DR. BERGOLD: No, because the question of whether you can commit a murder or not is settled for everybody, but the point as to whether the employment of foreigners was admissible under the International Law, that this is a very tricky legal point, and there, of course, there is a difference.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean that every one is supposed to know that he cannot shoot a man.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, everybody knows that.
THE PRESIDENT: But everyone is not supposed to know that he can force a man to unwilling labor?
DR. BERGOLD: No, he is not obliged to know that. That is why Milch applied to receive this information about International Law.
THE PRESIDENT: You make a distinction between homicide and slavery?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, I make a difference not, perhaps, in this exact example, but I make a difference between the natural knowledge of law, which everybody has, and special questions and special knowledge not shared by everybody in the State. The point whether you can kill or steal is common knowledge, but the question whether International Law permits the employment is not something which everybody knows. This question was only what specialists and legal experts can decide, and, if any man concerned tries to receive information whether this is permissible, and obtains that information from a specialist of a governmental department who says, yes, then it does not become permissible in itself, but then we have what is known as an excusable legal error.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you take the same position as to enforced civilian labor?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, on the question if it is permitted at all to employ someone, foreign workers or prisoners of war.
THE PRESIDENT: I would like to get this straightened out.
DR. BERGOLD: There are a number of other difficult legal points which I need not go into here. This is certainly an example of what occupies us here.
THE PRESIDENT: That is true. I want to get your position perfectly clear. I think it is -
DR. BERGOLD: Let's assume, for example, the question in any foreign country which you occupy you may issue occupation money; let's assume that was punishable according to some International regulation, which would be difficult to interpret, and a layman is not in a position to know that. Supposing the Government-General of an occupied country, for instance, applies to tho Reichsbank, with the question what is permitted, then the government would know and the occupied country would then concede to the regime a knowledge of which it is not guilty.
THE PRESIDENT: No, that theory of law becomes a very uncertain guide, does it not? It depends upon interpretation of not the lawyers, nor the professors, but of high government officials, they make the law.
DR. BERGOLD: No, my client tries to receive information from, so far as your point is concerned, let's say, the legal department, or from the Ministry which has its legal department, or of both the Reich-air Ministry and also the Wehrmacht itself, or from the head legal experts who were specially trained, and I draw your attention -
THE PRESIDENT: Just a minute. Then the head legal experts make the law as far as the defendant is concerned?
DR. BERGOLD: No, no, he did not make the law but he tried to, and that is, of course , the legal error that -
THE PRESIDENT: He makes the law by which the defendant may govern himself?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, for this special case, as long as he does not hear an opinion to the contrary, let's assume.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, what happens after he does hear the opinion to the contrary, then which law does he abide by?
DR. BERGOLD: In that case he can act no longer at all. If he acts, he acts on what is known as the term applies from the Roman Law, that is, to say, "Eventual delus," an evil intention in the case of his being opposed by the law. I assume that the term "Eventual delus" is known to your country, too.
THE PRESIDENT: Supposing that he gets two conflicting opinions from the legal ministry, or one of the legal advisers in a high place tells him he may do a thing, and another in an equally high place says he may not, how does that solve the dilemma?
DR. BERGOLD: In that case he must not commit the act, because his attention has been drawn to the difference in the legal opinions, and that is where we have the "Eventual delus". If he does not depend on it, and does it on his own risk, then with that risk he made a wrong.
THE PRESIDENT: I am frank to say that this is a new and startling legal theory. Did you understand that?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, I understood.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have your position.
DR. BERGOLD: I shall continue: His good faith, however, was reinforced by the fact that all the measures against English and American prisoners of war, which are being objected to, were not carried out. That the reasons expressly stated for this were that no agreement except a change in the regulations had been conveyed normally to the British and American prisoners of war. Whoever has the least psychological insight will understand that by observing the Geneva Convention principles towards those two countries must have made it appear to the defendant as applicable towards other countries, all the more as this deviation had been based on presence of other agreements, or the lack of other protective measures.
As far as the question of actual recruiting, and using of manpower is concerned, a differentiation must be made between recruiting, bringing foreign laborers to the country, and their treatment on the whole on the one hand, and on the other hand their employment within Germany the labor assignment.
