Before the Central Planning Board existed, the Four Year Plan had distributed, very much more steel than was actually available, therefore, the whole industry had made steel memoranda, but no steel could be issued on the basis of those memoranda, and that caused chaos among the whole of our industry and the production, and we wished to finish with that state of affairs, and did not wish to continue that system.
Q. That is sufficient. I now pass on to the 23rd meeting, of which you just talked. This meeting is contained in Document Book 3-B; it is the third and fourth document.
Witness; during this conference; this 23rd conference of the Central Planning Board; you talked of three hundred melters, and in the meantime this part of the document we know pretty well, and you make a proposal that you will receive two people for one worker of this kind. what did you mean by the proposal and why did the Central Planning Board deal - if it was only an information agency as far as labor was concerned - why did the Central Planning Board deal with such trifles?
A. At that meeting I understood the proposition which was made by somebody else; that among the released prisoners of war there were some melters, and as I heard that this point had been discussed for a long time I suggested having; from among the prisoners of war still in Germany, releasing two of the prisoners of war for one melter each.
The man who came to us from France, not as a prisoner of war, of course, but as a free worker; my impression was -- without knowing myself what a melter really is - that that was such a rare type of work that it would not be too expensive to exchange one of them for two prisoners of war. Such exchanges between the German and French governmentsthat is to say, between prisoners of war and free workers -- was in full swing for a long time. That we of the Central Planning Board talked of the small quantify of three hundred people which, however, were very necessary for steel production, shows only that we did not discuss the question of labor as a whole but only the specialist questions for steel production; whether they may concern bigger numbers of workers, such as in the case of coal or a small figure as demanded by the iron industry.
Q. I now pass to the 33rd meeting. This is in the Book A, and there it is in the seventh document, and it is again in Book B, equally the seventh document. This is the meeting of 16 February 1943 and again it is a meeting dealing with the labor allocation.
Witness, there is a great discussion with Sauckel concerning, the blocked factories and the taking in of foreign workers into Germany. Do you have anything special to say on this matter?
A. As far as the date is concerned, that once again is six weeks before the quarter is up. The Central Planning Board is most anxious to distribute its raw materials. The steel industry once again has said, "We did not receive any workers. We cannot manufacture any more steel; it is not our fault." On the other hand, there is Hitler's pressure, "You have to distribute more steel. You must see to it that more steel will be manufactured."
" Witness, during this conference mention is made of the fact that the people from the Russian front should be taken back into Germany; that is, the population should be taken back a hundred kilometers behind the front, Why was that proposed?
A. I believe that meant that part of the population which was on digging work. In my opinion, as I saw it at the time, they were not people who were present in those areas. They were merely employed behind the front in digging battalions, and there was an order from Hitler that those people, as the Russians advanced, should be transported back. It was my view that they should not be transported to the homeland. They should merely be taken back, because otherwise as soldiers they would be sent against us into battle.
Q. And you wanted to prevent that?
A. I wanted to prevent that, and therefore I mentioned this figure of a hundred kilometers. There were tendencies to bring these people to Germany by force, but I said, "No, our purpose will be served if they are brought back about a hundred kilometers, because the Russian advance will probably not go any further at once." At that time I still hoped that we could hold our front until winter. I shall speak about that later on, because I had very special suggestions to make in that spring to Hitler concerning the question of hot the war should be conducted and finished and those ideas filled me since the fall of Stalingrad, and therefore 1933A that is a remark which is connected with that idea.
Q. Thank you. That is, in other words, you want to summarize that has nothing to do with labor commitment?
A. No, it has nothing to do with labor. It was merely concerned with the overall situation. I wished to prevent what had actually happened in other places -- that those people would, within twenty-four hours, fight on the enemy's side as'soldiers. We knew that from the large number of deserters.
Q. Thank you. Witness, in this conference you speak also of your French factories and you propose that sponsor-firms should be put in the relations with French factories. Was that meant to supervise the French factories in order to put pressure on them?
A. No, this was a connection between the German factories and the so-called blocked factories. I wanted to increase output in the blocked factories by seeing to it that the home industry, the German industry, would place more orders to France. Then the German blocked factories there could be increased and they were less short of workers and had fewer worries than we had in Germany. The idea was to overcome the short age of workers by giving more work to France, instead of getting the people to us as Sauckel wished.
