Q Sauer presided at all the meetings, is that right?
A Yes.
Q You are sure of that?
A Yes.
Q Now, you said that the total number of workers that you had in the Luftwaffe was 500,000?
A Yes.
Q And that only includes the factories?
A I did not quite understand the last question.
Q That figure of 500,000 includes the airplane factories, the motor factories, the factories where they made the navigation instruments, the bombing instruments, all of the controls, the various other precision instruments, that go into the make up of an airplane, and it includes a small part of the aircraft ammunition; is that right?
A Yes.
Q And the total number of workers that you had so involved was 500,000? That was the greatest number?
A Yes.
Q You never had any more than that?
A No.
Q How was this figure of 500,000 broken down? How many of them were Germans, and how many of them were foreign workers first?
A I could not say that in detail now, because that was not within my sphere of duty. All I remember is this figure of 500,000 which I received in conferences with General Gablenz.
Q Well, how many of these were prisoners of war?
A That I do not know either.
Q How many of them were concentration camp laborers?
AAgain I do not know.
Q How many trips did you make to these various factories during the period 1941 -- November -- to 1944 June?
A I should say roughly I took two trips a month. Therefore I would have made a total of, roughly, perhaps 60 or 70 trips.
Q Was Milch with you on those trips?
A There were a few joint trips.
Q Well, how many?
A I should say 12 or 15 which we made jointly.
Q What were the plants that you visited with Milch?
A BMW; near Munich; Allach, near Hiener Neustadt, the aircraft workers there; Steyer Motorworks; Junkers in Dessau; aircraft engine workers. We went there several times; Luther Works in Braunschweig; Trippelworks in Alsace; near Strassburg; Demiler Benz in Stuttgart. Those are the ones which I recall at this moment. There nay have been more.
Q When were you at Wiener Neustadt?
A I myself went several times; several times in 1943 in the autumn.
Q Were you over there in 1942?
A Yes.
Q Did you over see any people at work there?
A Yes.
Q Were they all Germans?
AAs far as I can remember I only saw Germans. I certain only spoke to Germans.
Q How were they treated, pretty well?
A Yes. Our policy was always to treat them well because we expected them to produce things; and Milch always emphasized me that foreign workers particularly should be treated well as their food and billeting and clothes were concerned; because they were expected to produce; and their food and clothes were accordingly; so therefore I must adduce they must have been treated well.
0 And Milch always told you to treat them well; to be sure that they were treated well?
A Yes.
Q Do you know the plants at Kaufring; Kaufring; K-a-u-f-r-i-n-g?
A Yes; but not as chief of the technical office; but late on in my position as commander or chief of the Luftgau 7; I went there by invitation of Gauleiter Diesler.
Q Did you ever get to a factory at Gussen; G-u-s-s-e-n?
A No, I do not know that one.
Q You never heard of the Gussen plants which were known one and two?
A No.
Q This M.E. 323 that you made at Obertraubling; that was the Luftwaffe; wasn't it?
A Yes.
Q And I forgot to ask you about conditions at Kaufring. How were they?
A Kaufring? I was only about half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, and I was particularly interested in the technical manner, of the way they built that tunnel which was built about the ground, and there were plenty of workers around of all sorts
Q Did you see any foreign workers there?
A Yes, there I saw some.
Q What kind?
A I couldn't toll you their nationalities, but the majerit of the workers were foreign workers.
Q Were they all happy and well fed?
A I couldn't say about that.
Q You saw them?
A Yes.
Q How did they look?
A Well, it was like a lot of ants running around. They were not particularly well clothed, and one couldn't say that, but as far as the feed was concerned, that was generally quite.
Q Did you see any Hungarian Jews there?
A No.
Q You never know anything about their employing Hungarian Jews, did you?
A I know nothing.
Q You know though about the Nuernberg laws in Germany, didn't you?
A Yes.
Q You don't mean that you didn't know that Jewish people were not favorably regarded by the people who ran the Third Reich?
A No, no.
Q You knew that they were having a bad time here in Germany didn't you?
A Yes.
Q Now, what was the date of this business that had to do with these two Russian officers that were shot?
A We were told about it on, I believe, the 16th of February 1944.
Q 16th of February, 1944?
A Yes. I know that it was on the day after a heavy British raid.
Q And how did you hear about it?
A By the engineer on service, on duty.
Q Well, tell me about it, what time was it, and how did you hear about it?
