It is found just as expressly stated in German law as in the laws of the powers represented in the Court or the states occupied by Germany. The German employment offices forced on the foreign workers labor contracts which had no legal significance because they were tainted with violence. I make this as a definite statement and I will provide the Court with proof of my assertions. Germans. The pressure under which the foreign workers suffered was not the result of sporadic action on the part of subordinate authorities. It came from the deliberate intent which the National Socialist leaders of Germany formulated into precise instructions, 26. This is a directive dated January 29, 1942, dealing with the recruiting of foreign workers. This directive comes from the Arbeitseinsatz of the commissariat for the four-year plan. It bears the signature of the Section Chief, Dr. Mansfeld, but it places the executive responsibility directly on the defendant Goering, delegate to the four-year plan. I read this circular:
"Berlin, 29 January 1942. Subject: Increased mobilization of manpower for the German Reich from the occupied territories and preparations for mobilization by force.
"The labor shortage which was rendered more acute by the draft for the Wehrmacht and, on the other hand, the increased scope of the armament problem in the German Reich, render it necessary that manpower for service in the Reich be recruited from the occupied territories to a much greater extent than heretofore in order to relieve the shortage of labor. Therefore, any and all methods must be adopted which make possible the transportation without exception and delay for employment in the Reich of manpower in the occupied territories which is unemployed or which can be released for use in Germany after most careful screening."
I read further on Page 2 of the German text:
"This mobilization as heretofore shall be carried out on a voluntary basis. For this reason the recruiting effort for employment in the German Reich must be strengthened considerably, but if satisfactory results are to be obtained the German authorities who are functioning in the occupied territories must be able to exert any pressure necessary to support the voluntary recruiting of labor for employment inGermany. Accordingly, to the extent that that may be necessary the regulations in force in the occupied territories in regard to shifting employment or withdrawal of support upon refusal to work must be tightened.
"Supplementary regulations concerning shift and distribution in employment must above all insure that older personnel who are freed be exchanged for younger personnel to make up for it so that the latter may be made available for the Reich. A far-reaching decrease in the amount of relief granted by public welfare must also be effective in order to induce laborers to accept employment in the Reich. Unemployment relief must be set so low that the amount in comparison with the average wages in the Reich and the possibilities there for sending remittances home may serve as an inducement to the workers to accept employment in Germany.
"When refusal to accept work in the Reich is not justified the compensation must be reduced to an amount barely enough for subsistence or even be cancelled. In this case partial withdrawal of ration cards and an assignment to particularly heavy, obligatory labor may be considered."
I call to the Tribunal's attention that this circular is addressed to all the services responsible for labor in the occupied areas. Its distribution in Western Europe was: the Reich Commissar for the occupied Norwegian Territories, the Reich Commissar for the occupied Dutch territories, the Chief of the Military Administration of Belgium and Northern France, the Chief of Military Administration of France, the Chief of the Civilian Administration of Luxemburg, the Chief of the Civilian Administration at Metz, and the Chief of the Civilian Administration at Strasbourg.
compelling the workers of the occupied territories to work for Germany. I have now to show how this plan was put into practice in the different occupation zones. The machinery of pressure which the National Socialist authorities exerted on the foreign workers can be analyzed in the following manner. recruitment of foreign workers. This propaganda was intended to deceive the workers of the occupied areas with regard to the material advantages offered them by the German employment courts.
It was carried out by the press, the radio, and by every possible means of publicity. It was also carried on as a side-line to official administrative duties by secret organizations which had been given the task of debauching foreign workers and bringing about through this a ventable impressment.
These measures proved themselves to be insufficient. The occupation authorities then intervened in the social life of the occupied countries. They strove to produce artificial unemployment there. At the same time they devoted their energies to making living conditions worse for the unemployed. the foreign workers showed themselves insensible to German propaganda. This is why the German authorities finally resorted to direct methods of pressure. They exercised pressure on the political authorities of the occupied countries to make them give support to the recruiting campaign. They compelled employers, especially in France and the organizational committees, to encourage their workers to accept the labor contracts of the German employment offices. Finally, they took action by way of direct pressure on the workers, and gradually passed from so-called voluntary recruitment to compulsory enrollment. The fiction of voluntary enrollment was dispelled by the sight of individual arrests and collective raids of which the workers of the occupied areas rapidly became the victims. which I relate. I shall submit the most important of these to the Tribunal. The documents which bring the proof of the publicity campaigns made in France by the German administration will be submitted to the Tribunal by Mr. Edgar Faure in the course of his argument on the Germanization and Nazification.
