A Yes, I took part in a few meetings of the Jaegerstab.
Q Will you tell us, witness, in your office or position did you ever hear anything about force labor including foreign workers?
991 a A No.
Q. Did the GL have anything to do with employing prisoners of war in loading ammunition from the trains, loading on aircrafts, and so forth?
A I would not know what office dealt with these things.
Q Could you tell me whether Milch approved of the Party policy towards terrorist pilots?
A No, he did not approve, as this whole program was opposed very strongly by the members of the Luftwaffe.
Q Can you tell me how the Luftwaffe Industry requested their labor?
A No, I don't know about this.
Q Is it true that Milch very early expressed his opinion both to officers his superior, and also to his subordinates that the war was lost?
A So far as I am concerned, Milch was the first person of the higher superior officers who in a conference attended by over fifty people, which was at one of the conferences when he used the tern "Lost war".
Q When was that?
A That must have been in the year of 1943, after some big town had been destroyed by an air attack. I don't know which one it was. I should say it must have been in the summer of 1943.
DR. BERGOLD: I have no further questions to this witness CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. DENNY:
Q How many Jaegerstab meeting were held?
A I cannot say that precisely, As I was not ordered to represent the Luftwaffe with the Jaegerstab.
Q Did they hold meetings between March 1, 1944 and August 1, 1944?
A Yes.
Q How many did you attend?
A I estimate I should have attended about five or six meetings.
Q Five of six.
A Yes, I had been specially invited.
Q Did you ever go to the meetings of the Central Planning Board?
A No.
Q You didn't know anything about the Central Planning did you?
A No.
Q But you told the tribunal you knew it wasn't a coordinating office.
A Yes.
Q Now about these records that you talked about; what records were those?
A They were the records of the meetings held by the GL, which were put together after the meetings and distributed among certain participants of the meeting.
Q And on occasions you had to cause the records to be changed because they improperly set out your participation in some respects in the meeting?
A Yes, in the two cases of which I can recall very well, there were certain passages which were completely contrary to what had been said before.
Q And you had them fixed up?
AAt my request, which I was occasioned to repeat twice, it was put right in writing at the next record.
Q And so, if once they didn't change it, you asked them again if they didn't do it the first time; is that right?
A Yes. The person who should have done it seems to have forgotten it.
Q But you stuck along and finally got it corrected?
A Yes.
Q And you also stated on occasions when the defendant exploded in meetings, they'd completely delete what he said.
A In those cases these things were either left out, or slightly more polite form was put in.
Q Did you ever see the Reich Marshal or Hitler in those meetings; did you ever see anything of the Reich Marshal or Hitler in those meetings?
A The Reich Marshal, as far as I can recall, attended one; Himmler I never saw myself, at any meeting.
Q I asked you if the defendant ever said anything about the Reich Marshal or Hitler being at those meetings.
A No, he did not do so; as far as I can remember he used the Jaegerstab for that -- to vent his fury.
Q So the Jaegerstab was the whipping board for Hitler and Goering when ever he made an outburst?
A That is the right term.
Q You knew that foreign labor was employed in the Luftwaffe?
A Yes.
Q Did you ever talk about it at these Generalluftzeugmeister meetings you spoke about?
A Yes, that was discussed.
Q They did discuss foreign labor there?
A Yes; it was discussed that foreign labor workers wore being employed or were active in the Luftwaffe industries; and that to increase their production and their willingness to work special concessions should be made by Milch.
Q Milch would make the concessions so that the workers would do better?
A Yes, he wished to fight for this to increase the willingness to work of those people by better food and luxury articles.
Q And you also stated that the defendant was able to withhold 70,000 people from service in the Wehrmacht, in order to keep the armament production or to have the armament production employed.
A Yes, this picture is not quite correct though. I said roughly forty thousand workers; I said he had roughly forty thousand workers in his pocket by calling them up, and he transferred them into the Luftwaffe industries; and about thirty thousand trained soldiers, he gave them special leave so that they could go back to the Luftwaffe industries.
Q Any way, he had some workers -- approximately seventy thousand -that he was able to manipulate around?
A Yes.
Q Now, did you ever hear Himmler mentioned at any of these Generalluftzeugmeister meetings?