A It was morning, in the morning when I came to my office, roughly about nine o'clock, and the report was handed to me. That is to say a telephone call had came in at night, somebody wanted to talk to me, but on account of the air raid, I could not be contacted, and the report said that at Obertraubling two prisoners of war had tried to escape. I think that was five days ago, perhaps on the 11th of February, and that the Fuehrer had heard about this, Hitler, and that he had been most indignant and wished to have these non hanged, but actually they were shot at his order. Why didn't we report that ourselves, people wanted to know. I myself did not receive the report myself from my inspectorate. I remember that. I told Colonel Traubling, told him off in no uncertain terms because ho hadn't told me the incident. I then took the report and went to General Milch's antechamber. Usually about half past nine he arrived. When he arrived I told him at once. He had a meeting of the Central Planning Board after that, and he was also very indignant and told me it is monstrous that those people should have been shot, for after all prisoners of war have a right to escape and you must not punish them that way.
That will lead to complications.
Q Did Milch over do anything about it or did you over do anything about it?
A There was nothing more to be done. The people were dead, and I knew then and told my inspectorate very emphatically that in the future incidents of that sort they must be reported to me immediately by teletype letter.
Q And you had instructions prior to this time to be careful about the treatment of prisoners of war from Milch?
A He had no authority ever foreign workers or prisoners of war. We were not under, merely about powers of the order. Prisoners of war were looked after by an army department, and that department supplied the uards and the officers and treatment of the prisoners of war was exclusively in the hands of these departments. We ourselves could issue no orders.
Q After this incident you gave an order that they should report these things to you immediately.
A Will, it was a very special incident, and special incidents should always be reported to me immediately by teletype letters, and in this case the building inspectorate had omitted to do so, and therefore I reproached them strongly and reminded them of my order to report special incidents to me.
Q Now, you said Hitler reproached Milch for the escape of Russian prisoners of war?
A Yes.
Q Do you remember what Hitler said to him?
A No, that I do not know, hut it must have been in fairly strong language because General Milch was highly indignant at the way Hitler had spoken.
Q Now, you told the Court that you know of how many instances of prisoners of war having been killed?
A No, I never said that. All I said yesterday was that I know about cases when prisoners escaped; that is, that they escaped successfully. I remembered yesterday a case in France whore a British POW escaped from a German airfield in a German ME-109 and got away. Also, there was the Prenzlau incident when one or two POW's escaped and also got away.
Q You don't know of any other instances where prisoners of war escaped or attempted to escape, and in the first case were recaptured, and in the second case were frustrated, were killed?
A No, I know of no such cases.
Q Do you remember the Sargan affair?
A This business was published in the papers, and after our surrender I heard quite a lot about it.
Q How many did they kill there?
A I believe there were either 50 or 75 officers.
Q Officers of the RAF were they not?
A Yes -- I do not know what service they belonged to.
Q Well, they weren't Germans, were they?
A No, no, they were prisoners, and I know that we discussed this very much in the prisoner of war camp in Belgien and condemned this business very strongly.
Q Now, you spoke about a time when Milch was able to bring two units of men to work in the Luftwaffe factory, one of forty thousand and one of sixty thousand, whom the OKW were trying to get. Do you recall that?
A Yes, they were Germans who had been called up and had been released from their services in order to work in the armament factories.
Q In other words, they were called up and Milch used his influence to get these, in one case forty thousand, and in the other case sixty thousand, from the OKW reassigned to the Luftwaffe for work in the armament factory.
A Yes.
Q How many men are there in a German division; about fifteen thousand five hundred, aren't there?
AAbout fifteen thousand, yes.
Q Now, in 1941 November, things were in pretty bad shape in the Luftwaffe, weren't they?
A Yes.
Q When was the battle of Britain?
A 1940. It began in September 1940.
Q And you hadn't made out so well there?
A No, the losses became bigger and bigger, and finally it had to be abandoned, the attacks.
Q So that by 1941 the whole picture in the Luftwaffe was not very good, particularly about the time Udet killed himself?
A Yes, it was very bad indeed.
Q And that is when it was turned over to Milch?
A Yes.
Q Now, Hitler said he wanted 350 fighter planes a month for 1942, and then Milch said, "We will double that"?
A Yes.
Q "And we will get three thousand a month in '44"; is that right?
A He wanted to achieve that even in 1943.
Q Now, when you were at this ack-ack school, flak artillery, were they training any Russians there?
