(Prsent: Milch (for Central Planning), Dehrle, Berk, etc.)" "Milch:
The Armament industry employs foreign workmen to a large extent: according to the latest figures - 40 percent. The new directions by the Plenipotentiary General for Manpower are mostly foreigners and we lost a lot of German personnel which was called up. Specially the air industry being a young industry employs a great many young people who should be called up. This will be very difficult as is easily seen if one deducts these working for experimental stations. In mass production the foreign workers by far prevail. It is about 95 percent and higher. Our best new engine is made 88 percent by Russian prisoners of war and the other 12 percent by German men and women. 50 - 60 Ju 52's (a Junkers plane) which we now regard only as transport planes are made per month. Only 6 - 8 German men are working on this machine: The rest are Ukrainian women who have beaten all the records of trained workers."
Continuing 10 pages later: "The list of the shirkers should be entrusted to Himmler's trustworthy hands who will make them work all right. This is very important for educating people and has also a deterrent effect on such others who would likewise feel inclined to shirk."
Then, going down to page 1913: "Milch: It is, therefore, not possible to exploit fully all the foreigners unless we compel them by piece work or we have the possibility of taking measures 223A against foreigners who are not doing their bit.
But, if the foreman lays hands on a prisoner of war or snacks him there is at once a terrible row, the man is put into prison etc. There are sufficient officials in Germany who think it their most important duty to stand up for human rights instead of war production. I am also for human rights. But if a Frenchman says: 'You fellows will all be hanged and the chief of the factory will be beheaded first' and if then the chief says 'I am going to hit him' then he is in a mess. He is not protected. I have told my engineers 'I an going to punish you if you don't hit such a man; the more you do in this respect the more I shall praise you. I shall see to it that nothing happens to you'. This is not yet sufficiently known. I cannot talk to all factory leaders. I should like to see the man who stays my arm because I can settle accounts with everybody who stays my arm. If the little factory-leader docs that he is put into a concentration camp and runs the risk of losing the prisoners of war. In one case two Russian Officers took off with an airplane but crashed. I ordered that these two men be hanged at once. They were hanged or shot yesterday. I left that to the SS. I expressed the wish to have them hanged in the factory for the others to see."
Field Marshal of the German air force, a man who had a soldier's book in the first page of a soldier's book, which he had from the time that he was a private until he was a field marshal, the statement saying:
"Respect prisoners of war."
(at the request of Dr. Bergold, the last statement was read by the reporter. )
MR. DENNEY: We now come to the 54th meeting which starts at page 1 of Your Honor's Document Book. That appears in Document Book 3A, page 1. At this meeting Speer was absent and the defendant presides, and, although we have it in here at some length, there is only one more meeting after this one; I think it necessary for the record that all of this be read in because it shows the critical situation in which they found themselves as of this date. We have a record of Speer's conference with Hitler and the date, March 1, 1944. The clerk then can judicially notice the position in which the German Wehrmacht found itself and we have a statement of Field Marshal Keitel which was given at the first trial, which we will read into the record shortly. We have seen the defendants working on a program for labor for the first quarter of 1944 in Exhibit 51, and at this meeting the whole thing was threshed out.
"Sauckel: (This, incidentally, was the beginning of the meeting.) Field Marshal, Gentlemen, it goes without saying that we shall satisfy as far as possible the demands agreed upon by the Central Planning Board. In this connection I wish to state that I call such deliveries as can be made by the Plenipotentiary for Labor "possible" by stressing every nerve of his organization. Already on January 4th I had to report to the Fuehrer with the greatest regret that for the first time I was not in a position to guarantee delivery of the grand total of 4,050,000 men then calculated in the Fuehrer's headquarters for the year 1944. In the presence of the Fuehrer I emphasized this several times. In the previous years I Was able to satisfy the demands, at least with regard to the number of laborers, but this year I am no longer able to guarantee them in advance. In case I can deliver only a small number, I should be glad if those arriving would be distributed by percentage within the framework of your program. Of course I shall readily agree if I am now told by the board: Now we have to change the program; now this or that is more urgent. It goes without saying that we will satisfy the demands whatever they may be, to the best of our ability, with due regard to the war situation.
So much about figures.
