A. That is very difficult to say, because one should know the whole connection. Unfortunately, I can't remember that today. When he said "bringing them in" he probably meant he brought them in from the exterior. Of course it is possible 735(a) that everything that was found was also considered brought in.
O cannot actually understand what this means -
735-b one should know the whole connection, of course and can not draw definite conclusions from such a term.
THE PRESIDENT: The Court will recess for a few minutes.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal No. 2 is again in session.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, on the question of the number of workers required; do you know of an Order of Hitler, according to which in the constructions of Berchtsgaden, no concentration camp inmates and foreigners were to be used?
A I did not know of the order myself, but I do know, however, that it was said that neither foreigners nor concentration camp inmates could be used there; I did not know of the orders myself.
DR. BERGOLD: I now turn back to Document No. NOKW-388, with which we were concerned before, at Page 138, we were discussing the part where according to Sauckel 300,000 to 400,000 workers were brought in but not even 66,000 red slips could be filled. What are the additional forces that could not be used for red slips?
THE WITNESS: I did not quite understand the question.
DR. BERGOLD: You stated during the first three months Sauckel has brought in between 300,000 and 400,000 people, but you added that unfortunately only 66,000 red slips could be honored. What sort of manpower were the other workers, the difference between the 66,000 and the 300,000?
THE WITNESS: Those two numbers can not be compared. In other words, the 300,000 that were brought in, and the red slip numbers, were the number of requests. The passage should probably read that if Sauckel had brought in two or three hundred thousand it would have been possible for him to provide the 66,000 for red slip requirements.
DR. BERGOLD: I turn now to the next page, 53 of the original. Here you stated it would be necessary to have workers, to take them from somewhere else, and Milch says: "You know our position. We are convinced that you are doing everything you can.
But we must now commit a robbery. We can no longer operate along legal lines." You interrupted and said, "That is the only possibility. There will be abuse but we must accept that."
Q What do you understand under the term "robbery"?
(No response)
DR. BERGOLD: Perhaps, if I could show you the document, you can answer?
737 A
THE WITNESS: I no longer recall it. It appears to have taken place, but to my recollection, I can not place it. The only thing that it can mean was a request to other industries Milch probably thought of taking the workers for the Luftwaffe from other industries and other branches of production. I did not contradict him then, because at that time I knew it was entirely out of the question, that the other industries would not have permitted it. There is no statement hero as to what actually happened, as a result of this. It simply is one of those boasts, to which I referred before.
DR. BERGOLD:
Q It was simply one of those proposals or statements which you previously characterized as witness as a strongly exaggerat ed statement?
A When he said this, the only possibility (pause) when I said that was the only thing we could do, I meant that probably ironically, but I do not recall that statement.
Q By "robbery" did he possibly mean that they should be stolen from a foreign country?
A Whether Milch meant that, I do not know, but I certainly did not understand it so, because I could have told him it was entirely out of the question. Besides Sauckel, no one was permitted on his own initiative to take foreign workers.
Q Please turn the page forward and find the passage in which there is a discussion of taking by force workers from other industries, could that be discussed under the word "robberies" here?
A I don't find the passage.
Q It reads "the proposal to take agricultural workers and give them to the air industry and not to return them has not been accepted by Sauckel." Thereupon Milch said "that that is out of the question; nothing is going to be taken away from the fighter production." What does Mich mean here?
A The situation in the autumn was as follows: In the autumn agriculture, that is in 1943 and also in 1944, surrendered a number of workers loaned them to armaments, with the understand that they Would be returned to agriculture in the Spring when they were needed. The return caused enormous difficulties since the plants did not want to return those workers, who in the course of the winter had been trained. This question was discussed at great length. Sauckel had undertaken the obligation to return those workers in the following Spring especially as they had after all also been trained for agriculture during the past summer and he insisted also in contradiction to Speer's wishes that agriculture should receive the workers back. As far as I recall there was even a discussion of this with Hitler whether these forces had to be returned or not. Milch's wish, when the fighter production stood in the fore-front, and was called most important armament in March, not to return these workers was also communicated to Sauckel and here also he insisted that they should be returned. Then apparently this passage refers to this refusal by Milch to give them back; but they had to be given back after all.
Q Then if he made such a statement that they would not be given back to them; would such an action be robbery?
A Yes, it must have been something of that sort. At least it would have been an order that contradicted all existing orders, namely, that they should be given back as ordered by Sauckel.