Q Witness, during the same conference the assignment of Russians to the ack-ack batteries is mentioned, and you said the following: "We have requested that in our ack-ack batteries a certain percentage of Russians are to be assigned, 50,000 in total should be assigned and 30,000 gunners are already there. This is a funny thing that these Russians have to man the guns." I ask you to explain your position on this quotation, because if you say it is a funny thing, then you approve the fact.
A Lay I say first of all this must be a misprint. It should mean insane, insane, mad, in German.
DR. BERGOLD: Lay it please the Tribunal, may I say that we have in German the word Witzig meaning funny, and the word Wahnwitzig, meaning insane. Both words are just the contrary of one another.
THE WITNESS: May I say that the whole text here, I am convinced, has not been reproduced. Very well, which happened frequently. I don't think that I spoke quite so unclearly as it sounds. I do believe, however, that the sense must be clear undoubtedly because everything else which I said on the naval situation in other conferences would be quite wrong. Perhaps I may put in my words how the situation was, because after all, I know it quite well.
At Hitler's orders the Luftwaffe, personified by Goering, ordered that certain services in the anti-aircraft batteries should be done by socalled Russian auxiliaries. Russian auxiliaries were Russians, Russian soldiers who were prisoners of war, who had declared themselves to be anti-Stalin and were prepared to volunteer to fight against Stalin. They were not small in numbers either. That went into many hundred thousands. There were quite a few who remained in that organization up to the end, until after the collapse they were sent back to Russia. I saw hundreds of them commit suicide only to avoid being sent back to Russia. Those Russians should be recruited from the auxiliary units of the Army, and from the 50,000 they supplied 30,000. The OKW now said, "We have no more auxiliaries at our disposal, for the auxiliaries make up a large number of divisions with the Army and they should not be dissolved for the anti-aircraft batteries."
1935A Thereupon the OKW said; that us to say, in this case Hitler also, "Then the Luftwaffe industry; which is employing Russian prisoners of war, should supply the other 20,000 Russians."
That was roughly the biggest part of all Russian prisoners of war which we had in the Luftwaffe industry. That would have caused a collapse for me in several branches of the industry; for no other substitutes were given us in reality.
A (Continuing) I, therefore, was strongly opposed to giving up the Russians for anti-aircraft purposes, and I said either here or somewhere else, I can't remember where, I was morally very indignant, and said that was a piece of nefariousness, it was nefarious to employ these people shooting against their own allies, for the Russians themselves did not fly over the areas of those batteries. I overlooked unconsciously that these people wished to fight voluntarily, but I think if is quite clear that I, as the responsible man for armament, would not stand up for this interference with my industry and fought back with all means at my disposal, and as far as I know those people were not supplied by us, but I took measures in order to avoid carrying out this order by Hitler.
Q Witness, I now come to the thirty-sixth meeting. This is the third document in Book 3-A of the prosecution. This is the meeting concerning the coal economy-plan. In this conference Timm speaks of the fact that the recruitment would meet considerable difficulties, at least at the time, and that they had started to draft the people by year call. At this occasion I would ask you to explain your position to the question, what you thought, of how and whether it was justified to bring those people to Germany. What were your thoughts with reference to that question?
A This is a statement by Timm? Yes, it is. And do I understand you correctly, you wish to hear my attitude about this?
Q Yes.
A Before I became GL, that is to say, in the year of 1941, I had been ordered by Goering to work as Udet's adviser. According to my document, ten days later on 30 June, I had a long talk with Udet on the question of foreign workers and prisoners of war.
Udet said that the situation was the following, and that his information had come to him from the O.K.W. The first question was french prisoners of war. There was an agreement with the French Government that French prisoners of war should, some of them, be released, I believe the older age groups, married men, and that the younger age groups, however, should remain in Germany to be at disposal for all sorts of work, that is to say independent of the rulings of the Geneva Convention, for the French Government of the day wished to have a balance determiner with Germany being firmly convinced at the time that Germany would win the war, and that it would therefore be advisable for France to be on good terms with the future victor. Then there were agreements on the exchange of the older prisoners of war. I should call it the second oldest generation, for French civilian workers which would be recruited in France. I believe that system worked quite well for a long time. I may anticipate here that later on, long after Udet's death, as far as I know, there were agreements between Sauckel and the French Government to the effect to have old age groups called up for purposes of work, and the French Government, the Vichy Government, undertook the obligation to call up the people and put them at Germany's disposal. That is what I meant by the age group which I mentioned so often. That system was carried out only half, or even less than that, out Germany had a legal claim on the basis of those treaties on the age groups.
