this counterattack against Hitler by declaring that the bringing of workers from the exterior, from abroad, was failing due to the fact that Speer had protected factories both in Italy and France.
Q Just a moment. I would like to have one thing corrected. The witness said Sauckel went over to attack--by that he did not mean counterattack 1918A against Speer and Milch.
AAnd Speer then asked me to defend Speer's factories and ours. The whole meeting concerns this question:
Sauckel wants to have the protected factories eliminated and Mr. Kehrl and I are working against him. Sauckel says if these protected factories are left alone, then the whole labor assignment will collapse.
Q Just a moment, Witness, would you answer this question at this point: Did the Luftwaffe, with reference to protected factories, install them before Speer took them over, or did that happen at the same time? Did it happen to many of them or all of them?
A The Luftwaffe in 1941 already installed protective factories in France. And the whole time, they fought against taking workers from France. Speer at that time took over the system. I repeat, Speer took over the system from us. Our system was comparatively small. It confined itself to the industries producing planes in France. Speer's building up of the whole affair was a little more difficult. In order not to be able to get laborers from France into Germany he transferred civilian production to France, also for the German population.
Q Thank you. Continue.
THE PRESIDENT: That is where the trouble comes, you see. You just turned him loose now. You told him to continue. Ask him a question, then you will keep him controlled.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, I just interrupted him in order to be able to clarify the question of the installment of protected factories. He declared that the struggle of the 54th Session or Meeting, only concerned attacks by Sauckel. To protect the attack of Sauckel on these protected factories, Sauckel said to the Fuehrer, "It is not my fault. I am guiltless. The blames lie on the protected factories." I wanted him to explain this in detail.
THE PRESIDENT: Let us make sure of this. The protected factories were those from which the workers could not be drafted or taken?
DR. BERGOLD: That is correct. They could not be drafted from there.
THE PRESIDENT: And Sauckel had been attempting to get workers from the protected factories in France and elsewhere?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes. After they found out that so far he had not told the truth, he apologized to the Fuehrer by saying that because of these protected factories, he was prevented from bringing laborers from France into Germany.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
Q Witness, please give us these details in short because the main subject of the 54th Meeting concerned the protected factories.
A Sauckel says that he would not be able to get more workers. In order to state an example, he states until the 30th of may he wanted to bring in one million Italians. However, in two months, he had only been able to receive seven thousand. He said then, "If I am not given a chance to take the Frenchmen from protected factories and bring them to Germany, then I cannot fulfill my program, and it is your responsibility." He placed the responsibility on Speer's shoulders. The deduction of those protected factories was a mistake which was disturbing the entire interest.
Q That's sufficient. Now, witness, did this 54th meeting have anything to do with the redistribution of the workers or did they have anything to do with the alteration of the results of the session of the meeting of the 16th of February?
A No. The attack which had been carried out by Sauckel before and after that, against Hitler, had to be cleared by us, as being unjustified. Therefore, I protested against Sauckel, and I did not make any concessions to him with respect to these protected factories. This will be seen later on.
Q We had already read those?
A Yes. That is the most important part of this meeting because now Sauckel could not possibly, with a good conscience, be able to keep up his statements with Hitler. However, if he was sincere we could be helpful to him and later on this happened with Hitler.
Q Witness, I shall come now to details with respect to those documents introduced by the prosecution. The prosecution has introduced documents from which one can think that the Central Planning, in spite of everything you said, had something to do with the labor distribution, and not, as you said here, for the larger part, acted for information and clarification purposes. I would like to start out from the document of the prosecution, namely in a chronological manner. We ought to be able to clarify all those points. In these documents, the meetings are somewhat muddled up. I shall refer now to the 11th meeting of the Central Planning Board, Document No. R-124, Exhibit 48, and this is in the index of the prosecution, namely in Book No. 3, on the second page, the second document from the top. It's on page 88 in the German.
MR. DENNEY: Page 41-42 of Document Book 3-A.
Q (Cont'd.) Witness, this meeting is of the 24th of July 1942. What this meeting deals with is not entirely clear and cannot be seen from this document. However, Sauckel was present, and now they discussed the point here, namely, Sauckel said that these Russian prisoners of war are coming in hesitantly. Then it says, General Field Marshal Milch takes it on his shoulders to expedite the bringing of Russian prisoners of war from the camps.
Prior to that they had discussed the point that these people be used in coal mines. Would you take a position as to that, why you took that over?
A That is how it happened. Some office said "Russian prisoners have been assigned to us by the OKW. However, somehow the transportation question does not seem to be settled. They should have been coming for weeks and however none of them has arrived as yet." Then Speer said: "Why don't you be so kind and tell the OKW?" Nothing happened however, and I didn't do it either. That was up to the armament office, that was the military liaison office of Speer's. The record is misleading, has been misleadingly taken up here. However, I had no misgivings whatsoever to tell the OKW by telephone. Many of these people are complaining about the fact that they do not get their workers. However, I did not see why I had to take over the job of a higher ranking general, namely something that belonged to his field of tasks.