Q Then Milch speaks on the next page of the following matter:
"We must protect all plant which work for fighter air craft industries, You should not surrender people except on orders of the Fighter staff. Nobody can get at you, not even high offices or ministerial directors; all requests have to be made to the fighter staff; we want to state this fundamentally as an order.
739A then further below, he says we must write a latter to General Keitel and the OKW in which it will be said requests are to be made only directly to the Jaegerstab Can it be deduced from this passage that the Fighter Staff really had these workers at its disposal?
A It was a question here of workers who were already employed in the Fighter Production. According to the agreement between Speer and Sauckel, as a basic principle, armament plants should not surrender workers except with the approval of the corresponding armament authorities. This agreement also extended to the Luftwaffe probably, although the Luftwaffe armament was previously independent; it extended to the Fighter Staff though. At this time, according to the orders then existing, in other words, no workers could be withdrawn as a matter of practice. This order was frequently disobeyed, and apparently in this case Milch was correct that demands for workers from air production should, if at all, be directed to the Fighter Staff. Also, inductions into the army were carried out in such a way that the armament industries received a certain quota, let us say 100,000 men should be given up; the distribution or allocation of this quota to the individual district and finally to the individual plants was being carried out by the armament agencies themselves, who knew where the workers could best be snared. This principle was infringed upon again when the so-called measures for total war were introduced. At that time workers were to be given to the Wehrmacht and not to the armament agencies or the plant managers, but by the party agency that Goebbels instituted. Consequently enormous difficulties frequently arose. And it is possible, although I don't know what time this statement was made, but it is possible that this has reference to that.
Q This is the meeting of 28 March 1944.
A No, that cannot be, because the measures for total war were taken later.
Q But it means, however, that the Fighter Staff had a right to protect its workers?
A No, as previously the Jaegerstab could only keep or dispose of such workers as it had already.
740 A
Q I come now to the next document on the next page NOKW 365, page 142, which complains especially that they have no need to make demands on Sauckel if no demands would be carried cut. Is this statement here reproduced correctly? Was that your complaint?
A It is quite possible. I mean they were very pressed for workers; I can very well believe they said our hands are tied if Sauckel doesn't issue any orders. That is probably the reason for this statement of mine.
Q. I come now to the next document, NOKW 334, page 143 of the English book. It is a question at this time of prisoners of war who were employed in Truebau and were to be transferred to Brunswick. According to this document, the competent General Schmidt protested this transfer because they were employed in a concern at Brunswick where fighter squadrons were present, and he wasn't in a position to transfer them, and Gabel said they must -- and Gabel then said the prisoners must go to Brunswick. Who was Gabel?
A I don't know at the moment.
Q Does it mean that the prisoners will go there if Brunswick is attacked? What does it mean?
A If Brunswick continues to be attacked. That of course means that he would think it was a wonderful idea because they were prisoners of war.
Q Or it could mean that if Brunswick were attacked he wanted to transfer the prisoners. Were you present at this meeting?
A I don't know; I don't recall being there, if I was present at this conversation. I can't recall the transfer question.
Q In other words, you cannot make a definite statement about this passage?
A No.
Q Do you know that once at the plant at Erla there was an uprising of Russian prisoners of war?
A No.
Q I come now to NOKW 442, a few pages later. Here you are speaking of a transport of Italians -- 50,000 Italians have not yet been transported. It was due to the fact that the escort for the transport has not yet been ap pointed.
The conversation with Plenipotentiary yesterday in Milan proved that the transport should leave today for this place Woerl (?) where further distribution will be undertaken. Who were these 50,000 Italians?
A So far as I can recall, these were Italian internees; there were about half a million Italians already being employed in Germany in 1943; allegedly there were another 50,000 in Italy who had not been brought over. I assume that this conversation is dealing with those 50,000.
Q It is spoken of here that this is an action on our part. Who is this "our part"?
A The Fighter Staff.
Q Who said that?
A Sauckel said that? Who said that?
Q Who said this is an action on our part; is that an action on the part of Speer or the Fighter Staff; he says this is our undertaking.
A I mean to say at this time this was an action on the part mainly for the Ministry and that Sauckel undertook it because the transport was to be carried out by Nagel. Nagel was transportation chief for Speer's Ministry. The difficulties involved in bringing over forces from Italy were very strong particularly in the transportation field. I know that at that time negotiations were being carried on with Nagel so that he should bring them over in trucks. Thus the transportation will have to be carried out by vehicles of the Ministry and for that reason Sauckel thought he had certain rights over these people. That is to say, this action of ours means that we have brought them over; consequently, we want to use them in the armament industries where they are needed. I recall also that Sauckel was agreeable to this. He said if you transport these people, then you can keep them and use them as you want to. That question mark in there, the inquiry, was a transient camp where the workers from Italy were kept before further distribution. The camp belonged to Sauckel.