"We have no reason to contest the figures as such, for we ask nothing for ourselves. We are not even able to do anything with the laborers we collect; we only put than at the disposal of industry. I only wish to make some general statements and ask for your indulgence.
"In the autumn of last year the supply program, inasmuch as it concerns supply from abroad, was frustrated to a very great extent; I need not give the reasons in this circle; we have talked enough about them, but I have to state: the program has been smashed. People in France, Belgium, and Holland thought that labor was no longer to be directed, from these countries to Germany because the work now had to be done. For months sometimes I visited these countries twice a month -- I have been called a fool who against all reason traveled around in these countries in order to extract labor. This went so far, I assure you, that all perfectures in France had general orders not to satisfy my demands since even the German authorities quarreled over whether or not Sauckel was a fool.
"If one's work is smashed in such a way, repair is very, very difficult. Now for the first time I have been reproached by officers stationed in the East, which was very hard on me, that it was the Plenipotentiary for Labor who did not extract enough men from the East during the last year and thus was responsible if now our soldiers had to fight against the same men wham I should have t ken away; for these had become an essential part of the Russian divisions."
"Thus I have been reproached several times by front officers; and I wish to protest here and now. For the East last year was barred to me. In large areas I was forbidden to take anything from agriculture. I was told: You don't get any men since we have to organize agriculture here, the Donots area too was barred to me, and I was not allowed to extract anything. I had to struggle hard for every individual man whom I wished to extract from the East. Therefore I wish to state. expressly here and now that the reproaches made by the front that the men who I did not extract now fight on the side of the enemy are unjust, since I was entirely kept out of these areas. Such was the situation at the end of the year.
"At that time I was very much concerned: We discovered a decrease in the amount of labor employed. Today I am able to report that we stopped that decrease. According to most accurate statistics, which I had ordered, we have today again including foreign workers and prisoners of war, the same number of 29.1 millions which we had in September. But we have added nothing since that time. Thus we dispatched to the Reich in these two months no more than 4, 500 Frenchmen which amounts to nothing. From Italy only 7,000 civilians arrived. This, although from January 12 until today I have had no hour, no Sunday, and no night for myself. I have visited all these countries and traveled through the whole Reich. My work was terribly difficult, but not for the reason that no more workers are to be found. I wish to state expressly, in France and in Italy there are still men galore. The situation in Italy is nothing but a European scandal, the same applies to a certain extent to France. Gentlemen, the French work badly and support themselves at the expense of the work done by the German soldier and laborer, even at the expense of the German food supply, and the same applies to Italy. I found out during my last stay that the food supply of the northern Italians cannot suffer any comparison with that of the southern Italians. The northern Italians, that is as far to the south as Rome, are so well nourished that they need not work; they are nourished quite differently from the German nation by their Father in Heaven without having to work for their bread.
The labor reserves exist, but the means of touching them have been smashed."
Of course, there is a note at this time speaking of Italy. Italy had withdrawn from the war as of March 1, 1944.
"The most abominable point made by my adversaries is their claim that no executive had been provided within these areas in order to recruit in a sensible manner the Frenchmen, Belgians, and Italians and to dispatch them to work. Thereupon I even proceeded to employ and train a whole batch of French male and female agents who for good pay just as was done in olden times for 'shanghaiing' went hunting for men and made them drunk by using liquor as well as words, in order to dispatch them to Germany. Moreover I charged some able men with founding a special labor supply executive of our own, and this they did by training and arming with the help of the Higher SS and Police Fuehrer a number of natives, but I still have to ask the Munitions Ministry for arms for the use of these men. For during the last year alone several dozens of very able labor executives have been shot dead. All these means I have to apply, grotesque as it sounds, to refute the allegation there was no executive to bring labor to Germany from these countries."
The term "executive" is certainly peculiarily used here when he has to ask the SS and Police, or rather the armament Industry to give them weapons so that these executives may be safe in going about in their so-called recruiting of labor.
"I have to tell you, Field Marshal, after repeated inquiry, there is no longer a genuine German direction of labor. I have just issued the well-known proclamation which the Fuehrer himself had inspired, corrected, and adapted concerning voluntary honorary service. What success this step will have, I don't know yet; it will be very little. But I shall enlarge this voluntary honorary service. The Fuehrer wishes it to be administered by the Women's Service. Therefore, I shall go tomorrow and see the Women's Service and the Women District Leaders of the Women's Service of Germany in order to insist on the most extensive recruitment by the Women's Service of women above the ages of 45 and.