By way of example I wish to draw upon a document which in the printed classiDelegate of the Minister of the Interior, with the General Administrator of the French Government in the occupied territories. This report points out that a publicity car is circulating through the French territory to incite French workers to go to Germany.
I quote the report:
"Lille, March 25, 1942. Prefect of the Region of the North to M. Prefect, Delegate of the Minister of the Interior with the General Delegation of the French Government in the occupied territories. Subject: German publicity car.
"I have the honor of advising you that for some days a publicity car covered with signs of propaganda inviting French workers to sign up to go and work in Germany has been circulating in the vicinity of Lille, while a loud speaker plays a whole repertoire of discs of French music, among which are featured the "Marche Lorraine", and the hymn "Marechal, Here We Are."
(Whereupon at 1245 hours the hearing of the Tribunal adjourned to reconvene at 1400 hours.)
Military Tribunal, in the matter of: The
M. HERZOG: Mr. President, your Honors. I wished this morning to show what had been the official propaganda given out by the German offices in France to volunteers to work in Germany. The result of this official propaganda was reinforced by the bureaus of clandestine recruitment. The true offices of recruiting were authorized, by the Tribunal -- these employment Bureaus were directed by German agents who seated often in insuring local publicity. In fact, in france, these Bureaus extended their ramifications in the non-occupied zone to the occupied zone. Several documents attest their existence. The fifth among them is a report transmitted the 7th of March, 1942, by the Vice-President, the Council of Ministers, the de facto Government of Vichy, to the General Delegate for Franco-German Economic Relations. It is document 654. This report is drawn under the seal; it bears the signature of the General Staff, Captain De Fontaine. I file this report under the new No. 28 and I read it:
"Vichy, the 7th of March, 1942. Your Honor, The General Delegate; I have the honor of transmitting to you in this letter for your information a report on the organization of recruitment in France of workers for the German industry."
I now go to page 2. "26 of February, 1942. Note: Another item on the organization of recruiting in France, workers for German industry: Source, excellent. First: organization of recruiting in France for workers for Germany was the Mechanical Society of the Seine dont le Siege Paris, at 8th Quai Nationale, which was also known as ANS. This society was to function under the secret control of the commander, and three engineers. One would have the capacity of chief engineer; the other two would be M. Meyer and M. Schronner. Outside of their work, which they are required to carry out, this society is particularly entrusted for the reeducation of workers recruited in France and sent to Germany at the request of German industrial houses; and in full payment of, the society of AMS is assisting for these operations in the occupied zone by three centers of recruiting which functions are in Paris and are the center of Porte De Vincennes, the center of Courbevoie, 200 Boulevard St. Denis.
The center of Avenue des Tourelles. for recuritment of a non-occupied zone. For this zone, the two principal centers are in Marseilles and Toulouse. A third center existing at Tarbes.
"A. The center of Marseille is entrusted with the recruitment in the Meditteranean zone, under the direction of M. Meyer, which is treated below: They ignore the address of this engineer, but one can see many or have information about him in No. 24 Avenue Kleber, Paris, or Militarbefehlshaber at Marseille. The office of the AMS is situated at 85 Rue de Silvabelle. In his task M. Meyer is assisted by M. Ringo, residing in Madrague-Ville, 5 bis Boulevard Bernabo, near the slaughter house." exchanged between the month of December 1941 and January 1942, between the Prefect of the Alpes Maritimes and the authorities of the Vichy Government. This is Document 528 which I file with the Tribunal as No. 29. This correspondence emphasizes the activity of the agents for the clandestine recruiting of the Germans, and particularly M. Meyer, to whom the report of Captain Fontaine applies:
I quote first the letter of the 10th of December. It is the letter which is the fifth page of the French text and the 7th page of the German text, "10th of December, 1941. Nice: The State Counseller, Prefect of the Alpes Maritines to his Honor, the Minister Secretary of State for the Interior, General Secretariate for the Police; under the direction of the Foreign police in the Occupied territory and of Foreigners."
