A May I ask if this is a telegram sent by Georing?
Q Yes, that is correct. That is the telegram by Goering of 24 June 1943 - correction, 27 June 1943, and which you for warded to Milch.
A Yes, that is correct. And I wanted to come back to that particular telegram anyway, referring to one of the statements made by the Prosecution,-
Q May I ask you first the questions?
A Yes, please.
Q Witness, in number one in this telegram on the last page it says "The Reich Marshall has asked that the Central Planning examine this request", according to your knowledge of the Central Planning Board, was Goering in a position to give orders to the Central Planning Board and particularly to Reichminister Speer?
A Yes, in his position as Plenipotentiary for the Four Your Plan he was definitely in a position to issue orders to the Reichsminister for Armament and also as plenipotentiary for Armament in the Four Year Plan.
Q. Even to the Central Planning Board?
AAs far as I know, no. Therefore, as can be clearly soon from this telegram, he did not send an order to the Central Planning Board - yes, to the Central Planning Board indeed, but to my attention but as I can see this matter, the whole measure was necessary duo to the heavy air raids on Huelz. In other words, it was a special emergency measure and had to be taken immediately. If the Prosecutor says that it can be clearly soon from this telegram that this is a labor assignment, then I can only refer to the fact that this is a closed stop which was taken by Georing as Plenipotentiary General for the Four Year Plan because the Plenipotentiary General for special chemical questions was his subordinate and this plenipotentiary, in his great distress had referred to Goering.
Goering, on the basis of this call for help by the Plenipotentiary General and his requests could have gone to the GBA with his labor requirements. He didn't do that, however, because he know exactly that what was required by the chemical industry, was special labor, special workers, who at that time on the open market were no longer available.
700 a Since Speer as Armament Minister was in charge of the most important industries, where such special workers were available, Goering thought he would get better results if he channelled these appeals through the Central Planning Board to me So that Speer in realization of the importance of the complex might try to shift the required workers from his own factories.
This was not a matter of labor assignment, as such, but rather a special emergency measure, which could only be taken care of if he who had possibility to fill such a request for special labor also gave it to the Central Planning.
Q Did the Central Planning have a possibility of putting an organization there?
A No, not at all. This point (l) which is mentioned in Goering's telegram, that one thousand men should be placed in the organization Todt also shows clearly that he referred to Speer through this channel in order to induce him to do everything in his power here, too.
Q Don't you think it is possible that a similar letter was sent to Sauckel?
Q No, I don't believe that, because I am convinced that Searing at the time, which was in the summer of 1943, was absolutely aware of the fact that Sauckel did not have any more such people available and therefore could not place them at his disposal.
Q Then I understand that you want to say that his letter was addressed to Minister Speer not so much because he was a member of the Central Planning board, but rather as the Armament Minister?
A Well, that is quite correct. I also suppose that Goer ing addressed his teletype to me for that particular reason that Speer would not consider it a pronounced order, but that I should act as intermediary with Speer and obtain his coopera tion for this extraordinary measure.
Q Do you know whether the Central Planning Board gave any orders as to that natter and called a meeting about it?
A I believe that a meeting would not have been called due to such 701-A a special case, but rather what was necessary to do in the interest of the manufacture of Buna was taken care of through regular channels.
Q The letter is from Mr. Turner. It was not signed by Goering was it?
A No. Turner was special sub-department chief for the Reichsmarshall, and then acting upon orders of Goering wrotethis teletype and sent it to me.
Q Is it true that Turner used stronger terms than Goering actually wanted to use?
A That, of course, I can not judge. It could be possible In any case I think it can be clearly seen from what I just said that this was an extraordinary measure which could only be solved by Speer's doing everything he could to solve the problem.
Q I shall not proceed to Exhibit No. 127, that is the last document that the Prosecution submitted to you, a letter from you to Milch, or that letter from Goering to Speer?
A Yes, that is correct. I remember that. One thing should be clarified, whether this letter was true. I shall now support the truth of my letter to Speer.
MR. DENNEY: Is comes through a letter from Goering to Speer. It was a letter from Koerner to Speer.
THE PRESIDENT: It was just a mis-statement.
MR. DENNEY: I want to clear it up in the record.