I now go back to the question accrued in '41, the Russian prisoners of war, and there were also the Russian and Polish civilian workers who had been recruited. As far as I know the Polish prisoners of war were immediately made civilian workers so that Polish prisoners of war with soldiers' ranks really no longer existed as such. They were simply civilian workers now.
It was explained here that Russia had not become a member of the Geneva Convention, and that Russia also had resigned from The Hague Land Warfare Regulation which deals with the prisoner of war question. It had resigned after the First World War, so that the decrees of the Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention were not applicable to Russian prisoners of war nor to their civilian population. That had to be understood in the sense that they had been well treated, of course. Of course I must assume that as a basis because that was our conviction. The Geneva Convention should not be suspended in order to treat them badly, mistreat them or let them starve or insult their feeling, their sense of honor, but only to the effect that they should be at the disposal for work in Germany, because the Russian and civilian population, according to the Geneva Convention, could only have been used in Russia and do there all sort of work on behalf of the Wehrmacht, but they should not have been brought to Germany, but as Russia was not a signatory to the Convention, the work of the civilians was also permissible in Germany herself.
Similarly as in France, conditions were in Holland and Belgium, although I never saw myself any Dutch workers in the Luftwaffe industry, and Belgians only in very few cases. What we really had were mainly Frenchmen and a relatively small contingent of Russians. As far as the civilian Russians were concerned, they were mainly girls from the Ukraine. That is what I learned at the time.
About a year later, in the early summer of 1942, I think I once saw the chief of my planning office, General Von Gablenz, and I gave him the order to report to me closely on that situation, for the whole question of the Geneva Convention, etc., was well known to soldiers. The recital of his examin ation was, and it is in the same fundamental situation.
I also heard from other sides that the same results had been given. I was therefore convinced that employment both of French and Russian prisoners of war and of the civilian workers from France, Belgium, etc., also Russia, was justified, but I want to emphasize here that I myself was under the impression that the voluntary nature as far as civilians are concerned, and as far as it applied to Germany, was said to be present and existed, whereas we in Germany did not feel ourselves to be responsible what the French or Belgian Government might order. I heard that the highest authority in our country was of the opinion that the French would be compensated later on at the peace treaty for the way in which they collaborated with us now. The French also had supplied air squadrons and anti-aircraft batteries in their own country, and they shot quite gaily at British aircraft without us having given the order. The French Government had been prepared under its own initiative to do this. I regard this type of relationship in the same manner as the relations between the allies and the Italians who after the collapse of Lussolini's system went over to the Allies, at least some of them, whereas the rest fought with us and worked with us.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: The Tribunal understands you to say that Polish prisoners of war were changed into civilian workers and that you no longer considered them to be prisoners of war. How were they changed into civilian workers from prisoners of war?
A. Personally I can not give you many details about this because that happened as early as 1939, and at that time I was not connected with the armament question or with the labor question. How it was worked I do not know. All I can imagine is that there was no longer a Polish Government and that the Governor General gave such order, that he interrogated Polish authorities on the point. It was only here that I saw that there was a polish Consul or somebody, but I cannot give you anymore clear details.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, perhaps I can clarify the matter.
THE PRESIDENT: Let's let the witness clarify it.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Witness, you are an old soldier. You have been a soldier for many years. How do you transfer a prisoner of war into a civilian, by discharging him?
A. Yes, he must be released from being a prisoner of war, and then there are various possibilities. One possibility would be--and this was resorted to b Germany--to make him. a free worker and tell him that "You are being released, but you must do some work. That is the conditions which we put to you. You are being paid properly, and otherwise you live as a free man."
There is also another possibility, which was the way chosen by the Americans, by which a prisoner of war is released and them locked up as an internee. I think that that procedure is not quite so favorable for the man concerned.