"Object: The activity of foreign agents, attending to the discharging of specialized workers. Reference: The program 12,1402, and 12,1426; the 28th of November, 1941. My report: 955 and. 986 of the 24th of November, 1941, and the 6th of December, 1941, by which my report referred to. I pointed out to you the activity of recru iting agents who sought to have discharged specialized workers forthe benefit of Germany.
I have the honor to address you below, to give you a few complimentary indications gathered in this respect; The German engineer, M. Meyer, and the French subject, M. Bentz. Benefits stopped on the 1st of December 1921 at the Hotel Splendid, at Nice, coming from Marseilles."
Now, I go to the third paragraph before the end. I permit myself to particularly draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that in Paris the hiring of workers was carried out for Germany. I start here the quotation:
"These documents attest the activity of the clandestine recruiting offices and the way in which they developed. I am not merely satisfied to point out their existence. I wish to show that these Gaus functioned under the initiative of the official administration and of the German Office for Labor." The proof is furnished by a statement which the accused. Sauckel made the first of March, 1944, during the 54th conference of the central of the office for the Four-Year-Plan. The stenographic transcript of these conferences have been found. If forms document R-124, to which my American colleagues have already referred. I submit it again to the Tribunal under No. 30 and I shall read from an extract of the transcript of the session on the 1st of March 1944. Document No. 30, in the French text, page 2, second paragraph; in the German text, 1760, 70 and 71. I read:
"The most abominal thing accomplished by my adversaries, and speaking of Sauckel, it is that they pretend that no executive measure has been foreseen in these sectors to recruit in a rational manner the French, the Belgians, and Italians to send them to work. Thereupon, I wish to employ and train a whole group of French male and female agents who, for adequate remuneration, just as it was done in older times through shangaiing, while hunting for men and intoxicating them with alcohol."
THE PRESIDENT: I am told that this has been read before by the United Sates.
M. HERZOG: I will not go on. Now, I pass to the propaganda of the official offices and that of the clandestine recruiting offices which I will reveal to be inefficacious. The National Socialist authorities then had resort to methods of economic pressure. They tried to give to the workers who were not for Germany the hope of material advantages. I submit in this relation in respect to this, an ordnance of the General Military Command in Belgium and in the North of France, which I submit to the Tribunal. It is an ordnance of July 20, 1942, which appeared in the Verordnungsblatt of Belgium -- it exempts from tax Belgian workers who work in German factories. I submit to the Tribunal under the No.21. On the other hand, the occupation authorities sort to diminish the living standard of workers who remained in the occupied territories. I said that they had made poverty a factor in their recruiting policy. I am going to prove it by showing how they went about creating artificial employment in the occupation zones and to deteriorating the m aterial situation of the unemployed. policy of freezing salaries. This measure favored the recruiting campaign for labor who were to leave for Germany, and had also an economic bearing, and I would like to refer the Tribunal to the explanations which will be given to it on this point by M. Gerthoffer.
Unemployment spread about by two complimentary measures. The first is the regulation of the legal length of work. The second: concentrations, if need be, the closing of industrial enterprises. the duration of work in their administrative zones. In France, initiative taken by the local authorities brought about a strong reaction. The problem was generalized and solved on a national plan. Long negotiations were imposed on the representatives of the pseudo-Government of Vichy and finally an ordnance of April 22, 1942, from the military command in France, reserved for the occupation authorities the right of fixing the duration of work of industrial enterprises.
This ordnance appeared in their Vererdnungsblatt Frankreich, 1942. I submit it to the Tribunal under the No.32 and I quote the first paragraph: First part:
"For establishment and enterprises of all kinds a minimum of working hours may be imposed.
This minimum of the length of work will be or for individual enterprises."
the 6th of October, 1942, which appeared in the Verordnungsblatt of Belgium. I submit this ordnance to the Tribunal under No. 33. The regulation of the duration of work. That is why the National Socialist authorities used a second method. Under the pretext of rationalizing production, they brought about a concentration of industrial commercial enterprises which certainly were closed on their initiative. I cite in this relation the provisions which were taken or imposed by the Germans in France, in Belgium andin Holland. In France, I would like to refer to two texts; the first is the Law of the Vichy Government of 17 December 1941, which I submit to the Tribunal under the No. 34. is the ordnance of February 25, 1942, issued by the Military Command in France. This ordnance appeared in the Verordnungsblatt in Frankreich.