THE WITNESS: Yes, it was a letter from me, I take it for granted that this letter is in order. It can be clearly seen that the Central Planning Board did not have anything to do with this matter, but the tasks in this matter were given to me because I as Deputy for the Four Year Plan was also in charge of the food situation in Germany. Here the Central Plan ning Board should have been referred directly to the Reich Food Ministry which the Control Planning did not do, but they referred the matter to me, and as can be seen clearly from this letter, this question was solved by me with every precaution taken.
I had investigations made 702-A 702-A as to how the question of additional food ration cards was carried out in practice and, after the examination of the happenings I wrote this report to Speer, and I also suggested that no new decree be released but to leave it go at the decree issued by tho Reichsministry of Food.
Q Witness, were the words beginning with "It has been suggested in the Central Planning Board --" was this a resolution or decree or just a suggestion of some way to solve this problem?
A The word "suggested" shows clearly there was no decree from the Central Planning Board, but that I personally, as a member of the Central Planning because I happened to be at the Central Planning Board referred this question of the German Food situation to the Reichsministry of Food, and at the some time of course mentioned the situation plans through a strong fluctuation due to lax treatment of the ration coupons.
Q When it has been said here, "All the workers who have been recruited by the plants illegally", Are you talking about the bad conditions, which resulted during the war, namely, that factories would recruit workers from another factory by offering them higher wages?
A Generally speaking that such possibility was later limited by the decrees which had been issued, and particularly by Sauckel long before the war. Of course, here and there once in awhile there was a possibility that one or the other factory did not quite stick to the laws. Particularly there were possibilities to break the law, especially where concerns and factories could among each other shift workers from one factory to tho other.
Q Witness, I shall now proceed to tho 54th Meeting, excerpts of which were read to you by the Prosecution, namely, statements made by Sauckel.
I want you to remember that this morning I also asked you about this 54th Session. This is the session, which I submitted to you, where Sauckel made those particular statements: that only 200,000 laborers out of a total of 5,000,000 came voluntarily, and where he said that in France no program was in existence for the recruiting of voluntary workers. This morning you testified 703-A that these two last statements made by Sauckel were not made by him and that they were exaggerations.
Do you think that the statements made by Sauckel, which were shown to you by the Prosecution, do you think they are exaggerates, too, or so you think they are correct?
A No, I think they are also exaggerated.
A. No, I think they are also exaggerated.
Q. On page 1780 of the transcript that was shown to you by the Prosecution--and I am talking particularly about the last sentence that was shown to you--there is the following sentence in there. That is on page 14 of the German document book: "The way in which the distribution took place, that of course must take place according to the necessities, first, of the German armament, and second, of the German economy." That is where the word "economy" occurs. Did the Central Planning Board have anything to do with the German economy?
A. I said before that the Central Planning Board handled the distribution for all these with labor requirements.
Q. Talking about the economy, this includes the traffic, food, etc. did the Central Planning Board have anything to do with the traffic or the tradesmen, or hospitals and similar institutions? And did they have to distribute workers?
A. No, of course not. The Central Planning Board did not have anything to do with labor assignments, only with the distribution of raw materials.
Q. Yes, but I am here talking about labor distribution.
A. No, the Central Planning Board did not have that under its super vision.
Q. Witness, you have been shown the data concerning the first conference and the fifth conference respectively, of the Central Planning Board, where there is a record concerning the working sphere of the Central Planning Board. Does your statement of this morning that the minutes were not reviewed refer also to the first session?
A. Yes. That is correct, of course.
Q Should one take it, though, Witness, that at such an important session, where they discussed the limits of the Central Planning Board Do you think that they were regarded as official without having been reviewed?
A. Of course, I can't remember at this moment, and I don't know if the minutes were reviewed. In any case, the members of the Central Planning Board were present at that meeting, and they heard everything that was said there.
Q. Do you think that this corresponds exactly with what they said?
705a
A. That, of course, I cannot remember today.
Q. Witness, you stated that the Central Planning Board was not created by decree. I have here Nachrichtenblatt No. 2, of the 23 April 1942, with a decree issued by Goering. Do you think that such a decree issued by Goering was a law, or what do you understand by that word "decree"?
A. I consider that decree a decree and not a law. However, publication of this decree, in my opinion, did not take place, because otherwise the publication would have to take place in the Reichsgesetzblatt, and it did not take place. As far as I can remember now, I don't believe that this decree was published in either of the two papers.