May it please the Tribunal, the case in chief, and the submitted documents of the Prosecution, especially the documents Exhibits Nos. 13, 14, 14-A, 15, 15-A, and 17 had eliminated any doubt as to the fact that Sauckel alone was competent for the recruiting of foreign laborers and their transport to Germany, and for the treatment of the foreign workers, and that Hitler over and over again confirmed against other attacks, that Speer was the only competent man.
Not one single document has been submitted which would show that Milch participated in the recruiting, transfer to Germany and treatment of the workers. The witnesses Speer, Koerner, Richter, Hertel, Eschonauer, Pendale, Vorwald, as well as Milch himself, have testified under oath that neither they nor the defendant knew anything about all the abuses which have become evident in the sphere of Sauckel's work.
I call your attention to Exhibit MI-3, which reveals how Sauckel always and everywhere emphasized that he took care of the foreign workers to the best of his ability. In this exhibit he makes the assertion that foreign workers have never in the history of the world been treated as well as they were treated by him in this most severe of all wars. The testimony of the witness Schemtler and of Milch has shown that Sauckel had made the same declarations and told the same lies to them also. There is no need for any further statement to the effect that the recruitment and even the forced transport of the workers into the Reich on the basis of an order could have been carried out in an absolutely humane manner and that all these atrocities, murders, and tortures which took place need not have occurred. Such actions are not of necessity connected with such events. The fact that in the East and in France parts of the population were called up and drafted by classes by means of Labor Service decrees could not and did not have to make Milch suspicious. Forced drafting of people occurs in all countries which have a compulsory military service or labor service. Examples of the latter are Germany and Bulgaria. The latter state had ordered service according to each group before the Hitler regime existed, and how could Milch, after all, have found out about the inhuman acts in the recruitment and transport into the Reich and the treatment within the Reich? Obviously, only if he had observed such incidents himself or if complaints reached him through his subordinates or through these foreign workers themselves.
Milch testifies here in a creditable manner that during the entire course of the war he had never observed such conditions. During all these years he made his trips by plane and, in some exceptional cases, by special train; that in this way he could naturally not observe such facts is quite clear.
The witnesses have confirmed that they never reported abuses to him. The only thing he heard were isolated complaints that the food was inadequate at times or that there was a lack of clothing and shoes. In themselves, these were conditions which resulted at the time from the wartime emergency and applied also to the German civilian population. All of the above mentioned witnesses and Milch have, however, confirmed that Milch on his own part immediately ordered that the conditions should be remedied.
These incidents, however, cannot be called inhuman acts or atrocities, cannot be called crimes. The witnesses Pendele, Hertel and Vorwald, as well as the defendant himself, have testified that the foreign workers never brought any complaints to the defendant. They all expressed their happiness. It may be that they were afraid of complaining to Milch. That, however, was not Milch's fault. He had the right to believe the assurances of the persons he questioned, the more so because his conversations with them were carried out in the friendliest, even the most cheerful, manner.
Now, how could Milch have found out about these incidents? I have already mentioned that he could not obtain knowledge about that from foreign reports, because he did not receive such reports. Thus, it should be established that Milch was not responsible, first, for the directive for the so-called slave labor; secondly, the recruitment of manpower; third, the inhumane acts perpetrated in connection with this, fourth, the transport to Germany, and the crimes connected therewith, and finally, fifth, the treatment of foreign workers in Germany and the atrocities committed in connection therewith. He knew nothing at all about it. He did not commit these crimes; neither as a principal nor as an accomplice. He neither ordered such crimes nor instigated them. He did not take a consenting part in them either. On the contrary, he always eliminated minor abuses and constantly saw to it that the conditions of the foreign workers were ameliorated by special gifts. He was in no way connected in a causative manner with the planning or execution of these crimes, and here I refer you to my earlier legal statement, for he would have had to know about it, that such atrocities, murders, and other inhumane occurred in connection with the recruitment, transfer to Germany and treatment within Germany if he is to be held responsible for them.
Neither did he belong to the organization which was connected with the recruiting, transport and treatment, namely, the Organization Sauckel. If at all, he could be charged only with the exploitation of foreign workers.
No just man who values that name can by virtue of knowledge subsequently acquired condemn the actions which a defendant committed at an earlier time in ignorance of what later became known. Today the whole world is full of the horrors which have been brought to light. It is not true, however, that those horrors were desired by the supreme leadership. That Sauckel acted independently here and that he alone bears the guilt is shown by Exhibit MI-3, in which Sauckel lied to Hitler, saying that workers had never been treated so well as by him.