A I cannot recall that at all.
Q You never heard anything about the SD; you never heard anybody talk about the SD? Or shooting of workers?
A I cannot recall any details of this now.
Q How many of these meetings did you go to?
A I attended roughly half of all the meetings.
Q About half of all the meetings of the Generalluftzeugmeister?
A Yes.
Q And they started holding those meetings under the defendant shortly after November 1941 when Udet died?
A It began roughly in April 1942; that was the period where we from our office always sent a representative to those meetings.
Q How did Udet die?
AAs far as I know Udet killed himself.
Q Where?
A I cannot say that precisely; I assume it was in Berlin.
Q When did you first hear about Udet killing himself?
AA few days later.
Q Who told you? Who told you about it?
A I cannot say in detail; in any case the rumors spread very quickly.
Q Udet was a pretty big man in the organization, was he not?
A Yes.
MR. DENNY: I have no further questions.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q Did you understand from the defendant Milch that prisoners of war were working in armament industries?
A I know nothing about this.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: That is all.
RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q I have one final question to him; witness, do you know who was in charge of the sea distress service?
A The sea distress service was under the Quartermaster General.
Q That is to say your office?
A Not my office, but the office of my superior officer.
Q In other words, it was not under Milch?
A No.
DR. BERGOLD: Thank you. I have no more questions to this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal may remove the witness.
(The witness was removed by the Marshal)
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I shall now read from my Document Book 2. I shall read first Document No. R-124, record of the 54th Meeting of the Central Planning Board, page two of the document book. I shall give this document the Exhibit No. B-31.
"Shorthand Report of the 54th Meeting of the Central Planning concerning Labor Commitment on Wednesday 1 March 1944, 1000 hours at the Reich Air Ministry Page 1780.
"(Sauckel:) I have a Gau-armament supervisor in Thuringia and I have just be inspecting the plants in Thuringia. At the coach factory in Gotha I have set things going so that within a few days it will be turning out 20 per cent of its production again. Everything has been done. But one thing you must bear in mind: Labor commitment as an institution must be independent and must remain so. Furthermore I must ask you not to support constantly the opinion of the Armament Inspectors: Sauckel must be put under the control of the Ministry then everything will be better. Gentlemen, please see to it that that does not happen this year.
"As a National Socialist of long standing I am determined to cooperate unreservedly with you, the Minister for Armaments and Production, indeed with all those gentlemen, but in consideration of the difficulty in this sphere of work, I must be given the amount of freedom to make decisions of my own which was guaranteed me by the Fuehrer's decrees and those of the Reich Marshal. I would never have taken on the task without these decrees, because I know it cannot be accomplished without them. I beg you, therefore, to create such an atmosphere as is necessary among the lower ranks too so that the Gau labor offices in the first place may be recognized as organizations which are entrusted to me and put at my disposal for keeping; the labor commitment in order on the lower levels.
Your Honors, you can see from that that Sauckel insisted on working completely independently and insisted on deciding all questions alone. He fought all attempts to interfere with his work. It is also interesting to see this meeting of 1 March 1944. He mainly addresses the Minister of Armament Production who was Speer, who, at that time, was ill. At the same time he always addresses him as his most important opponent.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, we will take our recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal Number II is again in session.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, I shall now continue with the reading; of this Exhibit No. 31, namely, the second page, page 1811 of the original:
"Sauckel: I would like to insist on the fact that in the future also the S-Plants be checked."
"S-Plants" means Speer plants.
"--for the S plants, form a suction pump, and since it is known all over Italy and France that whoever works in the S-Plants is protected from any interference on my part is proved by the following fact: During the first three months I wanted to take out of Italy one million people before 30 May. In these two months hardly 7,000 men have come. That is just the difficulty; the bulk goes to the S--Plants, and only the dregs are left for employment in Germany. I would like to achieve yet that for the important plants in Italy at least the number of S-Plants be restricted, that is, that the number of S-plants be not increased.
"Schreiber: In Italy for every protected plant there is an a reement made. Moreover, beyond the situation on 15 February or 10 February, S-Plants arc established only with the approval of the services under me. We have them registered, and only when we aim at an agreement are they declared protected plants.