Q Witness, in the same meeting--just a moment--now, this is in my document book, namely it is Exhibit No. 5 of the Document Book 1 of the defense. Speaking of an additional amount of workers of 1 million so many that are expected at any moment, and for which the full supply had to be arranged for. It says here that this million of workers has not come in yet, and---. In this conference, did anybody say that these people, namely that these civilian foreign laborers came into the Reich on a non-voluntary basis?
A I do not remember that. They always mentioned the fact that they were either State contracts or single contracts which had been concluded on a voluntary basis.
Q The prosecution then introduced Document No. 396PS, which discusses the 16th meeting of the Central Planning Board. This is in the index of Document Book No. 3, as the last item but one in this index. It's the meeting of the 23rd of October 1942, with respect to coal, and here they speak about requirements of labor for coal mining purposes.
Q Witness, during the middle of this there is a remark of Speer's. Speer mentioned the fact that for coal mines, people should be taken out of the quarries. All these quarry laborers had already been released, however, there are still quite a few laborers in the concentration camp of Mauthausen, which is Himmler's concentration camp in the quarry there, and there Pleiger, who is the coal man, says he could not use these people, because he could not begin anything with prisoners. Did he have any misgivings then, as to using concentration camp inmates or prisoners in the quarries?
A I do not remember this passage at all. I never heard the word "Mauthausen," and once in a while I left the meeting, or then I was called to the telephone. It is quite possible that I overheard that when I was sitting there. I cannot remember this passage.
Q Would you have had a misgiving as to using concentration camp inmates in the coal mining industry? Had you been told how the prisoners are being used in Germany?
A No; I did not know that, and that is why I could not judge. I was absolutely convinced that these concentration camp inmates were Germans, and that these could only be criminals if they are being used in quarries. All I knew was that the work in the quarry is a very difficult and hard one.
Q Had yon been told or do you know if German prisoners have to work or not?
A Yes; of course they have to work. It would have been against the sense of the country, that is the general idea. One country is in danger; then those people who belong to that country have to work for it. Then, if these people had been left alone and did not have to work, it would not have been right.
Q Then I shall come to the meeting, the 17th meeting of the Central Planning Board; that is, Document No. 124, also Exhibit No. 48, AB. It's on page 91 in the German first book and the Book 3-A, and can be found in the index at least in my book, on the second page of the index, the third item from the top.
MR. DENNEY: The 17th meeting, I believe, Your Honor, is page 43, Document Book 4-A.
DR. BERGOLD: It's there twice in my book, It's mentioned on the top and one on the bottom of the page.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, page 7 of Document Book 3-B are the minutes of the 17th conference. There may be another section of them elsewhere.
MR. DENNEY: If he is referring to the second one, Your Honor, page 1226 of the original, the other pages are in the earlier book.
DR. BERGOLD: This is a meeting of the 28th of November 1942, with reference to coal production -- October, rather.
A Generally speaking, they always discussed the coal production in the Central Planning Board. We did not speak about labor, and providing the labor for the industry or for any other offices or organizations. The only thing we were interested in was the coal, because that was the bottleneck for the steel production, and the steel production was being required to be higher by Hitler. That was the reason why we had to pursue the whole question, in order to be able to check up as to how the whole affair was. Is it possible to produce more or not? All these previous meetings also referred to coal production, coal output, in order to be able to melt the steel.
Q Witness, there is an expression here used by a Mr. Winkhaus, or a statement, rather, in which it says that the coal mining industry is part of the armament industry and that nobody knew about that. Now, I want you to tell this Tribunal what they mean by the words armament industry in Germany?
A In any case not mining itself. However, everyone had the impression that the armament industry had been treated in a better way, namely with priorities. But the armament industry was worse off than the mining industry I proved to you before with those figures I mentioned, and that is why this gentleman from the coal industry wants to be included in the steel industry. Armament industry was all armament items, namely, arms, weapons, and ammunitions for the army, for the navy, and for the air force.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess until 1:30.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess until 1330 this afternoon.
(A recess was taken.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 14 March 1947)
THE MARSHAL: All persons in the Court please take your seats.
Tribunal 2 is again in session.
ERHARD MILCH - Resumed.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
DR. BERGOLD: If Your Honors please, I may go on.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, I now pass on to the twenty-third meeting of the Central Planning Board of October 30, 1942. May it please the Tribunal, this again is in two parts in the document book of the prosecution. That is, it is in the Book A -- it is the last document in that book -- and at the same time it is in Book B, the last document but four.
Witness, in this twenty-third meeting of the Central Planning Board of the 30th of October, 1942, Speer speaks of the slacker question. I would like you to explain to the Tribunal what you understood by the word "slacker" and what the discussions of the different meetings of the Central Planning Board meant.