I guess I shall read from it to the Tribunal; this ordnance seems particularly important because the principle of the compulsory closing of certain French enterprises definitely established by a legislative text by the occupying power. I shall read the first and second paragraph. The first paragraph:
"If the economic situation, notably the use of raw materials and indirect materials for the manufacture, require from the establishments and economic enterprises, surprised that these establishments may be closed completely or partly."
Second paragraph:
"The closing of these enterprises were pronounced by the General Feldkommandantur by means of a written notification addressed to the establishment or to the industrial enterprise."
and October 3, 1942, which appeared in the Verordnungsblatt in Belgium.
I submit to the Tribunal the ordnance of March 30, under No.36. restricted to elsewhere. I present an ordnance of the Reichscommissar for the territories of occupied Holland, 15 of March, 1943. I submit it to the Tribunal under No.37. This ordnance presents a double interests. First it offers precise information which emphasizes the method with which the German services executed their recruiting plan.
submit to the Tribunal accusing the accused Seyss-Inquart. Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart. The ordinances and compulsory labor in Holland have all been rendered under the responsibility of Seyss-Inquart, whether it bears, directly or not, his signature. I ask the Tribunal to note this. enterprises deprived thousands of workers of their jobs. the unemployed to work in behalf of Germany. They threatened the unemployed to do away with their unemployment compensation. This threat was made on several occasions by the local Feldkommandants in Occupied France. I find the proof by the protest made March 8, 1941, by General Doyen, representing the French authorities with the German armistice commission. The document is 232, which I submit to the Tribunal under the number 38. I read the first page, third paragraph:
"Moreover, the occupation authorities foresee that the workers who refuse to work will see their right suppressed for unemployment compensation and will be susceptible of being prosecuted by the war tribunal for sabotage of Franco-German collaboration." central office for labor gave them instructions to continue this policy. The proof is furnished by the directive of Dr. Mansfeld, dated January 29, 1942, which I have just submitted to the Tribunal under the No. 26, in which instructions were given that unemployment compensation should be utilized to force workers to go Germany.
The directive of Dr. Mansfeld shows that the blackmail of the NationalSocialist leaders was not only exercised over the control of unemployment compensation, but also in the issuing of ration cards. territories to leave for Germany by increasing their difficulties in finding food. The proof of this desire is given in the transcript of the session of March 1, 1944, of the Conference of the Four Year Plan. This document I referred to a short time ago as No. 30.
This is a passage which has not yet been read, which the Tribunal will please permit me to read. I read from page 5 of the French document. "Melch" is a misprint. It should be milch, m-i-l-c-h.
"Wouldn't the following method be better: The German administration should concern itself with the feeding of Italians and say to them: 'No one shall receive food except he who works in a protected factory or who leaves for Germany. ' "Sauckel:
Is it true that the French workman in France is better fed than the German workman? The Italian workman, even if he doesn't work at all, is better fed in the part of Italy which we occupy than if he worked in Germany." I end my quotation here. economic order--economic-social--which the National-Socialist authorities took to force workers in the occupied territory to accept labor contracts offered by the German authorities. This indirect duress was strengthened by direct pressure which was simultaneously put on the local governments and the employers and on the workers themselves. facilitated by the local authorities; that is why they tried to make the pseudo-governments of the occupied territories guarantee or indorse the fiction of voluntary enrollments. I submit to the Tribunal an example of the pressure which the German authorities placed on the Vichy Government to that purpose. disseminate a directive to all Prefects. It is the directive of March 29, 1941. The German authorities were not satisfied with this directive. They were conscious of the illegality of their recruiting methods and they wished to justify them by an agreement with the de facto government of France. They required that this agreement be made known by public statement. The negotiations were carried out for this purpose in 1942. The violence of the German pressure is substantiated by the letters concerning it addressed by Dr. Michel, Chief of the Administrative Section to the General Delegate for Franco-German Economic Relations. I refer especially to his letters of the 3rd of March, 1942, and May 15, 1942, which constitute Documents 39 and 40.
I read first to the Tribunal the letter of 15 May, which is under the number 40:
"Paris, 15 May 1942.