I do not wish to defend Hitler. As a German, I myself have every reason to raise the most bitter and serious charges against the man whose account of guilt can never be paid up, but here it must be said that Hitler could hardly have included the commission of atrocities and murders in his plan for the foreign workers, for if that had been the case, Sauckel would not have had to lie as he did. Then he would not have had to pretend to his lord and master that he was treating the foreign workers so well. Such lies, such deceit, are practised only by the subordinate who is aware that he has violated instructions and that he can be punished by his superior.
Exhibit MI-32 shows clearly that in two cases Sauckel acted against Hitler's instructions in committing his crimes. Therefore, even Sauckel's labor organization was not created for the purpose of committing atrocities, murders and other inhumane acts. Sauckel and a number of his subordinates made themselves guilty on their own accounts, and as guilty persons they strove to keep their crimes secret and to cover them up. That the defendant cannot be made responsible for these secret acts can hardly be refuted.
I realize that in answer the Prosecution will remind me of all the documents with severe statements by Milch which have been submitted to the Tribunal. This is a serious count of the Indictment, but one can achieve clarity on the complexity of questions thus brought up only if one considers whether Milch made these severe statements only against foreign workers and prisoners of war or whether they were simply a part of his nature.
The witnesses Richter, Foerster, Hertel, Eschenauer, Pandale and Vorwald have confirmed that Milch in his tantrums threatened even his German subordinates, his best workers, with hanging and shooting, and here in this room several men have appeared on the witness stand whom the defendant shot or hanged in words. This clearly shows that the defendant was not one sidedly filled with hatred of the members of foreign nations; besides, this was hardly to be expected in the character of a man who for years energetically worked for peaceful collaboration with other nations and who despised the racial doctrine and the idea of the "master race." Rather, it makes it clear that he uttered such wild expressions only when he was excited, so that his subordinates acquired the habit of laying bets on the number of people who would be shot, when they knew that exciting matters were up for discussion. I read a number of passages to you from the notorious speech before the quartermasters and fleet engineers, in which he raged against those present and against himself in the same terms as he used against the foreigners. And in other documents submitted by the Prosecution one can find such expressions used against Germans, and at that against members of the leading class of the German people and against German workers. All this proves that an unfortunate inclination of Milch is here expressed for which, like a sick person, he cannot be held responsible, especially since he never carried out the punishments which he threatened. All the witnesses whom I have called to the stand from Milch's entourage have testified that he used such terms only in tantrums. These tantrums occurred frequently, and always when he had met with major difficulties in the way of his work to save Germany from complete destruction. He was a sick man. He suffered several very serious accidents, all with severe brain concussions. It is an old experience of medicine that such people are easily excitable, and you must not forget how much this man had on his mind. He was a clairvoyant. He knew that the war was lost for Germany. He realized to what horrors Germany was doomed as a result of the increasingly violent air war. He knew what help was possible in the distress of his people, and he had to stand helplessly by while his shortsighted and perhaps malevolent superiors frustrated hampered and prohibited all his precautions.
In such severe mental distress even a healthy man would become so irritable that he would be subjected to violent outbursts of anger. How much more violent would these outbursts be in the case of the sick defendant. His disstressed soul, dwelling in a suffering body, helplessly exposed to its worries, reacted in this way to relieve the tension.
Many witnesses, in particular the witness Vorwald, have told you that when such excitement occurred the defendant even changed physically, that the back of his face became red and swollen and that afterwards he no longer knew what he had said while he was in such a state. That this testimony, especially that of the witness Verwald, is true, is shown with complete certainty by the incidents between the defendant and Goering on the occasion of the report on the crimes committed by Terboven in Norway on the civilian population., and Exhibit 159 of the Prosecution. The Prosecution with justification bitterly reproached the defendant for failure to protest against this monstrosity. The defendant in his defense was not able to answer that he had really done so. Vorwald has testified that this art of protesting took place in connection with an outburst of anger about precisely that incident, and because the testimony of Vorwald that the defendant did not remember afterwards what had happened during this period of excitement is true, the defendant was not able to carry out a full answer in his own defense because of his excitement. He did not remember. Your Honors, it is clear you have achieved deep insight into the souls of men. Therefore surely you are able to judge that this incident has revealed the truth of what the defendant and his witnesses have told you. Otherwise he would be able to cite his protest as a defense against the charge of the prosecution.