A The-ack-ack artillery group was not under my command. I was merely taking a course there by order, in order to learn the now tactics and methods of ack-ack artillery before I took over my division.
Q Yes, I know that you weren't the commanding general, but did you have any Russians who were there learning flak artillery tactics?
A No, no.
Q Did they ever use Russians in the anti-aircraft gun batteries so far as you know?
A Yes, I know that myself from my activities in 1944 and 1945 when I was commander-in-chief of Luftgau 7.
Q Well, as a matter of fact at all of these Luftwaffe factories they had extensive air installations around them, didn't they; that is, antiaircraft installations?
A Yes, they were not only around the factories, but there were other objects which had to be protected. In Munich, for instance, the BMW plants and other armament factories which had to be included in the defense scheme.
Q Well, you have seen Russians manning the guns, haven't you?
A Yes, only with the heavy anti-aircraft guns.
Q What kind of a gun was that, 90 millimeter?
A. 8.8 and 10.5 Q 8.8-and 10.
5. Now, you heard a speech that Milch made on 23 March 1944, didn't you?
A I don't know what speech you are referring to, 23 March 1944?
Q Well, Dr. Bergold showed you that speech, didn't he? A conference with the Air Force engineers, chief quartermasters -
A Yes, yes, I know now. That was a speech which Milch gave in the Reich Air Ministry, addressing the Quartermaster Generals and Naval engineers of all airfleets.
Q So far as you are concerned the principal thing involved here, they were talking about the Jaegerstab, weren't they?
A Well, the Jaegerstab -- one couldn't put it that way really. The point was that during the heavy air raids on the air craft industry many of our spare parts and storerooms had been destroyed. There were many aircraft which could have been repaired very quickly if we had the spare parts available, and Field Marshal Milch appealed very strongly to the officers who looked after supplies, the fleet engineers, and so forth, to see to it that the spare parts which were named by our departments, to release them from their own stores.
Q Well, do you remember him saying anything about the Jaegerstab?
A No, that had nothing to do with the Jaegerstab.
Q And you are sure that he didn't mention the Jaegerstab at that meeting?
A. It is quite possible that he referred to tho Jaegerstab because after all, the Jaegerstab by then was three weeks old.
Q. Did you hear him say anything about these is no international law" at that meeting?
A. No.
Q. You din't hear him say anything about whipping people who didn't work?
A. No.
Q. And you didn't hear him say anything about how many different dialects were spoken by the various employees of the factories?
A. No.
Q. Nothing in the speech, so far as you are concerned, to indicate that you had any foreign workers working for you?
A. No, the question of laborers and workers was not so important at this conference; it was material only.
Q. No, you said yesterday that the downward channel from Milch would have gone through you?
A. Yes, the orders to the industry.
Q. So if he wanted to give some orders to the industry, they would go to Verwald and then they would to on down through Verwald, and they would get out to the plant; is that right?
A. Yes, not orders--one can't call it orders. He couldn'T order then. He simply gave directives.
Q. Well, he was a Field Marshal, wasn't he?
A. Yes, but a Field Marshal can only give orders to soldiers and not to civilians or industrialists.
THE PRESIDENT: May I ask a question?
MR DENNEY: Yes sir.
EXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Did the Laftwaffe provide its own plant protection against air raids.
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A Yes, in some cases.
Q Well, that is, the batteries which were around the factories were manned by the Luftwaffe?
A Yes, and there were batteries which only indicated an actual alert which were assembled. That was so particularly with night batteries which were near the works, and there were also heavy batteries which only, in cases of alerts, were manned at night; that is to say, that the crow was not purely soldiers.
CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. DENNEY:
Q But in the German Amy the flak artillery is part of the Luftwaffe, isn't it?
A Yes.
Q Now, you said that you saw some Russians manning ack-ack batteries up north of Berlin some place, yesterday to Dr. Bergold. Where was it that you saw those men on the ack-ack- battery?
A I saw them for the first time, when I was commander-in-chief of Luftgau 7, and the anti-aircraft batteries of the whole of the Luftgau were under my command. On that occasion I saw the Russian auxiliaries in the batteries.
EXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Luftgau 7 was near Munich?
A Yes, Munich, Nurnberg, Augsburg, Innsbruck, Berchtesgaden, and Salzburg.
Q Were air-raids directed at that Gau by Russian planes?
A No.
Q What kind of planes were they?
A The British at nighty the Americans in the daytime.
Q But never any Russian planes?
A No, never.
CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. DENNEY:
Q In March 1943 Milch went to see Hitler and told him the truth about Stalingrad, what a terrible show that had been over there. Were you with them?
A No, he told me when he returned from the headquarters.
Q He got permission from Goering to go?
A He had a direct order from Hitler at the time when he went to Stalingrad; and therefore he had to report to Hitler. That was after he had fulfilled the order; and on that occasion he vented his feelings.
Q If Hitler ordered him to come and see him, he could go and see Hitler without seeing Goering, couldn't he?
A Yes, on that occasion, certainly.
Q He felt that the war was lost then, did he?
A If the war would be led in that way, yes.
Q So he really didn't get along very well with Hitler?
A I don't quite see how I can understand this question. Do you mean because he told him the truth or before this interview?
Q Well, from then on, from March 1943, he didn't get along very well with Hitler if he went and told him.
A Well, the relations to Hitler certainly worsened.
Q Well, he just told Hitler that he didn't think the boys were doing very well over on the Eastern Front, didn't he?
A Yes.
Q He had opposed the Eastern Front campaign, which started roughly in June 1941, from the beginning, didn't he?
A Yes.
Q He used to make remarks about Hitler in meetings and have them taken out of the minutes?
A Yes.
Q And he told you that he didn't like the way Hitler dealt with prisoners of war?
A Yes. When the two Russians had been sent to Obertraubling he told me about that, as I said before.
Q So he wasn't getting along too well with the Little Corporal about now, was he?
A No.
Q You say that his policies and Goering's differed basically?
A Yes.
Q So far as the General Luftwaffe program was concerned?
A Yes; also in other respects, politically, for instance.
Q You mean Goering was a strong Party man?
A Field Marshal Milch did not agree with the general policy of Hitler's.
Q Well, then when did this disagreement between Goering and Milch start?
A When it began is very difficult to say because the relations there were not particularly good. But this eternal struggle of Milch to get the defensive power of the Luftwaffe increased and the fact that Goering did not see eye to eye with that made relations worse and worse because Goering became aware that Milch wished the air armament to be done in a different way from his own conception.
Q So far as you know, Milch was a Field Marshal up until the capitulation, wasn't he?
A Yes. It is customary in Germany that you remain a Field Marshal through your lifetime. You cannot be demoted.
Q Sure, and you don't know of his ever having been arrested, do you, like Goering?
A No, all I heard was that it was intended to arrest him.
Q It was intended to arrest him?
A Yes.
Q has he ever a member of the July 20, 1944, Putsch group?
A Not that I know of.
Q He wasn't like Witzleben and some of the rest of them, was he?
A I only heard in the hospital in Wildbad of this Putsch over the radio on the same day; and I knew nothing of it in advance.
Q You said that he tried repeatedly to get peace with France. When did these efforts start?
A I said yesterday that when I met Milch for the first time I became acquainted with the efforts of the then General Milch. That was in 1937, in March, at the end of the tour of inspection, which I made as an applicant for the General Staff.
Q Well, did he make any efforts for peace with France after the war had started?
A That happened after the beginning of the war, yes; but I don't quite know what year it was. He once more suggested it. It may have been in 1941 or perhaps as late as 1943.
Q This is the peace with France that you are talking about?
A Yes. After all, there was no peace; it was only an armistice with France. His aim was to have a real peace with France.
Q Then you say that he also tried to get Ribbentrop dismissed?
A Yes. He told me this after his talk with Hitler in 1943 about Stalingrad. He told me that he had proposed not only to get rid of Keitel but also of Ribbentrop and that about the whole line of foreign police, it was high time to abandon the old line of foreign policy and make peace because militarily the war could not be won.
Even if one confined oneself to the defense of one's own land, the only possibility was, by switching over to a defense, one could show the enemy that he could not penetrate into Germany, and therefore he would be more inclined to make peace.
Q And Keitel at that time was Field Marshal, was he not?
A Yes.
Q He was head of OKW, wasn't he, under Hitler?
A Yes, indeed.
Q As a matter of fact, there wasn't anybody higher in the German Wehrmacht than Keitel, was there?
A The position of the OKW is a difficult one. The OKW did not have an immediate power of command to the various branches of the Wehrmacht. The branches of the Wehrmacht were immediately under Hitler. Therefore Keitel, knowing that, gave orders on behalf of the Fuehrer. He issued orders of a. general nature. There was also a supreme General Staff above all these branches of the Wehrmacht. The OKW was more concerned with problems common to all three branches of the Wehrmacht, such as prisoners of war, managing questions of leave, the financial matters, legal proceedings; and this branch of the Wehrmacht after all had its own channel of thought.