"Sauckel: They are to be combed through, but the people combed through are to be put only in other protected plants. Down there in Italy in your services there is a demand for 7,000 hands and more. The gentlemen are right to laugh at us, saying, What does that mean? You want people, but at the same time our great task must be the transfer of people.' I spoke with Leyers on Sunday and told him that I wished to have a conversation with the Gauleiter about this matter: If the labor offices state that there is still a certain surplus of hands employed, a commissioner appointed by General Leyers must then visit the respective plant, together with a commission of Gauleiter Sauckel, and they must examine the situation."
I shall skip a few sentences?
"Besides this, promises concerning nutrition have not been made to the extent we could have wished. The extra food, as we had planned it has not yet appeared at all so that there is no incentive felt; apart from this certain inner evolutions are influencing industry at present in Italy, with the result that especially the leading workmen who are so valuable for us partly fail to come to the factory anymore. They wait patiently until during the next three or four weeks, the elections and convocations in the factories concerning socialization and the introduction of commissars, etc. have been overcome."
I shall skip a few more sentences:
"Sauckel: In Italy, it seems, things are going on smoothly in general, but not yet in France.
"Milch: When workmen are transferred, how are their families ensured?
"Sauckel: Automatically.
"Schieber: "That is quite easy. If it is possible in any way, we shall have the whole personnel transferred to another factory.
"Sauckel: Years ago we made an investigation like this in France and saw that in German armament production, corresponding to districts A and B, some 600,000 workers wore occupied out of the total of some 2½ to 3 million metal workers we had anticipated. Therefore, there must still be some more metal workers hidden in France, people who were formerly in metal professions.
"Milch: So 75 per cent are still free, and 25 per cent are tied up in the S-industries.
"Sauckel: We have to deduct the prisoners of war who are new in Germany. But there are hundreds of thousands of skilled workers who, according to the agreements made, have returned to France and Belgium month after months" Gentlemen, Your Honors, Sauckel says that at the same conference of 1 March 1944 in which he asserted that 200,000 were volunteers.
He says 100,000 according to the contracts, have returned. That is in a sense a contract, and after the experation of the contract, they may return. I am sure that was not compulsory labor. You can see how carefully you should check the statements made by Sauckel. The same Sauckel says that, the same man who said that in France there was no program on the basis of volunteers. He says that a few pages further on. This man, in other words, contradicts himself constantly.
I shall proceed to the next page, page 1820 of the original:
"Sauckel: In reply to that I must ask you the following: What do you want to do now in Germany? In Germany you now have plane construction, the manufacture of highly expensive apparatus, complicated motor construction; you have here in general the most complicated manufactures in the world.
"If I brought the scum of French manpower to Germany for you, what would you get as regards production? We of the Labor Employment were always of the opinion in the French industries we must under all circumstances maintain a certain level of the trained workers and a certain degree of production. And we wanted to compel these French industries to lower their level of a hundred per cent skilled personnel for the benefit of the German industries which have been bled of their skilled hands. As General Plenipotentiary for the Employment of Labor, I considered my task to be not the bringing to Germany of the scum of Europe, but the bringing of efficient manpower. But a part of your gentlemen in France and in your Ministry too had no understanding for this. That I must say quite plainly. It would be mere child's play for me to bring you the refuse of Europe of you would be satisfied with it. I would simply grab all the whores and gigolos in Paris and put them at your dis posal; then I would not have to touch your armament industries.
But if I have to provide you with real workers who will prove efficient in Germany, then in France -- and that was just my program -- we must do the same as we did in every German plant and in every German enterprise; when a German company is split in two, some of the good workers and some of the bad ones had to be given up and not just the bad workers. And French armaments never were harmed thereby. It is a fact, is it not, that a French worker of quality produces the double amount if he is put in a German factory under German discipline, with German supervision and German welfare?
"If we agree to re-examine all S-plants -- and that is all I ask -and if we take out all superfluous expert workers and assistant workers, then we put them (a) at the disposal of the other French enterprises which need them to the extent that they need them, and when they are satisfied, I (b) have to request that if I am to carry out my program, then for these plants, too, workers must be transferred to Germany. If that is not approved of and it is insisted that the severe formula be observed -- S-plants are out of the question for labor commitments to Germany -- then, according to my experience, this program of January 4 can hardly be achieved."