50 years. Something will be attained in that way. There are quite good, beginnings in some of the districts. There are quite good beginnings in some of the districts. But recruitment must be continuous and uninterrupted, and such things need some time before they run smoothly. Out of the German labor reservoir, however, 60,000 new laborers have been found in the first two months of the year, and the start as a whole has functioned better than I expected. The grand total so far is 262,000. Of these from the East alone there are 112,000. Thus the satisfactory statement can be made that the authorities in charge of what remains of the occupied areas have acknowledged the fact that better results are expected if the available labor is used in Germany than if it is used abroad. The supply of these 112,000 new Eastern workers, mainly men, has made it possible for us to hope for arrival within the first two months of 262,000 workers.
"Then some words about the question of women's labor. I have asked one of my assistants to give you later a survey comparing the English regulations on the national service to women with the German ones. It is perfectly correct to state that England, even if we take into account the difference in the total number available, does not use as many of her women as we do. One ought to abstain therefore from the reproach which is still made against me, that we didn't do enough with regard to the use of women's labor. On January 4th I told the Fuehrer expressly and repeatedly; if he gave me the power to recruit laborers a la Stalin, I should be able to put at his disposal perhaps a million more women. The Fuehrer brusquely and repeatedly refused this. He used the expression that our German long-legged slender women could not be compared with the (Austrian dialect term for short-legged, used in a derogatory sense) and healthy Russian women. I, for my part, also wish to warn against setting too much hope on the usefullness to these woman. But I wish to ask you to be sure that I am doing everything in order to put to work everybody who is fit for work, as far as I am able to do within the frame-work of the Fuehrer's permission, and this by exercising some soft moral pressure as well.
In the same way I have directed all my assistants to examine continuously the results of the action of January of last year concerning the duty to register and to make sure that the labor exchangers continuously find out and call up the women whose children grow beyond the age in question, and the girls who reach the age groups in question. Thus we do everything possible.
In order to enable me to reach these numbers, two conditions must be fulfilled. First it is indispensable that all authorities which administer the occupied countries must recognize the necessity of fulfilling the demand for labor in the Reich. This so far is not the case everywhere. Especially the protected factories in the occupied countries make my work more difficult. According to reports received within the last days these protected factories are to a great part filled to capacity, And still labor is sucked up into those areas This strong suction very much obstructs our desire to dispatch labor to the Reich. I wish to emphasize that I never opposed the use of French labor in factories which had been transferred from Germany to France. I am still sound of mind, and as recently as last summer I charged Mr. Hildebrandt with an inquiry in France which had the following results: It would be easy to extract from French medium and small factories (80% of all French factories are small enterprises with only 36-40 working hours) - 1 million laborers for use in the transferred factories, and 1 million more for dispatch to Germany. To use 1 million within France should be quite possible unless the protected factories in France artificially suck up the labor completely and unless their number is continually increased, as happen according to my reports especially in Belgium, and unless new categories of works are continually declared protected, so that finally no labor is left which I may use in Germany. I wish here and now to repeat my theses: A French workman, if treated in the right way, does double the amount of work in Germany that he would do in France, and he has here twice the value he has in France.
I want to state clearly and fearlessly: the exaggerated use of the idea of projected factories in connection with the labor supply from France in my submission implies a grave danger for the German labor supply. If we cannot come to the decision that my assistants together with the armament authorities, are to come-out every factor, this fountain of labor too in the future will remain blocked for the use of Germany, and in this case the program prescribed to me by the Fuehrer may well be frustrated. The same applies to Italy. In either country there are enough laborers, even enough skilled workers; only we must have enough courage to stop into the French plants. What really happens in France, I do not know. That a smaller amount of work is done during enemy operations in France, like in every occupied country, than is done in Germany seems to me evident.