Now, I assume that the Prosecution will object that these fits of rage occurred much too frequently and that they are therefore not a pathological symptom but a normal expression of his character. Your Honors, this can be disputed by a very simple consideration. The so-called G.L. meetings took place twice a week. That means that from the time when the defendant took office there were a total of about 160 meetings. In addition there were 60 meetings of the Central Planning Board.
Finally there were about 30 Jaegerstab meetings, altogether about 250 meetings in which the defendant participated. The meetings lasted many hours. According to my examination the average number of pages of verbatim transcript of the G.L. was about 200 for a single meeting, or about 30,000 - 32,000 pages for the G.L. alone. If one includes the transcripts of other meetings then one comes to figure approximately at least of about 35,000 pages for all the transcripts at a conservative estimate. This is an enormous figure from all these many meetings. From all these many, many pages of transcript, the prosecutor has been able to submit only a very few pages with only very occasional extravagant statements. Therefore it cannot be said that the defendant habitually used such expressions. It is also significant that in the meetings of the General Luftzeugmeister such outbursts occur much more frequently than in the transcripts of the Jaegerstab or the transcripts of the Central Planning Board. In the G.L. meetings the defendant was in his own realm "among us parson's daughters", as the witness Vorwald said. Such outbursts naturally occurred there more often because according to experience a human being can let himself go more easily among his most intimate friends than among his subordinates. Nevertheless the outbursts remained isolated.
Is it not symptomatic that the emotional disturbances of the defendant occurred repeatedly in connection with the same subjects of discussion, for example in the question of the work done by the French industry, the French people, the question of so-called slackers, or the discussion of threatening and inciting remarks made by foreigners. Sometimes several outbursts occurred at brief intervals, one after the other. Why, your Honors? Because the matters that have excited the defendant have not been settled. But this leads us to the question of whether the defendant followed up these wild words with deeds. He never did. It is exactly the fact that as, for example, in the case of the slackers or in the case of the work done by the French industry in France itself, these seemingly malevolent threats so angrily uttered had not been put into effect at all, nevertheless they were made the subject of continuous reproaches for the defendant. Here, your Honors, I ask you to penetrate into the depth of the circumstances with the understanding that characterized a legal person.
The defendant repeatedly became excited, for example, over the so-called slackers, Germans unwilling to work whom he considered to be traitors. Each time he issued strict orders expressed wild threats, but would it not have been the most natural thin for this excitable man on all these occasions which followed one on the heels of the other, to shout at his subordinates and to reproach them, to ask them why the orders which he had given and supported before in anger, and which he had advanced repeatedly had not long since been carried out. Would that not have been the most natural and the primary thing that he would have done in his anger if he had really expected and wanted his wild orders carried out? Your Honors, look at it from the human point of view. Revive all the experiences of your long and no doubt rich lives and examine with me whether I am not right in what I say.
I challenge my learned opponent to show me in all these instances, which are really appalling, one single expression indicating that the defendant objected to the failure to carry out his earlier threatening orders. Not a single word can be found and here, your Honors, the truth becomes so obvious that no intelligent man can ignore it. It sounded incredible in the mouth of the witnesses when they said again and again that no such orders were carried out. It has been put to the defendant that it is improbable that a Field Marshal did not expect his orders to be carried out and that all his subordinates did not immediately rush to carry out his orders, but the man who is sitting before you told the truth in spite of all appearances to the contrary, for if he as a field marshal had expected his orders issued in anger to be carried out then he would surely at one time or another have expressed dissatisfaction because they had not been carried out. But he did nothing except to get angry from his sickness and his anxiety about his people. It is clear not only from the Terboven case that he actually knew nothing about what he had screamed out and that he never seriously pressed home his demands. The court has questioned him repeatedly about these expressions. He always replied that he did not remember them and he didn't believe that he had said so.