"Purpose: The Recruiting of French Labor for Germany, "As the result of the conversations of January 24, 1942, and after repeated appeals, the first project of the French government concerning recruiting was presented the 27th on the German side and was accepted with slight modifications and in written form on the 3rd of March, on the condition that attention might be directed at the time of its transmission to the organizational committees, and that attention might be drawn to the fact that the French Government approved expressly the acceptance of labor in Germany.
"On the 19th of March, it was recalled that a project for the memorandum to the organizational committees should be submitted. The project was afterwards submitted on the 27th of March. On the 30th of March a proposal for modification was delivered to M. Terray, who should take it up with M. Bichelonne.
I skip the two following paragraphs, and I will read the last paragraph: "Although no reason appears which explained the not habitual delay, the project was not presented until that day. More than two months had passed since the first request for the presentation of the memorandum. It is requested that this document be edited anew and presented the 19th of May.
"For the Military Commander:
"Chief of the Administrative Staff "Signed, Michel."
The Tribunal undoubtedly has observed that Dr.` Michel required not only a widespread diffusion of the publication. He also required that the text of this statement be officially transmitted to the organizational committees. The pressure which occupation authorities put upon French industrial enterprises to stimulate them to facilitate the departure of their workers to Germany was brought about, in fact, through the medium of the organizational committees. The German offices for labor acted directly upon the organizational committees. They ordered conferences in the course of which they dictated their will to the leaders of these committees.
They also required that the organizational committees be informed of all the measures which the French authorities were led to take. The committees might then be associated with these measures in the interests of German policy.
The correspondence of Dr. Michel offers numerous examples of the constant preoccupation of the German authorities to act upon the organizational committees. I have just offered an example to the Tribunal. I now offer another. 29, 1942, addressed to the Prefects regarding the recruiting of laborers for Germany, should be officially transmitted to the organizational committees. The occupation authorities obtained satisfaction through a circular of the 23rd of April, which. I submit to the Tribunal under No. 41. The terms of this circular did not receive the approval of the German authorities, and on May 28, 1941, Dr. Michel protested in violent terms to the General Delegate for FrancoGerman Economic Relations.
This protest constitutes Document 522 in the French Archives. I submit it to the Tribunal under the No. 42, and I shall read:
"Paris, 28th of May, 1941.
"Purpose: Recruiting of Workers for Germany.
"From your explanations I gather that after the reception of my letter of the 23rd of April a project for a directive for the organizational committees was established and sent on April 25. This directive does not seem to me, nevertheless, adequate to bring about in an efficacious manner the recruiting of workers effected by Germany. That is why I consider that it is necessary that in another directive attention may be drawn to the points which were particularly mentioned on April 23.
"I request you to submit to me as soon as possible a corresponding project. The contribution which has been furnished from Germany for the creation of a favorable atmosphere, which was considered by you at the time of our conversation of 24 May, is a prior condition for the success of forced recruiting of workers for Germany. That is why I do not wish to make a mistake. I hope that you will communicate to the economic organizations a reform which will be of such a nature as to transform into collaboration, as far as the liberation of workers is concerned, the expected attitude which French economy has observed up to here. I then expect that you will submit to me your proposition with all possible promptness." workers themselves.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you reading from the document now?
M. HERZOG: No. I am resuming the text of the brief.
Moral pressure at first. The replacement operation, tried in France in the Spring of 1942, is characteristic. The occupation authorities promised to compensate for the sending of French workers to Germany by a liberation of prisoners of war. The return of a prisoner was to take place upon the departure of a worker. This promise was fallacious, and the reality was quite different. I quote in this connection, the report on compulsory labor and the deportation of workers, which I have submitted this morning to the Tribunal under the number 22.