If I am to fulfill the demands which you present to me, you must be prepared to agree with me and my assistants, that the term "protected factory" is to be restricted in France to what is really necessary and feasible by reasonable men, and the protected factories are not, as the Frenchmen think, protected against any extraction of labor from them for use in Germany. It is indeed very difficult for me to be presented to French eyes as a German of whom they may say: Sauckel is here stopped from acting for German armament: the term "protected factory" means in France nothing but that the factory is protected against Sauckel. This is what the Frenchmen think, and they cannot be blamed for it; for they are Frenchmen and before their eyes the Germans disagree in their opinions and actions. To what degree the creation of protected works is expedient and necessary at all is not for me to decide. I can only state how the effect of creating them touches the work expected to be done by me. On the other hand, I have grounds for hoping that I shall be just able to wiggle through, first by using my old corps of agents and my labor executive, and secondly by relying upon the measures which I was lucky enough to succeed in obtaining from the French Government. In a discussion lasting five to six hours I have exerted from M. Laval the concession that the death penalty will be threatened for officials endeavoring to sabotage the flow of labor supply and certain other measures. Believe me, this was very difficult. It required a hard struggle to get this through. But I succeeded and now in France, Germans ought to take really severe measures, in case the French Government does not do so. Don't take it amiss, I and my assistants in fact have sometimes seen things happen in France that I was forced to ask, Is there no respect any more in France for the German lieutenant with his 10 men. For months every word I spoke was countered by the answer: But what do you mean, MR. Gauleiter, you know there is no executive at our disposal; we are not able to take action in France! This I have been answered over and over again. How then, am I to regulate the labor supply with regard to France. There is only one solution: the German authorities have to cooperate with each other, and if the Frenchmen despite all their promises do not act, then we Germans must make an example of one case, and by reason of this law if necessary put Prefect or Burgomaster against the wall, if he does not comply with the rules; otherwise no Frenchman at all will be dispatched to Germany.
During the last quarter the belief in a German victory and in all propaganda statements which we were still able to make, has sunk below zero, and today it is still the same. I rather expect the new French ministers, especially Henriet, will act ruthlessly; they are very willing and I have a good impression on them. The question is only how far they will be able to impress their will on the subordinated authorities. Such is the situation in France. In Italy the situation is exactly the same, perhaps rather worse. We have no executive, we are told, and the Italian nation is morally so hopelessly corrupted that only pure force gives any hope for success.
Moreover, I am insulted, and this grieves me most, by the statement that I was responsible for the European partisan nuisance. Even German authorities reproached me thus, although they were the last ones who have the right to make such statements. I wish to protest against this slander, and I can prove that it is not I who is responsible. From the General District of Kiev, and this from the town itself and the near surroundings I extracted 100,000 men for labor, and in Kiev there were no partisans. The Kiev district was the quietest of all. In 1942 and 1943 I hardly extracted one man from the Minsk District, and was not able to do so,since I was to a great extent barred from this district. The Minsk district, however, was the chief partisan area, and even a Gauleiter has been murdered there. If there had been no measures of labor supply, many more partisans would be in action than there are now; for there would be many more unemployed among the foreign nations. These countries are indeed not able to exist unless they produce the things which Europe wants from them, and since the planning of production for the whole of Europe is done exclusively and solely by Germany, all these nations are indebted to Germany alone and to nobody else for the fact that they have bread and work. The measures increasing the labor supply for Germany and the occupied countries therefore has the effect of giving useful work to gangs of unemployed men. If this had not been done, the gangs would have become partisans. Furthermore, partisan warfare has appeared in every Eastern revolution for centuries and Stalin did nothing but incorporate into his strategic plans in a masterly way the assistance offered by partisans of the Polish, Ukrainian, and other areas known from history.
Similar considerations apply to France. I have been answered that such things never happened in France, that it was nothing but a consequence of German labor measures that these bands made their appearance there. To which I can only reply that those who say we obviously forget the whole of France's history, what happened in the 1870-71 war. Then too franc-tireurs operated in France. Even if there were no labor measures, the English would drop arms from their planes and would certainly find unemployed willing to pick them up.