He has often had to tell you that what he shouted was wrong if he had actually said it. That too seemed incredible at first, but as this man afterwards no longer knew what he said in these attacks then he cannot testify about it. It is also clear that a man in such a fit, speaks many untruths and one cannot assert that he lied deliberately. The man, as I say today, has told you the truth as far as he can know it to the best of his knowledge and belief. These transcripts cannot convict him of untruthfulness. Moreover, in many cases the transcripts arc no doubt full of mistakes; distortions and errors. I have shown you a number of passages which must be wrong. I have shown you transcripts such as N.O.K.W. 359, Exhibit 75, which speak of Milch's presence and of statements made although that day he could not have been present in the Jaegerstab. This is also true of some records of ostensible G.L. meetings. I have also proved that other transcripts make no logical sense in the German text and that several statements must have been run together there. Today, of course, no one can say whether these various statements were all made by the defendant. Many witnesses which I have examined on this matter, for example, to name but a few: Richter, Pendele, Hertel, Speer and Vorwald, have testified that the transcripts contained many errors and that they were never corrected, that they were sometimes even intentionally distorted when the defendant attacked his superiors. Such passages were either left out or changed in such a way that the attacks on the person in question were no longer recognizable. But who would seriously consider it permissible to use such faulty transcripts as evidence?
All the witnesses from the entourage of the defendant Finally have told you that in these Central Planning Boards, as well as in the Jaegerstab and G.L. meetings, in addition to transcripts reproducing the individual speeches and opinions, so-called records of results were drawn up which contained only the really important decisions, orders and regulations. They alone were valid for the subordinates. They alone were decisive for them. It is noteworthy that the Prosecution has not submitted a single one of those records of results containing any inhuman orders issued by the defendant.
I beg of you, your Honors, not only to give severe consideration to the weaknesses of the defense, I beg you to draw your severe conclusions also from the weaknesses of the prosecution as well. The fact that no incriminating records of results have been submitted proves once more that these threats were never carried out.
Your Honors, in disturbed times other men, too, sometimes say things which cannot be taken seriously. Men can be judged only according to their deeds, not according to their chatter. If you have access to Churchill's speech made in his first excitement after Dunkirk, you can sec what violations of international law he recommended to the civilian population of England when he called upon them to prevent a German airborne landing. But he never actually issued any such orders, and so no one will try him for that. When the late General Patton said at one time that he intended to continue to collaborate with such of the German Nazis as were specialists, some excited American newspapers ran this headline. "Patton Should Be Shot". Who would be so stupid as to call these newspapers inhumane? No one in the world; no one takes such excited words seriously. No one can say that these outbursts of anger meant that Milch approved the atrocities which occurred elsewhere in Germany.
The affidavits of Kruedener, Exhibit Milch 37, Lotte Mueller, Exhibit Milch 38, the testimony of witnesses Koenig, Vorwald, Pendele have all shown that this man always and everywhere tried to help people in distress. He, who ostensibly wanted to force the foreign workers and concentration camp inmates to work by means of starving them, had the concentration camp inmates supplied with food from his estate near Rechlin in order to improve their diet. Thus, in his actions, he did the opposite of what he shouted in his anger. But one could raise a very serious charge to the effect that Milch by his thoughtless manner of speaking incited the elements throughout the country which committed such misdeeds. But this again, your Honors, is untrue. You have not heard one single example here of anyone having acted according to Milch's words and having referred to having done so. These displays of fury only occurred among people who knew Milch and knew that he could not be taken seriously in such moments. All witnesses have stated for you that these fits only became known to the circle of intimates.
I lived in Germany throughout the war. Although the sins of the high ranking leaders of the Reich were eagerly discussed among the people, I never heard one word about Milch's fits of rage. In reply to my question the witness Vorwald stated convincingly that nobody spoke about these incidents to other persons because they did not wish to expose their superior to whom they were attached. His loyal followers surrounded with a cordon of silence. Nothing could more understandable, and every decent person who respects his superior will and must act in the same manner, for, in spite of his occasional fierceness, Milch was popular with his subordinates. The witnesses Richter, Hertel, Pendele and Vorwald, among others, testified before you that Milch was highly esteemed. Richter actually called him the best and fairest superior whom he had ever met in all his life. Here, your Honors, in this praise Milch's true nature appears before our eyes.
I believe, therefore, to be justified in saying that one cannot and must not judge Milch by his wild talk. To infer guilt from that would mean to pass a judgment which could never be uphold before justice. Nobody may be judged by empty phrases. I would like to tell you a true story here which occurred in Germany during the discussions about a new, more stringent National Socialist penal code.