Your Honors, that was the program which the Fuehrer had drawn up according to which four million workers were to be sent to Germany.
He continues:
That is the responsibility you have to bear and which I shift from my shoulder. I was told: why did you not take the Russian workers away in time, now they are in the Russian regiments. Exactly the same would happen here. My opinion is that the introducing of S-plants was altogether a great mistake which is damaging to the general interests of Germany. The French government jumped to that with the greatest cleverness." I shall skip a few sentences. I shall continue at the bottom of the page after he had explained how he wanted to get the workers. "That is the way we did it the first year, and up to 700,000 Frenchmen came to the Reich according to the program. These were all decent trench workers. From the fall of this year on this came to an end. No more skilled French workers came, nor any others either. It was the entire collapse of the labor commitment built up the slogan: From now on no worker needs to go from France to Germany," You see that Sauckel here, in this famous conference, was acquainted with the fact that Speer and Milch wanted to bother him, and made it impossible to get labor in France, and that they protected the foreign laborers there, both from recruitment and drafting.
"KEHRL: May I briefly explain the point of view of the Minister. Otherwise the impression might be given that the measures applied by Minister Speer are incomprehensible or senseless and I would not like such an impression to be created. To us, the affair looks as follows: The assignment of labor for German purposes in France was of comparatively modest proportions up to the beginning of 1943, because the extent of the shifting over of production was limited to a few things with which the German capacity could not cope and beyond that to a few main industries. During all this time a great number of French volunteers have come to the Reich through you.
(SAUCKEL: through compulsory recruitment too)" Kehrl continues:
"The compulsory recruiting started when the voluntary recruiting did not longer produce enough."
"SAUCKEL: Among the millions of foreign workers who came to Germany 200,000 came voluntarily."
Your Honors, you can see that that interpolation made by Sauckel was being debated in order to introduce an objection, in order to see that Speer was not right, because he himself said that hundreds of thousands had come to France on the basis of contracts. In other words, it's a discussion interpolation which is derived from a certain reason, regardless of the fact whether it is true or wrong, only in order to defend Sauckel before the plan of Speer and Milch.
"KEHRL: How much pressure was used, is a question I don't want to go into. Anyway, the recruiting was voluntary in its form. After this voluntary recruitment did no longer have results, the system of drafting according to age was adopted, and this had rather good results with the first age group. At least 80% of that age group were taken and sent to Germany. This started last year around June. In unison with the military development in Russia and the conclusions drawn from it by the western populations as to the development of the war, this drafting of the age groups had considerably less results as proved by concrete figures, that is, the men tried to avoid the drafting Germany according to age, by either not coming at all, or by not reporting for departure, or by leaving the train on the way. When they found out from first attempts of this kind in July and August that the German executive authorities were not in a position to or did not want to lay hands on those eluding their obligations, and either imprison them or take them to Germany by force, the willingness to comply with this drafting decreased to a minimum and only rather low percentages were thus drafted in the various countries."
Your Honors, you can see from this that even in France the age group drafting, on the basis of labor assignment of the labor assigned, according to the law of the French government, was not considered a compulsory measure. But the people did not come in spite of those laws, and they finally found out that the German executive office did not compel the people to come to Germany, then they didn't come at all. However, I shall continue: "However, these people fearing that the German executive authorities might be able to track them, did not go to French, Belgian, or Dutch enterprises, but hid in the mountains where they were befriended and sheltered by small partisan groups 1003a which were there.
The consideration which originated at that time with Minister Speer and which led to the arrangement with Bichelonne was the following: If I cannot transfer the people by force from France to Germany to the extent necessary, which is shown by developments now, and if at the same time I run the danger of having the people leave the plants in which they are now working . for fear of being taken by force, then it is a lesser evil for me to try and put these people to work in France and Belgium, in which case I do not have to use German force to get them across the frontier. Then at least I am sure that the people arc not running away from the plants Am the first place and secondly that additional employment will be brought there."