Indeed, we too commit mistakes, this is only human. I only intended to acquaint you, Air Marshal, with the actual difficulties used by enemy and German authorities alike to oppose the German labor measures. It goes without saying that the ideal solution would consist in transferring the whole of manufacturing in these countries and, as the saying goes, in bringing the work to the workers. Numerous German authorities, even such as had no connections with economics and labor supply, inquired of me, why do you fetch these people to Germany at all? You make trouble for this area and render our existence there more difficult. To which I can only reply, It is my duty to insist on it that labor supply comes from abroad, There is no longer a German labor supply. That the latter is exhausted I already proved by my ill-famed manifesto of April of last year. But I am not able to transfer the German soil to France. Nor can I transfer the German traffic to France nor the German mines. Nor can I transfer the German Armament works which still have to release part of their workers, if fit for war service, nor their machines.
Here alone 2,500,000 men are in question as has been calculated in the Fuehrer conference. This is the flower of German workers who go to the front and must go there. I have always been one of those who says: if only energetic measures are applied in fetching labor from abroad, then we want to release in God's name everybody from armaments work whom we can, in order to strengthen our companies. The 1st and 7th Armoured Divisions are frequently mentioned in the War Report. I can only tell you that the number of soldiers killed in battle in some Thuringian villages has surpassed for some time already the number of soldiers killed in the World War, by twice that amount. This I mention in my capacity as Gauleiter.
It is for this reason that we have to do our duty. The best kind of German men, and men in the prime of life, have to go to the front, and German women of more than 50 years of age cannot replace them. Therefore I have to continue to go to France, Belgium, Holland and Italy, and there will be a time again when I shall go to Poland and extract workers there as fit and as many of them as I can got. In this circle I only wish to urge that you spread it around that I am not quite the insane follow that I have been said to be during the last quarter of a year. Even the Fuehrer has been told so. It goes without saying that just this slander has had the effect that I was unable to deliver in the last quarter at least 1 1/2 million workers whom I would have been able to deliver as long ago as last year, had the atmospheric conditions been better. It was due to that "artificial atmospheric screen", that they did not arrive. I am aware that they simply have to arrive this year. My duty to the Fuehrer, the Reich Marshal, Minister Spear, and towards you, gentlemen, and to agriculture is apparent, and I shall fulfill it. A start has been made, and as many as 202,000 new workers have arrived, and I hope and am convinced to be able to deliver the bulk of the order. How the labor is to be distributed will then have to be decided according to the needs of the whole of German Industry, and I shall always be prepared to keep the closest contact with you, Gentlemen, and to charge the labor exchanges and the district labor exchanges with intimately collaborating with you. Everything is functioning if such collaboration exists."
MR. DENNEY: Then in reply to this we have a speech by the defendant:
"I now proceed to the important question where we will still be able to get greater amounts of laborers from you, and without a doubt the answer is, from abroad. I have asked Mr. Schieber to make a short appearance here in order to give his opinion on Italy. I agree with your statement, Gauleiter, that it is only the bad organization of our work abroad which is responsible for the fact that you can't do your job. Too many people meddle in your work. If someone tells you, there is no executive in France and Italy, I consider it an impudence, a foolish and stupid lie uttered by people who either are unable to think or consciously state an untruth. This kind of person is not interested in giving a clear lead in this respect and in analyzing the situation, probably because they are not smart enough. In this way, However, your work is rendered more difficult or frustrated, and all armament work at the same time. For we have it before our eyes what close relations exist between the situation in the occupied countries and that in the armaments industry. A more foolish policy can hardly be cancelled. in case the invasion of France begins and succeeds only to a certain degree, then we shall experience a rising by partisans such as we have never experienced either in the Balkans or in the East, not because this world have happened in any case, but only because we made it possible by not dealing with them in the right manner. Four whole age groups have grown up in France, men between 18 and 23 years of age, who are therefore at that ago when young people moved by patriotism or seduced by other people are ready to do anything which satisfies their personal hatred against us--and of course they hate as. These men ought to have been called up in age groups and dispatched to Germany; for they present the greatest manger which threatens us in case of invasion. I am firmly convinced and have said several times; if invasion starts, sabotage of all railways, works, and supply bases will be a daily occurrence, and then it will be really the case that our forces are no longer available to survey the execution of our orders within the country, but they will have to fight at the front, thereby leaving in their rear the much more dangerous enemy who destroys their communications, etc.