Q. Now, I come to NOKW-336 and from my document book I wish to use page 91; my own page 91. Page 156, I believe, of the English Document Book, page 80 of the original. Milch said: "How long do the Italian PW's actually work? Schmeltor: As long as the factory works. There is a regulation that PC's must work so long. Milch: Could you not look into this? You can see people on the streets about 4 or 5 o'clock and nobody after that. Schmelter: I can look into it. "Milch says: "I do not believe that any Italian prisoner of war works 72 hours. Schmelter: They will probably work in those factories less than 72 hours. Can't we have them all work 64 hours? In this way me could get along if everybody did that. "That was a statement by Milch. "Schmelter: I have already made the suggestion that in civil production workers should work longer. We have many who work 48 hours. Milch; Than we could hit a compromise. We don't always have to have them work 72 hours." What was Milch's aim in making such a suggestion?
A. Probably he wanted to bring it about that the manpower of the Italian war prisoners should be fully exploited.
Q. And as respect to the prisoners who work 72 hours; what about them?
A. It's to be assumed from his remarks in general that they should have a lower number of work hours frequently.
Q. Is this for both German and foreign workers?
A. Yes. The 72 hour week was established right in the first days of the Jaegerstab on order of the Jaegerstab. In my opinion that was a rather exclusive requirement which was not put into practice because of that. In the course of the first few months they tried to roach a more reasonable regulation of this.
Q. What do you know about labor utilization of English and American prisoners of war?
That is to say, Americans and British who were captured in Germany?
743 A
A. In 1944, that is to say, in my time, no new prisoners of war were used because we didn't capture any more. So far as I knew British and American prisoners of war were not used in armament factories. Repeatedly proposals in this direction were made also in the case of non-coms and officers. In the case of Officers -- it was Polish Officers, if I recall, no change in the regulations was made, so far as I recall. Instructions were transmitted to the OKW but I do not know if anything came of them.
Q. I come now to your two sworn affidavits of 19 November 1946; Exhibit No. 76 is a sworn affidavit of yours of that date. NOKW-266, dated 19 November, page 101. I should ask you not to interrupt my questions, otherwise the translation will not come through. Under No. 4 you said that Chief of Staff Sauer distributed the workers in the Fighter Staff. Now, what should that mean? Docs that mean a transfer or is that where he directed it himself or what does it mean?
A. That is to say, that because of the stoppage of production in armor production there were available manpower forces and the workers were distributed partially by Sauer himself in the Fighter Staff meetings. For example, it was determined that workers should transfer from one plant to another, particularly since they were skilled laborers.
Q. Did you know that in 1944 in order to protect the aircraft industry there were underground and protected factories built?
A. Yes.
Q. You know who gave the original order for this?
A. So far as I know the order for this re-location of industries in subterranean plants was given from the Fighter Staff itself. I was not competent in this matter but naturally I took part in the discussions of this Fighter Staff and heard it there.
I heard that it was decided that as to bombed-out factories, a different place which the Fighter Staff would determine should be 744 A re-located to these places.
Q. That's no answer to my question. Witness, I asked who gave the original order for the construction of these subterranean factories? Do you know that?
A. If I may repeat; you want to know who ordered in the first place that these plants should be transferred to subterranean factories? That I do not know.
Q. Do you know Herr Kammler?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know from whom he received the order to construct these special subterranean factories?
A. Here again I do not know precisely who gave him the original order. In any event at the first beginning of the Fighter Staff Kammler became a member and was commissioned to undertake the construction of subterranean buildings for Fighter Staff protection. The Fighter Staff also assigned or told him what individual objectives. He report d from time to time how many square meters were now ready. But who first originally gave these orders to Kammler whether it was Himmler or Hitler or some agreement or something like that, I don't know.
Q. Was Kammler commissioned with this and in this Fighter Staff because of an order of Himmler or because of some special order elsewhere?
A. I am not able to say, I assume that Himmler also gave him an order. The individual orders, what he was to build, he received from the Fighter Staff.
Q. Witness, you said previously that within the frame of your tasks you entered Speer's Ministry?
A. No, I did not say that. Within the framework of my tasks I represented the armament office.
Q. But the armament office was part of Speer's Ministry?
A. Yes.
Q. Did Kammler, within the Fighter Staff represent Himmler?
A. I do not know his powers or his functions and I cannot say. He was in the construction sector. That I know, but Himmler had charge of more things than really construction.