Q. I don't believe that was published either. What was that Nachrichtenblatt No. 2?
A. I am afraid that I cannot answer that question, because I can only imagine that this was a Nachrichtenblatt within the working sphere of Speer. I do not know these nows leaflets. However, I believe that Speer might be able to answer those questions.
Q. In any case, it was not an official paper in which the publication of laws took place?
A. No, I am sure it was not. The official paper was the "Reichsgesetzblatt" and the "Reichs-und-Proussische Staatsanzeiher".
Q. In this decree, issued by Goering, Goering played as though he were in power for the Central Planning Board. Did that happen in order to save face for Goering to the outside?
A. I believe I am able to say that that is the way it was. With the appointment of Speer by Hitler, through which he was to take over the interests of the whole armament situation it was becoming more and more evident, which way Speer wanted to go.
That Speer no longer wanted to work with distribution of raw materials under the Four Year Plan in cooperation with the Reichministry shows that he had the distribution of raw materials transferred to himself. That is, the Committee of the Central Planning Board was created in order that he may be able to influence more effectively the tasks which were carried out so far by the Four Year Plan.
706a.
Q. Did the Central Planning Board over report to Goering concerning its activity?
A. As far as I can remember, no.
Q. Would not that have been necessary if Goering had really been the boss of the Central Planning Board?
A. Then, of course, it would have been necessary.
Q. Witness, the Prosecution has submitted to you the 56th Conference, which is in the fourth bundle. The Prosecution submitted to you the following sentence, "550,000,000 are being promised, the contingent Jaegerstab plus 150,000,000 from the reserve, and the contingent RIM in administration, 200,000,000. Both contingents are to be in accordance with your requests."
I shall continue to read a passage which was not introduced by the Prosecution concerning the contingent RLM administration. There are exact minutes. I mean certain constructions, the necessary number of workers, and the amount of building material are stated, the building projects for the supply industry; that is the industry that supplies the parts, for instance, optical glass, are to be delivered to the armament office. This 56th session according to its title concerns itself with the building volume for 1944.
Witness, if we speak of 550,000,000, including 150,000,000 definite promise from the reserve and of the contingent RLM administration, if we speak of 200,000,000, are we speaking about laborers, or what are we speaking about?
A. I can only remember that this was only money, only sums of money, because so many millions can not be provided, either in steel or iron or in workers.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, I shall now come to a statement on what Mr. Denney spoke of concerning the decree of Speer, without asking a question of the witness. I want to state for the record, then, that witness has testified, that this was a decree inside of the Ministry. I want to reserve to myself the right under the circumstances to ask Speer again about these matters.
I believe, however, that I will have to renounce this. For the time being, however, I want to reserve this right to myself.
I have finished my examination of the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Judge Phillips has some questions to ask the witness.
707a BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q Witness, the Tribunal understood you to say, on direct examination that the Central Planning Board met every three months for the purpose of distributing raw materials only, but never in the procurement of labor and labor allocations; is that correct?
A I believe that I can say yes; I can answer yes to this question.
Q Mr. Denney, will you please show the witness Prosecution's Exhibit 483, Book 33, and page 37.
DR. BERGOLD: I ask that you repeat that your Honor.
Q Exhibit 483, Prosecution Book 33, pages 37, 38, 39 and 40, 53rd Session of the Central Planning Board. This document seems to be dated the 18th of February 1944, and is a result of the 53rd Session of the Central Planning Board, in regard to labor assignments for 1944. The first paragraph: The purpose of the session is to determine the needs and resources in labor for the first quarter and for the whole year 1944. The session is opened by the discussion of the data submitted by the planning office, see enclosures 1-9. On the basis of the Planning Office's estimate of the requirements, Enclosures 9, these turn out, after discussion with individual allottees, to be the following: agricultural, forestry and wood, Armament and war production, air-raid damages, communications, distribution, public administration, Wehrmacht administration; and the total allotment and distribution of labor for that year is 4,850,000 workers. Now, you appear to have been present at that meeting, along with the defendant Field Marshal Milch. If that is true, how do you reconcile the statement that you made to the Tribunal, that the Central Planning Board did nothing more at the time than to allocate raw materials and never labor?