A. The laws of war caused all people in Germany to be called up to work, including those who normally did not do any work. Some of those people were shy of work; and- they didn't like to do any work in wartime either. They didn't work properly and therefore were delighted when they were dismissed from their work after some time, for the factories could not afford to have people who gave bad examples. Those people had supplementary rations just as did their colleagues. German workers were annoyed at this and frequently complained to various departments in Germany.
Those people were then sent to different factories by Sauckel. The same thing happened again. Sometimes they could be sent around several times a month. I could not say that it was the same type of people, and they were called "Pink." As far as the female elements were concerned, their professions were similar. They were tramps, as it was usual for them to wall the roads and highways in the summer. They worked when they felt like it, that is to say, when they could not do anything else to stay alive, and, therefore, apart from calling them "slackers", we also called them "Occasional workers." The German workers who had a strong feeling for fairness, they wished those people to be tackled severely, and in that connection the statements are to be understood which sometimes were made by Speer and later on by me.
Q. Witness, in this conference Sauckel is said to have stated the following: "The- Fuehrer has said the following: If the French do not want to work, then I will have to keep the eight -- to draft the 800,000 prisoners of war back into the prisoner of war status. If they are willing to work, the French women can come to Germany to the husbands and work there." What did you understand from this quotation?
A. After the French campaign, also after the Belgium and Dutch campaign, equally Norway, a large number of prisoners of war had been released. Almost all of the small countries, for instance Norway; but they had been released on condition that the conditions in France would be observed according to the Armistice terms and the treaties which had been coming through with Italy and France.
The next point that also becomes important later on is whenever reference was made to their being called back again; that moans those prisoners of war who had been released revocably.
Q. Witness, in the course of this conference you went on to talk about having an immediate requirement of 49,000 and having reported it, that in spite of that there was a monthly deficit which accumula ted every month.
What was the purpose of those remarks. Was it a strengthening of your request, or what did it mean?
A. No, that was not meant. What I meant was to show a parallel so far as Sauckel and his crowd were concerned; that he was behind in every case, not so far as Sauckel's coal was concerned, but Sauckel was also to be shown that his promise had been kept, and that his statement to Adolph Hitler had been correct.
Q. Witness, in this conference, Sauckel speaks of having the possibility -- of having to have the possibility to take over the prisoners of war in the operations area right away. On that you declare that the normal channel would be that by order of the Fuehrer all stalags or prisoners of war camps would be handed over to him, that is, the armed forces, to catch the people, "And should hand them over to you," that is, to Sauckel, and Sauckel answered that he had no uniforms for his people, and then you proposed "after all that the men in question could wear uniforms." How did you mean that?
A. Sauckel's demand, so far as the armed forces were concerned, was so far reaching that from the point of view of a soldier, it really looked ridiculous, and, therefore, I permitted myself to joke with him, as I wished to give an answer to his ridiculous demands.
Q. Furthermore, Witness, during this conference you speak of the fact that the Prisoners of war who would come from the Ukraine generally were in very bad state, and that they would be of no benefit for the industries, even if they could be given better food as the industrial workers, that is, the German industrial workers would receive. As in the agriculture, they could got additional food, and, therefore , they should be sent there first. What was the meaning and intention you had, and why did you say it?
A. The case was to be a measure of welfare, for complaints had been made in this meeting by other parties that the latest capture of Russians had been badly fod. I said yesterday, to that, that is in those battles the people when they were captured were in a bad physical state, and that they had been starving for a long time, and I assumed this would apply here also, and know from my own experience that you can soon catch up again in the country, whereas, rations in the cities, even for workers, were somehow restricted, and the rations for the workers, and the rations for workers were thus calculated to preserve a person's physical state, but it was not intended that those rations were to be given to men as additional food to recuperate.
I knew also that workers like going into agriculture just because of the better food situation.
Q. Witness, was that a request which you had made repeatedly?
A. Yes. I made them on all these occasions when such conditions were mentioned as a proposition.
Q. Witness, now I come to the 22nd meeting of the Central Planning Board, which again is in two different parts in the Document Book, namely, the first as sixth document in Book A, and as last document, number two, is in Document Book B. In Book A there is only one part in which you speak again of feeding those prisoners of war, therefore, I have not to repeat it. Then in the second part, in Book B, the third last document, there again we have a conversation with Sauckel concerning the covering of the need or requirement, and Sauckel passed on the balance, which in general, was decreasing. Was that again a conference which was called for clarifying matters?
A. Yes. I may point out at the meetings of 23rd October, 28th of October, 30th of October, 2nd of November and 3rd of November, these are five meetings, five consecutive- meetings, all of which were intended to prepare the steel distribution in that field for the first quarter of '43, for at the latest meeting of the 15th of November the Central Planning Board had to take measures to distribute the raw materials. And then again there were so many uncleared points as to the labor question that we were compelled to discuss that point in regard to coal and the steel production, for here again Hitler's demand was before us to distribute more steel than we could actually manufacture, and we did not think that system could be answered for.