Q. Do you know Dorsch?
A. Yes.
Q. Is it true that those above-ground plants in the Fighter Staff were discussed in individual meetings of the Fighter Staff. I also know that at first it was considered who should be commissioned with the construction of those buildings. Whether Kammler or the construction organization, namely, the Plenipotentiary General for construction, that was mainly the predecessor of Borsch. Then in a meeting at which I was not present, I have only heard of those things accidentally, it was decided to choose Borsch for this. Proposals were made to Hitler regarding this construction. So far as I know, Dorsch also supplements these proposals on the technical side. The decision that construction was to be undertaken was taken so far as I know by Himmler. It was broken down into six parts, the first of which - however, at first only one or two were carried out.
Q. A correction; the decision was made not by Himmler but by Hitler. Did you know whether Speer or Milch were against tho construction of such above-ground plants?
A. No, I do not.
Q. That wasn't discussed in the Fighter Staff, or were you present at such meetings?
A. No, as I said, I wasn't present when this question came up. That did not concern no but I believe -- well, I don't know.
DR. BERGOLD: No further questions to the witness.
Mr. DENNEY: If Your Honor please, I have spoken with William McHaney about the possibility of Dr. Bergold interrogating Dr. Hippke, and he has no objections to it. In view of the lateness, I would rather not start on this witness now, if it would be agreeable to the Court. We are not going to sit this afternoon and -
THE PRESIDENT: May I use part of the time for a couple of question to the witness?
MR. DENNEY: Yes.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Will you try to answer these questions as simply and briefly as you can. Were Russian prisoners of War used in the armament industry?
A. In the armaments plant Russian prisoners of War were also employed. At what they were employed, I do not know, since they were already there when I came and I did not myself inspect the plants.
Q. Did you ever see Russian prisoners of war either manufacturing or transporting munitions of war?
A. In plants and in transports? No. Neither in plants nor in transports did I see Russian prisoners of war.
Q. That question is perfectly clear and you understand it?
A. I shall repeat it. I was asked whether these prisoners of war worked -- whether I have seen them in plants or in transport.
Q. That's right.
A. And I answered in the negative.
Q. Were Russian prisoners of war used in the decentralization of the Luftwaffe after the heavy bombings?
A. Not that I know of. So far as I know, after the heavy bombings Russian prisoners of war were no longer available. They had already been assigned elsewhere. I do know that after the heavy bombings, that is, in the year 1944, new Russian prisoners of war were not used in armaments or in the bombed out factories. It is, of course, possible that the local labor offices used Russian prisoners of war for this purpose, but we in the central offices knew nothing of this.
Q. Will you answer the same questions as to Polish prisoners of war?
A. So far as I know, Polish prisoners of war consisted solely of officers. Only officers were available. The others had been freed. The officers, however in contradiction to many wishes that were expressed, were not used. At least if they were , I know nothing of it.
Q. Will you answer the same questions as to Hungarian Jews.
A. Hungarian Jews, among other things, were used in the construction of fighters -- fighter planes. Female Hungarian Jews were also used in the actual construction of fighter planes.
Q. Were they voluntary workers?
A. No. Those were inmates of concentration camps, prisoners at the disposal of the SS.
Q. So the Hungarian Jews who were employed in the manufacture of fighter planes were forced to work in that connection?
A. The Hungarian Jews, so far as I recall, were offered by the SS to be employed in armament production. At first there were 1,000 of them, or 500 who were employed. Then a number of plants said that they wanted such workers and they were then allotted by the SS to these plants and there they were obliged to work.
Q. Then the SS, which was one branch of the German military establishment, simply dealt out the Hungarian Jews to anybody who needed them?
A. No. Thu Hungarian Jews, like all concentration camp inmates, were housed in camps that were either in or near the plants and which were constructed by the SS. They were then taken to work every day, and after the work they were again brought back by the SS to the camps. Also, the supervision of the work, for security reasons, was carried out by the SS. So far as the technical side of it was concerned, it was carried out by the representatives of the plant.
Q. Of course you don't claim they were paid for their work?
A. That I do not know. I do know only the general regulations concerning concentration camp prisoners, and I know them in part. I know that these prisoners, at least toward the end, also received some sort of wages. What the payment was, I do not know. I do know that the plant had to give the SS a certain amount for each prisoner, but what the prisoner himself received, I do not know.