Q At any rate, Milch wanted Hitler to get rid of Keitel?
A Yes, because in his opinion he was a man who always said "Yes", and had no opinion of his own.
Q Now, he was invited to go to Campiegne; but he declined?
A Yes, he told me that sometime ago.
Q He told you that before the war was over, didn't he?
A Oh, yes. Since August 1944 we didn't talk to each other.
Q You weren't "mad" at him, were you?
A Oh, no, not at all.
Q Now, you said that he had a lot of signatures to sign every day. How many times did you say he had to write his name?
A I personally know that I had to write my own name five hundred or six hundred times a day; and the Field Marshal certainly would not have to sign less. If anything, he would have to sign more.
Q What were all these signatures about? Do you know?
A They were letters which went to the General Staff; letters from the aircraft industry; replies to letters from offices of the armament ministry; orders to take trips. For instance, I had to sign all of the travel orders of all members of the aircraft industry who wanted to go abroad. They all had to have a voucher; and I had to sign that voucher.
Q You say you also took papers home at night to sign?
A Yes. I know that Field Marshal Milch usually took two, one or two suitcases home with him in the evening. I saw myself that his chauffeur had these suitcases during the evening; and he brought them back in the morning because in the morning one usually waited for him in his ante-chamber to tell him what had happened during the night.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, if you were in your office ten hours every day, and you signed six hundred papers, that means one every minute for the entire day without any time for lunch or anything else.
A These signatures I only gave usually in the evening when the conferences were over.
THE PRESIDENT: Speaking of lunch, we will adjourn.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess until 1330 this afternoon.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The Hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 11 March 1947)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY MR. DENNEY:
Q. Did you ever inspect a plant near Melk, Austria? The plant that was in or near a place called St. Georgen?
A. No.
Q. You did not know anything about that?
A. No, I don't. I know of visiting on aircraft factory near there; maybe the factory is in Wiener Neustadt, that is, the Steyr-Works.
Q. You mean by Neustadt, that was one of the places where they had Russians manning the anti-aircraft guns, was it not?
A. I don't know that because the flak was not under my command later.
Q. Did they ever have any meetings in the General Luftzeugmeister?
A. Yes, they were, of course, twice a week. On Tuesday and on Friday. On Tuesday it was the supply meeting, and on Friday, the development meeting.
Q. How many people used to attend them?
A. At the beginning there were very few, but later on they were quite a few, approximately forty to fifty people on on average.
Q. How many trips did you make to Hungary?
A. Three.
Q. And when were they?
A. 1942 and 1943.
Q. You never went there in 1944?
A. No.
Q. Did you go to the Central Planning Board meetings, ever?
A. No, I did not.
Q. Did you ever see the results of the meetings?
A. No, I did not.
Q Did you know anything about what went on there?
A Yes, I did. Yes, the raw materials were distributed. The orders were distributed there according to the Hitler order for the program of the Wehrmacht branches.
1680 a
Q. You never know anything about a report of a meeting on 22 July 1942 which said that Gen. Reimecke and Fieldmarshall Milch would undertake the accelerating of the procurement of Russian prisoners of War in the camp?
A. No, I can not remember that.
Q. Well you said that Hitler had ordered that no French should be used in the Alsace?
A. Yes, and no Frenchmen were used. After the order came from Hitler I don't know. However, the Frenchmen were not used. Apart from the Russians, no enemy nationals wore used.
Q. You never had any other kind of employees other than Russian and French and Germans?
A. Employees? What kind of employees? Employed by whom do you mean?
Q. By the Luftwaffe, working in their plant.
A. I did not see any more other them the Russians and the French.
Q. That is all you knew about?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you made about sixty trips to various factories over the period from 1941 to 1944?
A. Yes, but a great larger part of the trips only dealt with the development furnished. In those development factories only Germans were employed.
Q. You spoke about prisoners of war being released on the basis of being recalled. What do you mean by that?
A. Well, that was a case where the French, or Frenchmen according to their agreement with time French Government of Vichy had released or had to be released until further notice. In other words, in case there should be certain existence of foreign policy, then they could be recalled. The same also opplies to Dutchmen and Belgians.
Q. What were you going to do with the Dutch and Belgians when you got them back?