At that time the Party took the point of view that criminal intent in itself was punishable, and thus, during a meeting of the Penal Law Commission in connection with the question of the meaning of murder, a long debate developed as to whether a person who intended to bring about the death of an enemy by prayer was to be punished by death for murder The majority of Party members concurred with this mad opinion on the punishment of criminal intent. The sensible ones protested against it for a long time. When the debate was nearing its end, Dr. Guertner, the Reich Minister of Justice at the time, a clear sighted man, rose and with one single sentence made reason prevail. These were his words: "Gentlemen, I do not understand you. All my life a corpse has been part of a murder." The narrow minded Party doctrinaires had to give in to the scornful laughter that followed these words. And in that way I should like here to think of Milch's wild talk and exclaim, "Where is the corpse?"
In my opinion the only remaining question which needs serious discussion is merely that of the employment of foreign workers, of POW's, and of concentration camp inmates. To begin with, it must be mentioned that the prosecution in its opening speech maintained that Milch more than anybody else in Germany was occupied with the employment of forced labor in Germany. That statement, however, is in no way correct. That, at least, has been clarified by the evidence beyond all doubt, it seems to me. There can be no doubt that Sauckel and Speer had considerably more to do with so-called forced labor than Milch quite apart from Hitler and Goering themselves.
It is necessary to visualize clearly the scope of Milch's sphere of activities and of his authority. Your Honors, even if you were only to check the three part Exhibit Milch 55 which I submitted, even to a superficial scrutiny only, you would realize immediately that Speer alone had a great deal more to do with this work than Milch. Speer was in charge of all armaments for the Army and Navy which, measured in human beings, by far exceeded the Luftwaffe, and alone exceeded the volume of the Luftwaffe armament many times, in particular as Milch only dealt with the construction of airplanes and as all equipment for the crews, in fact, were part of the Army equipment.
Furthermore, Speer was in charge of all other productions in the German Reich. Finally, after the establishment of the Jaegerstab Speer was also placed in charge of all armaments for the Luftwaffe. This Exhibit Milch 55, to which the defendant has sworn and which is based on the prosecution's own Exhibit 58, reveals a much greater and more comprehensive scope of Speer's organization. It was he, who as the central authority, not only controlled an apparatus with considerably more tasks; he alone also had at his disposal the executive authorities in the country who dealt with all matters which had to be taken, whereas Milch had no executive organs at his disposal. He had, therefore, no executive powers whatsoever. Speer alone was in charge of the powerful main committees, the main industrial rings (cartels of factories) in which the captains of industry exerted their influence and power.
He was also in charge of the armament commissions and armament officials of the armament inspectorates and armament detachments in the defense districts. And lastly, the Gau Plenipotentiaries and provincial economic offices in the whole country listened to him. He was with Hitler almost every week, and therefore, he possessed much more influence which was only second to Sauckel's.
THE PRESIDENT: May I ask you what was Koerner's special interest?
DR. BERGOLD: I am not speaking about Central Planning Board here. I am only speaking about the GL.
THE PRESIDENT: I know, but in the Central Planning Board what particular field was Koerner interested in -- the Navy?
DR. BERGOLD: Koerner? No, he was mainly in charge of agriculture. He testified to that effect.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. BERGOLD: Speer was with Hitler almost once a week and had therefore much more influence to which Sauckel's power set the only limit. The man Milch never possessed such a machine. The GL was nothing but a technical agency in the Reich Air Ministry which generally, as the witnesses Vorwald and Hertel confirmed, was told by the General Staff of the Luftwaffe what was to be constructed.
If Milch had really been the powerful man as the prosecution describes him, it would have been possible for him to carry out his plan for Germany's air defense. But the achievement of this goal for which this man worked with unbelievable effort and with all energy was denied to him simply because he was only in charge of a technical office which could not make any fundamental decisions whatsoever. Hitler, Goering, and the General Staff of the Luftwaffe decided what this man had to construct and what plans he was to carry out. He carried them out only within the framework of the task with which he was entrusted, always being in the central authority without solid foundation of power, without the direct authority to give orders to industry, without influence on the supply of manpower and materials, he could only get influence through the Central Planning Office, and there too the fundamental decisions were made by Hitler, by the latter himself, or on the advice of Speer.