If one had shown the nailed fist and a clear executive intention, a churchyard peace would reign in the rear of the front at the moment the uproar starts. This I have emphasized so frequently, but still nothing is happening, I am afraid. For if one intends to start to shoot at that moment, it will be too late for it; then we have no longer the men at our disposal to kill off the partisans. In the same way, we are aware of the fact that their supply of arms in the west is rather ample since the English are dropping them from planes. I consider it an idiotic statement if you, Gauleiter, are accused of having made those men into partisans. As soon as you arrive, the men run away to protect themselves from being sent to Germany. Then they are away, and since they do not know how to exist, they automatically fall into the hands of the partisan leaders; but this is not the consequence of the fact that you wish to fetch them, but of the fact that your opposite number, the executive is not able to prevent their escape. You simply cannot act differently.
"The main crux of the problem is tho fact that your work is made so extremely difficult, and this is why you cannot deliver the 4,000,000 workers. As long as it is feasible for these men to get away and not be caught by tho executive, as long as the men are able not to return from leave and not be found out on the other side, I do not think Party Comrade Sauckel, that you will have a decisive success through employing your special corps. The men even then will be whisked away unless quite another authority and power is on the watch, and this can only be the army itself. The army alone can exercise effective executive. If some say they cannot do this kind of work, this is incorrect for within France there are Training Forces stationed in every hole and corner town and every place which could all be used for this work. If this would be done in time, the partisan nuisance would not emerge, just as it would not have done in the East if we had only acted in time. Once i had this task at Stalingrad. At Taganrog there were then 65,000 men of the Army, and at the front one lieutenant and six men were actually available for each kilometer, and they would have been only too glad if they had 20 to 30 for their assistance. In the rear there great masses of men who had retreated in time and squatted down in tho villages, and who now were available neither for fighting at the front nor for fighting the partisans. I am aware that I am placing myself in opposition to my own side, but I have seen such things happen everywhere, and can find no remedy but that the army should assert itself ruthlessly. You, Gauleiter Sauckel, the Reich Marshal and the Contral Planning Board ought to report on this question to the Fuehrer, and then he ought to decide at the same time on the duties of the Military Commanders.
There ought to be orders of such lucidity that they could not be misunderstood, and it is then that things will be in order. It never can be too late to do so, but these duties and this work will be more difficult to perform with every passing day. The same applies to Italy as well."
And then Schiever speaks:
"The Gauleiter sometime ago discussed this question in detail with General Leiers, and they succeeded in reaching quite a comprehensive agree 238(a) ment.
In my opinion there are still a considerable number of people in Italy who could be extracted there, especially if it is possible, which is not for me to decide, to increase vastly the method, so much recommended by your collaborators of transferring whole firms. It was only a few days that 200 to 400 non were transferring together with very little difficulty. I am favor ing this method especially for tho reason tint in my opinion it will nip in the bud any tendency to take to the woods and to become partisans. Where the Plenipotentiary for Labor transfers the entire personnel of a firm, this personnel is being transferred as an entity this also presupposes the existence of some human solidarity between the members of the entity. The Gauleiter will meet even more difficulties in the transfer of these Italians than he has to overcome in France because the Italians have extraordinarily strong family ties. We notice this fact more all the time. One has to meet these difficulties half-way. On the whole we of the production branch in Italy are quite willing to extract laborers from Italy. Our collaboration with your office: is functioning without friction. We attach special importance to our desire that these workers for whom we no longer have work in Italy, ought not to be left to loaf about for too long, but ought to be caught and sent to Germany. Outside the protected factories, too, there still remains in Italy a relatively vast reservoir of labor, and if this reservoir is drawn upon in the way arranged by the Plenipotentiary for Labor by the poeple from the armaments authority, and by our special commissioner, if especially the problem of transfer of wages is solved, I consider tho transfer of a nice amount of labor from Italy as being quite possible, I should be glad, however, if right from the beginning any discussion by offices concerned or not concerned with it, about the possible consequences of the action should be prohibited; such a discussion could only disturb the peaceful development of production in Italy.
"SAUCKEL: I wish to insist on combing out the protected factories in the future also for the protected factories are working like a suction pump; and since it is known everywhere in Italy and France that every worker if 239(a) he works in a protected factory is protected against any attempt of mine to extract him, it is only too natural that the men are pouring into these factories.