I quote page 51, and, from the French original 22. In the French original it is the third paragraph; the German translation, first paragraph:
"If the press, inspired by the occupying power, pretends in its commentaries to applaud the replacement postulates of one prisoner for one worker, it is undoubtedly upon order and through calculation. Also, it seems, because until June 20, 1942, the day before the pre-quoted speech, a speech of the Vichy de facto government, it is indeed this proportion which the Germans Michel and Ritter had pretended to accept in their reports to the French administrative services. The proportion, in fact, of one against five, appears to have been to these latter a surprise of which the press never spoke." Here I end my quotation. pressure. I said that the fiction of voluntary enrollment could not hold water, in view of the arrests by the German police. I refer again, and submit a document to the Tribunal which furnishes a characteristic attitude of the Germans in their mentality and the method utilized by National Socialist authorities. This is a document in the French Archives, It is No. 527, which I submit to the Tribunal under the number 43. This is a letter from the delegate of the Reich Labor Minister in the French department of Pas de Calais. This Officially enjoins a young French workman to depart for Germany as a free agent under penalty of unfavorable consequences. I read the document from the third page:
"Sir:
"The 26th of March last I told you at Marquise to go to work in Germany for your profession. You were to leave with the c onvoy of the 1st of April towards Germany. You have taken no consideration of this summons. I warn you that you must repair yourself, furnished with your baggage, next Monday, April 28, before 19 hours, at 51 Street of the Rue de la Pomme d'or at Calais. I declare it will be as a free worker that you leave for Germany; that you will work there in the same conditions and that you will earn there the same remuneration as German workers. In the event that you do not present yourself, I must tell you that unfavorable consequences may very well follow.
"Delegate for the Labor Ministry of the Reich:
"Signed: Hannerann" on the workers of the occupied territories to bring about their alleged voluntary enrollment may be continued. The National Socialist authorities have not only imposed labor contracts filled with threats of violence to foreign workers. They have themselves deliberately failed to honor these contracts. the duration of the enrollments made by foreign workers. This proof is based on several documents. The first is an ordinance issued by the defendant Goering in his capacity as Delegate to the Four Year Plan. Others by the defendant Sauckel. I now call the attention of the Tribunal to order of Sauckel's, dated 22 March 1943, which I submit to the Tribunal; it is March 29, 1943, No. 44, Document No. 44, page 5:
"The General Plenipotentiary for Labor decrees: The regular disposal of the enterprise for that period.
Nevertheless, it sentences, or because of internment in a corrective camp -- "
THE PRESIDENT: Are you reading from a document: Will you read that again.
M. HERZOG: The regular accomplishment of the provisions of the contract with a stipulated duration made by the foreign worker necessitates for the Whole duration of the contract that the workman should be at the disposal of the undertaking with all of his full physical forces. Nevertheless, it happens that some foreign workers as a result of idleness, or laziness, or delays, when they come back to work they expiate all present penalties of internment in a corrective camp.
"-- or for other reasons remain absent from their work for an elapse of time, which is more or less long.
In such cases in Germany represents only the well defined period of time."
the foreign workers were neither voluntary workers nor free workers. I think the exploitation of the methods of German recruiting will show the Tribunal the fictitious character of the voluntary enrollment on which it was supposed to be based. The foreign workers who agreed to work in the factories of the National Socialist war industry did not act through free will. Their number, however, remained limited. The workers of the occupied territories had the physical courage, the ethical courage to resist German pressure. This is proved in an admission of the defendant Sauckel, which I take from the minutes of the meeting of March 3, 1944, of the conference of the Four-Year Plan. This is from an extract which has already been read by my American Colleague, Mr. Dodd, so I will not read it again to the Tribunal. I merely wish to recall that the defendant Sauckel admitted that out of five million foreign workers which came to Germany, there were only to hundred thousand who came in a voluntary fashion. The resistance of the foreign workers surprised the defendant Sauckel as much as it irritated him. One day he expressed his surprise to a German general who replied: "Your difficulties come from the fact that you address yourself to patriots who do not share our ideals." Indeed, only force could constrain the patriots of the occupied territories to work in behalf of the enemy. The National Socialist authorities resorted to force. of force on workers whose particular status guaranteed enrollment and apparent submission: The prisoners of war. From 1940 on the German Military authorities organized labor Kommandos who had been put in the service of the agricultural economy, and of the war industry. The importance of the work required from war prisoners is substantiated by the Report on Forced Labor, and the Deportation of Workers which I have filed with the Tribunal under No. 22, on page 68 of the French Text, and Ferman, the following estimates: many. 987,687 had been alloted as work Kommandos, and, only the surplus, that is, 48,632 prisoners remained unemployed. a distant phenomena which can be disassociated from the gerneral plan for the recruiting of foreign workers; it is, on the contrary, an integral part of this plan.