I shall skip a few technical words concerning the agreement with the Bichelonne. "So far Minister Speer had chiefly shifted to France all the urgent armament productions in these fields in which the German capacity was insufficient. Now he said: I will not only shift to France, but I will also shift really important war production, which is carried out at present in Germany with German labor, so that I can release German labor in Germany And have this production carried out in France, Belgium, and Holland. There is sufficient capacity in this field in France and labor is also available in sufficient numbers. Therefore a large part of the work can be accomplished there and I can release the people in Germany. Thereby I am serving two ends: in the first place I am setting free German labor and secondly I am utilizing the French workers who are not working at all now because industry is at a standstill. And there is still a third factor, that Frenchman will be ready of their own accord to carry out such production as serves the welfare of the civilian population, because with such work they are no longer in danger of air raids and they are not working directly for the war, So that they will net be considered as traitors to their own country, but are working for the advantage of their own country.
"This development has been encouraged in the meantime. The time is still too short to make any definite statement as to the results. In some fields the results are already quite exceptional. In some instances we have transferred up to 50% and more of the total German requirements to the best and the manufacturing is done there."
The last paragraph of this page: "The idea in fact is this: to carry out there the work which up to now has been done here and to release thereby German labor. There is yet another reason for this. It has been pointed out by you time after time, Gauleiter, that in these sections of industry, it is not easy to change the workers. According to the Fieldmarshal's description of the situation, there is especially a lack of managers and supervising personnel in the works and only German workmen can be considered for such, and every worker, even if technically he is not so suitable, will serve for purposes of management supervision and will lend some backbone to the plant.
"As regards the question f the S-plants, Minister Speer put the following question to Minister Bichelonne: are you in a position to provide the labor for such an extensive shifting program, which involves a certain risk? to which Bichelonne, from his standpoint quite rightly replied: if the people are not running away into the woods for fear of being deported to Germany; I shall get them to work in French plants. From this discussion there resulted the idea of protected plants which, as you said, were supposed to represent a protection against Sauckel. Whoever is there is working for Germany and may not be deported to Germany. You" - Sauckel -- "said that those plants worked like a suction-pump. That is just what they were meant to do. Labor was to be drawn in with a suction process so that the plants were full to capacity and should work for us. The existence of the S-plants cannot and may not be undermined. It is backed by the German promise which was given in all solemnity and which was supported by the signature of my Minister."
Your Honors, you can see very clearly what these two other men want. They want peace. They want peace among the foreign workers, and they want to protect these workers before Sauckel. That Germany needed a number of goods which had to be produced is clear, but they were to be produced in France on a voluntary basis by Frenchmen. Sauckel's reply to this is very interesting. It's on page 1835 of the original, page 12 in the English.
"May I again draw attention to the matter of volunteers and to the entire process of the employment of French labor. There was never any program carried out in France on a voluntary basis, but the programs have been carried out for the TODT Organization, the building of fortresses in France, on the one hand, and for the assignment in France to the plants working for Germany and also to the plants working for transferred industries according to concrete agreements which I made with the French government, on the other hand.
The French government fulfilled these conditions last year. It appointed people for the Western fortifications and for the Atlantic fortifications, it appointed people for the plants and it appointed people for Germany. In the fall of last year, towards the end of summer, Laval declared for the first time that he was not going to send any more people to Germany and from then on only very few Frenchmen arrived in Germany."
That was from the direction of the French industries. You can see how Sauckel likes to distort the facts in order to fight against the struggle of Speer and Milch, and that he is not afraid to say lies, in order to reach his aims. He contradicts himself, because before he said hundreds of thousands came back on the basis of contracts, namely as volunteers. I shall conclude reading this documents
DR. BERGOLD: Now, as I conclude the reading of this document, I will next refer to "page 1843" of the original. I read as follows:
"TIMM: Will it not happen that the offices making the demands any one day: but we know that in the French plants there is an excess of skilled workers which cannot be justified?
"MILCH: That should be discussed again later with Speer himself. First Speer must have a survey of what has happened as the result of all his agreements."
Your Honors, you can see that this meeting of the first of March was presided over by Milch more or less as a representative of Speer, and that Speer reserved to himself the final decision. Speer was sick at that time. That has been already cleared up. And therefore Milch only carried out the discussions which Speer had scheduled beforehand for himself. It was clear that the whole session was devoted to the clearing up of the situation.