Q. You just transposed them from prisoners of war to civil prisoners, then?
A. No, they were no prisoners. They were properly released, but they signed a document which obliged them to do some work for Germany.
Q. You imprisoned them by a document instead of in a stockade?
A. They were no longer locked up, sir. The polish workers--I saw them 1941A in the country, for instance, lived quite freely.
Q. Could they go where they liked?
A. They could not change their places of work without permission. For instance, they were allocated to a farmer, and then they stayed with that farmer. Only if there were special reasons could they change their place of work. Then they were transferred.
Q. That is what you call freeing them?
A. It was not complete freedom, but it was a better status than previously when they would have remained prisoners of war.
Q. What would happen to one of these free workers if he walked away from his place of employment?
A. Sir, that is what I do not know myself. But may I say something else? A German worker was not allowed to change his place of work either. Freedom for a German was not any bigger than freedom for a Pole, as long as the war lasted.
Q. The German went home to his family every night, did he not?
A. These Polish soldiers--I can not speak comprehensively because I am not particularly well informed here--but what I saw were young people, and they lived with the farmer's family.
Q. Witness, you don't mean to tell this Tribunal seriously that the Polish worker, the former prisoner of war, had the same freedom of movement that the German civilian had?
A. I can not speak on all fields of life because I do not know. All I do know was that he was under the obligation to remain with his employer, but, as I said before, the German worker had to remain with his employer.
Q. Oh, well, we had that in the United States, for that matter. I still don't remember your answering my question: What would happen to a Polish worker who chose to walk away from his place of employment?
A. I am unable to answer that. I know of no such cases, nor was I told about one.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, the defendant can not know, because he was a soldier, what the Polish worker had to do. Like the German 1942A worker, the polish worker would have been punished and brought before a tribunal because he broke his contract, and he would have received a small punishment.
Thousands of German workers have been punished for the same reason, and I have defended many a German worker for the same charge. That would have happened-- nothing else.
THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you, Dr. Bergold. Did you over defend a Polish worker for walking away from his employment?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, I did.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I have no inclination to dispute you.
DR. BERGOLD: I defended quite a few foreign workers in war time, not only Poles, but Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutchmen.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, maybe Belgians, maybe Dutchmen, but Poles --?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, definitely. I am prepared to make that statement on oath, sir.
THE DEFENDANT: May I supply an observation of my own on the Polish question? Shortly before I was taken prisoner, I was in the country in Sleswig-Holstein. In that region the only foreigners there were Poles. Those Poles on the estate where I was, perhaps 30 or 40 of them, said that they did not wish to return home, that they would ask to be allowed to remain on the estate just as did their colleagues in the neighborhood. These people were wearing a splendid suit on Sundays. They looked very clean and healthy. They could not be told from any German in the neighborhood there except for certain racial distinctions. All of them had bicycles. On that bicycle they went on Sundays to the nearest pub and met their girl friends and danced, and they told me themselves that never before had they been so happy as they were in Germany. That was at a time when the British were 50 kilometers away from their village.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Perhaps that is why they were so happy.
A No, they said that they did not want to leave there now. They wished to remain.
Q I think you misunderstood my point. Perhaps their happiness arose from the fact that the British were only 50 kilometers away.
A No, I understood what you were trying to say, sir, out I also talked to the German employers there. I was there in a totally private capacity, I had no official functions, and I knew those people quite well.
They were friends of mine, end they told me that they were quite satisfied with their Poles, and they also said 1944A that the Poles had done very good work and that the Poles had asked to be allowed to remain after the collapse, because in those days they did not wish to return to Poland and they were quite well looked after here.
May I ask the Court to believe me that we in Germany were not all of us hangmen and people who delighted in other people's misery. I may say here that I think that the majority of the German people are goodhearted and that they treat other people well and that these people did not know that in some isolated places there were isolated criminals who polluted our good name for a. long time to come. The people are suffering from that now, and they will also suffer in future. That is what depresses all of us the most. Otherwise, one has to take the point of view that all Germans are criminals and then it might be justified to hang the lot. Then, please start on me.
Q I am interested in your use of the word "isolated". I don't know just what you mean by that, but I won't enter into any controversy with you about it. How many scores or hundreds of cases must there be before they cease to be isolated? Well, let's stop the discussion. This is time-consuming. I started it, and I'll stop it.