It is not necessary for me to name all the witnesses. All his collaborators have testified to that effect. May it please the Tribunal, if you examine the statements made by Hertel and Vorwald, you will gather from them beyond any doubt that the GL had nothing to do at all with the question of labor, with the recruiting, transportation and assignment of workers. The GL and this cannot possibly be doubted by anyone, after hearing all these witnesses and especially after Milch's testimony, had merely to make the blueprints for airplanes and construction necessary for this purpose, and then to place the orders with the completely independent industry following in all this the instructions of the General Staff and the orders given by Hitler and Goering. All witnesses from the GL had confirmed before you that the GL had nothing to do at all with the labor question; that he did not request one single worker or exert any influence on Sauckel. It is true that requests for labor passed, for statistical reasons, through the GL office, and also for the carrying out of control. But it is importan to remember and never to forget that the industry submitted its real labor requests through the country to the labor exchange offices which were Sauckel's agencies and to the armament inspectorates and armament detachments which were Speer's agencies.
Vorwald and the defendant himself have shown you with unmistakable clearness that the only thing which the GL had to do with these requests was merely that he examined these requests of the industry from the points of view of material as well as labor, and that he then reported to the Speer Ministry whether and how far the requests of the industry were exaggerated and mistaken and if the GL considered fewer materials and less manpower to be adequate.
Now, what does such an activity actually mean? Surely not as the prosecution submits, the enslavement of now workers, but exactly the contrary; namely their reduction. If the GL had not exercised his beneficial activity Sauckel would have got much larger requests from the industry and he would have procured this labor by means of more forceful methods than he actually did. That the industry had to request workers in order to carry out its tasks assigned by Hitler, Goering and the General Staff of the Luftwaffe, being the authorities which decided on the extent of the construction program of air armaments, was however not caused by the GL. He was nothing else but an executive organ in the chain of command from Hitler, Goering and the General Staff. He was merely the technical agency which had to make the blueprints and constructions, and then, after approval by higher authorities had to submit them to the industry for the taking of orders.
This, your Honors, is the result of the evidence produced on the activity of the GL, and the only thing which the GL did in the framework of this activity was to reduce to the lowest level the requests for labor made by industry, for the many reasons that he was sufficiently expert to see through the exaggerated requests of industry which could never get enough workers.
It is significant that the GL minutes which have been submitted nowhere reveal a discussion of real manpower guidance, but, at the utmost, that once a few questions were discussed for information purposes. It is furthermore, highly significant that among the entire organizations of the GL there were no offices for labor assignment and labor control as was the case in the Armament Ministry of Speer (see Exhibit Mi 55), but merely statistics of the personnel. There is nothing to clarify the real situation better than this fact.
Can the defendant be blamed for the fact that industry, which had to carry out Hitler's construction program, employed foreign workers, prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates --? Industry had employed these people before the beginning of Milch's tenure of office; it employed them because Hitler had ordered through Sauckel that industry had to employ these people not in order to obtain slave labor for slave labor's sake -- but for the only reason to be able to throw still more Germans into the greedy jaws of the fiendish war and thus surely causing disaster for Germans as well as for other peoples.
As far as the GL is concerned -- the least reproach can be made to Milch of all reporaches that can be made to him. It only consists in that he passed orders on to the air armament industry (and where did this not occur during the war?), and that he saw to it that no exaggerated requests for material and manpower were made.
The prosecution has proved nothing which could contradict these statements. But Milch has --- and this, too, has been proven -- not only curtailed exaggerated labor requests of the industry by means of his statistics, thus preventing the increase of foreign labor, but in addition to that, as was stated by the witnesses Brauchitsch, Pendele, Hertel, Vorwald, and others, he always endeavored seriously and successfully to maintain the German workers in the factories; and in doing so he even saved German workers who should be drafted, at least to the amount of 70,000 for the air armament factories, keeping thus on a lower level further requests for foreign workers and their assignment. A man who, as the prosecution means, is keen on slave labor does not act in that way.
Finally, there is another point to be mentioned in this connection. The 2422-A International Military Tribunal -- which, by the way, states expressly in its verdict against Sauckel that there is no doubt of Sauckel having had the overall responsibility for the slave labor program -- that Tribunal stated in its verdict against Speer that it has to be considered as a mitigating circumstance in his favor, that by setting up protected factories Speer had kept many workers in their homelands.