I next refer to the document already mentioned, "From the FuehrerMinutes 1982, points of discussion from the Fuehrer-Conference of the 21 and 22 April 1982, quoting Speer, concerning the feeding of the Russian prisoners of war. This is on page 7 of the original, the last paragraph. This will be my next exhibit number, and it is on the following or next page after the one I have already read. It is marked page "13" at the bottom, and as I have already pointed out I believe, is from the Fuehrer-Minutes of 1942, and I quote from the discussion at this conference, (page 7 of original, last paragraph) Speer speaking:
"20. The Fuehrer explains clearly in a long argument that he does not approve the bad nutrition of the Russians. The Russians must absolutely be given sufficient nutrition, and Saucek has to see to it that this nutrition will not be guaranteed by Backe.
BY DR. BERGOLD: So you see, from this, your Honors, that this was saying that Sauckel was pursueing the wrong measures, and it was being done despite the orders of Himmler and Milch was not present nor did he assist The next document I shall refer to is from the "Fuehrer Conference on 30 May 1943" concerning the working of Russian prisoners of war in nines.
This will be Exhibit No. 33.
BY THE PRESIDENT: "33"?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, your Honor. ("From page no. 278 to 280") of the original. Your honors, I would appreciate it, if you would look at this record; on the right hand side you will see a number of names, namely: "Schieber, Pleiger, Sauckel, Backe, Keitel, Waeger". As to those who were involved, the left hand side of the page always stated the names, and under point "19." it shows who had received a copy of the various points, because he was responsible for it, and he had to do the work. In other words, those are the Fuehrer's records cited by the Prosecution and the only person concerned is the one whose name is mentioned on the left hand side of the document. I shall read number "19". "The coal situation causes the Fuehrer to call a meeting of Pleiger, Sauckel, Backe, and Reitel with him. At this meeting there shall be discussed the sufficient allocation of labor for the coal district, the procurement of Russian prisoners of war from agriculture and industrial wareconomy (as far as they are employed as assistant workers) against replacement by other workers from the Ukraine, Poland etc. Furthermore it is intended to improve the nutrition of the German miners, if possible, still more then up to the present. The Russians shall get abundant additional rations, which will be distributed by the manager of the plant on the basis of efficiency.
Apart from this the Germans - and especially also the Russian prisoners of war - shall receive a compensation for special performances, in the form of tobacco and similar things. From page 14, that is as far as I will read. You can see that orders were always executed to these people, properly to give an additional quality.
I am introducing those documents, my reason being to refute the Prosecution's claim and to show so far as Milch was concerned that these things did not happen; that it came under the other organization, that of Sauckel.
That is the reason I will read number "20."
Here, again, you can see the names on the left hand side, and your Honors will note that Milch is actually mentioned here. This is on page 15:
"20.) The Fuehrer desires that in areas which will certainly be often attacked by enemy planes (Ruhr District) (Krupp-Essen) about 100 to 200 projector batteries be installed, which by way of experiment, fire numerous rockets at the altitude of the enemy planes, which has been ascertained. Part of these rockets will unfurl wire when they detonate. The Fuehrer expects to obtain important and net only psychological results from concentrated attacks on such objectives through concentrated un-armed mass-fire. Milch and Dernberg have to voice their opinion on this subject.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Your Honor, in order to protect the homeland. I will now offer this document No. 124; this will become Exhibit No. 34. This is "From the Fuehrer-Minutes of 6 January 1944, concerning Speer's report on the French Labor situation. That is the record which was read at the session of the Central Planning Board of the 16 February 1944 and the 1st of March. These records were the ones mentioned before. Those of the 6 January 1944 "Fuehrer-Conference of 1 to 4 January 1944 (number 8) (Page 3 of the original)":
"The Fuehrer has been informed of the differences of opinion with the Plenipotentiary for the Allocation of Labor. According to my arguments the principle thing is to exploit the industry of France for Germany to a larger extent, in order to be able to locate there about 1 million additional workers. In comparison with this Sauckel is of the opinion that first of all workers have to be brought to Germany.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, you can see on the left hand side of the marginal note: "Kehrl Waeger" but Not Milch. "The Fuehrer explains that in his view the transfer to France is of extreme importance, be it only on account of the possibility to increase the production of iron connected therewith.