A. As can be seen from this document, this is a simple estimate. Already this morning during the various examinations I said that such conferences had been absolutely of an informatory character; that they were to find out hew the real situation of the labor problem was.
Q So you say that this document does not show that the Central Planning Board allocated labor to these various organizations?
Q. No. As far as I can see from this document, there are no orders --- there were no orders issued, to any office or agency.
Q Doesn't it give the assignment by the Board for January, February and March prior to this time?
A No.
Q Will you look at the last paragraph, before it is signed by Steiffener, where it says assignments for January, and assignments in February and March.
A This is just a statement for the first quarter of 1944. According to the 6BA it says the following assignments in January, 146,000; assignment in February, March 500,000, and this is just an estimate; nothing else.
Q The tribunal understood you to make the following statement: That the statement was to the effect that foreign workers were not to be obtained on a voluntary basis. Was it not true; is that an opinion of yourself, or are you speaking of your own personal knowledge?
A I am speaking here of the knowledge of this document, which is clearly shown by this document; and it says here that through the GBA the following can be seen.
Q I am not asking you about the document; I am asking you about the statement that you made this morning.
A I will stick to the statement which I made this morning.
Q Did you ever go to France to see how Sauckel obtained labor?
A No.
Q Then you admit then, whatever was done by the Central Planning Board and its members at their discretion was done of their own volition and not on orders from above?
A Well, when you speak about this and that, I can only speak about the real task of the Central Planning Board, and this task was the distribution of raw material; the distribution of raw materials was carried out by the Central Planning Board and reports were made on it every three months.
- Q Did members of the Central Planning Board act as a board and have discretion as to the way and manner in which they were to perform their duties?
A Yes, indeed.
BY DR. BERGOLD (Attorney for defendant Erhard Milch)
Q May I ask another question of the witness. I am talking about the results of the 53rd meeting. That session was caused by the fact that during a Fuehrer conference, the Fuehrer asked for 4 million laborers, and then during that conference they wanted to decide if that number was correct? Was that quite the way it was? Was that conference due to the fact it was quite ordered by Speer?
AAs far as I can remember, yes. I did not participate in this session with the Fuehrer; that is why I don't know the details. That is my reason why this session was held of the Central Planning Board was because Speer wanted to have a clear picture of the working conditions in Germany.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, I am very sorry today that Speer has not been interrogated by the whole Tribunal. Then, of course, this would have been cleared. Speer mentioned that yesterday, and I am sure Judge Musmanno remembers that fact. Speer testified on that to a great extent.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will have the benefit of whatever Speer stated yesterday in his deposition.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, tomorrow I shall ask for the witness Schmelter. I want to mention it today officially, because I didn't have an opportunity to make the written statement to Mr. Denny.
Furthermore, I want to state, that the misunderstanding concerning the witness this morning, is not the fault of the Secretary General, but it was my own fault, because I thought that the Secretary General and the Marshal of the Court were the same persons, and as I had told it to the Marshal I thought that would be sufficient. I wish that the Secretary General be cleared of the responsibility; it was my fault.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary General will be cleared from any blame.
710 a Is there anything else before we adjourn.
MR. DENNEY: There are two questions; first, tomorrow afternoon a funeral is being held for the one of the of the American lawyers here was died over the week-end. I would appreciate if the Court would adjourn in order that some of us might attend. On Monday Dr. Bergald has some personal matters to attend to, which he has assured me are of the utmost importance to him, and he would appreciate it if the Court did not sit on Monday of next week in order that he can take are of his business. He wanted to give the Court advance notice of it because he wanted to arrange to conduct the business, and he has difficulty getting around town due to the transportation facilities. He would appreciate if Your Honors would grant hire that request and I certainly have no objection to it.
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, has the examination of this witness been concluded by both sides?
MR. DENNEY: Yes.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes. And I want to thank Mr. Denney for cooperating in my problems.
THE PRESIDENT: You are thanked, Mr, Denney.
There will be no objection to recessing tomorrow afternoon so that the Prosecution may attend the funeral of the son of one of their associates. At least from this point it seems there will be no objection next Monday to recessing to enable Dr. Bergold to attend to pressing affairs of his own.
We will, however, resume session of Court tomorrow morning at 0930.
710-B Official transcript of the American MilitaryTribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Erhard Milch, defendant, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 9 January 1947, Justice Toms, presiding.