DR. BERGOLD: Yes. After they found out that so far he had not told the truth, he apologized to the Fuehrer by saying that because of these protected factories, he was prevented from bringing laborers from France into Germany.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
Q Witness, please give us these details in short because the main subject of the 54th Meeting concerned the protected factories.
A Sauckel says that he would not be able to get more workers. In order to state an example, he states until the 30th of may he wanted to bring in one million Italians. However, in two months, he had only been able to receive seven thousand. He said then, "If I am not given a chance to take the Frenchmen from protected factories and bring them to Germany, then I cannot fulfill my program, and it is your responsibility." He placed the responsibility on Speer's shoulders. The deduction of those protected factories was a mistake which was disturbing the entire interest.
Q That's sufficient. Now, witness, did this 54th meeting have anything to do with the redistribution of the workers or did they have anything to do with the alteration of the results of the session of the meeting of the 16th of February?
A No. The attack which had been carried out by Sauckel before and after that, against Hitler, had to be cleared by us, as being unjustified. Therefore, I protested against Sauckel, and I did not make any concessions to him with respect to these protected factories. This will be seen later on.
Q We had already read those?
A Yes. That is the most important part of this meeting because now Sauckel could not possibly, with a good conscience, be able to keep up his statements with Hitler. However, if he was sincere we could be helpful to him and later on this happened with Hitler.
Q Witness, I shall come now to details with respect to those documents introduced by the prosecution. The prosecution has introduced documents from which one can think that the Central Planning, in spite of everything you said, had something to do with the labor distribution, and not, as you said here, for the larger part, acted for information and clarification purposes. I would like to start out from the document of the prosecution, namely in a chronological manner. We ought to be able to clarify all those points. In these documents, the meetings are somewhat muddled up. I shall refer now to the 11th meeting of the Central Planning Board, Document No. R-124, Exhibit 48, and this is in the index of the prosecution, namely in Book No. 3, on the second page, the second document from the top. It's on page 88 in the German.
MR. DENNEY: Page 41-42 of Document Book 3-A.
Q (Cont'd.) Witness, this meeting is of the 24th of July 1942. What this meeting deals with is not entirely clear and cannot be seen from this document. However, Sauckel was present, and now they discussed the point here, namely, Sauckel said that these Russian prisoners of war are coming in hesitantly. Then it says, General Field Marshal Milch takes it on his shoulders to expedite the bringing of Russian prisoners of war from the camps.
Prior to that they had discussed the point that these people be used in coal mines. Would you take a position as to that, why you took that over?
A That is how it happened. Some office said "Russian prisoners have been assigned to us by the OKW. However, somehow the transportation question does not seem to be settled. They should have been coming for weeks and however none of them has arrived as yet." Then Speer said: "Why don't you be so kind and tell the OKW?" Nothing happened however, and I didn't do it either. That was up to the armament office, that was the military liaison office of Speer's. The record is misleading, has been misleadingly taken up here. However, I had no misgivings whatsoever to tell the OKW by telephone. Many of these people are complaining about the fact that they do not get their workers. However, I did not see why I had to take over the job of a higher ranking general, namely something that belonged to his field of tasks.
Q Witness, in the same meeting--just a moment--now, this is in my document book, namely it is Exhibit No. 5 of the Document Book 1 of the defense. Speaking of an additional amount of workers of 1 million so many that are expected at any moment, and for which the full supply had to be arranged for. It says here that this million of workers has not come in yet, and---. In this conference, did anybody say that these people, namely that these civilian foreign laborers came into the Reich on a non-voluntary basis?
A I do not remember that. They always mentioned the fact that they were either State contracts or single contracts which had been concluded on a voluntary basis.
Q The prosecution then introduced Document No. 396PS, which discusses the 16th meeting of the Central Planning Board. This is in the index of Document Book No. 3, as the last item but one in this index. It's the meeting of the 23rd of October 1942, with respect to coal, and here they speak about requirements of labor for coal mining purposes.
Q Witness, during the middle of this there is a remark of Speer's. Speer mentioned the fact that for coal mines, people should be taken out of the quarries. All these quarry laborers had already been released, however, there are still quite a few laborers in the concentration camp of Mauthausen, which is Himmler's concentration camp in the quarry there, and there Pleiger, who is the coal man, says he could not use these people, because he could not begin anything with prisoners. Did he have any misgivings then, as to using concentration camp inmates or prisoners in the quarries?
A I do not remember this passage at all. I never heard the word "Mauthausen," and once in a while I left the meeting, or then I was called to the telephone. It is quite possible that I overheard that when I was sitting there. I cannot remember this passage.
Q Would you have had a misgiving as to using concentration camp inmates in the coal mining industry? Had you been told how the prisoners are being used in Germany?
A No; I did not know that, and that is why I could not judge. I was absolutely convinced that these concentration camp inmates were Germans, and that these could only be criminals if they are being used in quarries. All I knew was that the work in the quarry is a very difficult and hard one.
Q Had yon been told or do you know if German prisoners have to work or not?
A Yes; of course they have to work. It would have been against the sense of the country, that is the general idea. One country is in danger; then those people who belong to that country have to work for it. Then, if these people had been left alone and did not have to work, it would not have been right.
Q Then I shall come to the meeting, the 17th meeting of the Central Planning Board; that is, Document No. 124, also Exhibit No. 48, AB. It's on page 91 in the German first book and the Book 3-A, and can be found in the index at least in my book, on the second page of the index, the third item from the top.
MR. DENNEY: The 17th meeting, I believe, Your Honor, is page 43, Document Book 4-A.
DR. BERGOLD: It's there twice in my book, It's mentioned on the top and one on the bottom of the page.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, page 7 of Document Book 3-B are the minutes of the 17th conference. There may be another section of them elsewhere.
MR. DENNEY: If he is referring to the second one, Your Honor, page 1226 of the original, the other pages are in the earlier book.
DR. BERGOLD: This is a meeting of the 28th of November 1942, with reference to coal production -- October, rather.
A Generally speaking, they always discussed the coal production in the Central Planning Board. We did not speak about labor, and providing the labor for the industry or for any other offices or organizations. The only thing we were interested in was the coal, because that was the bottleneck for the steel production, and the steel production was being required to be higher by Hitler. That was the reason why we had to pursue the whole question, in order to be able to check up as to how the whole affair was. Is it possible to produce more or not? All these previous meetings also referred to coal production, coal output, in order to be able to melt the steel.
Q Witness, there is an expression here used by a Mr. Winkhaus, or a statement, rather, in which it says that the coal mining industry is part of the armament industry and that nobody knew about that. Now, I want you to tell this Tribunal what they mean by the words armament industry in Germany?
A In any case not mining itself. However, everyone had the impression that the armament industry had been treated in a better way, namely with priorities. But the armament industry was worse off than the mining industry I proved to you before with those figures I mentioned, and that is why this gentleman from the coal industry wants to be included in the steel industry. Armament industry was all armament items, namely, arms, weapons, and ammunitions for the army, for the navy, and for the air force.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess until 1:30.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess until 1330 this afternoon.
(A recess was taken.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 14 March 1947)
THE MARSHAL: All persons in the Court please take your seats.
Tribunal 2 is again in session.
ERHARD MILCH - Resumed.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
DR. BERGOLD: If Your Honors please, I may go on.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, I now pass on to the twenty-third meeting of the Central Planning Board of October 30, 1942. May it please the Tribunal, this again is in two parts in the document book of the prosecution. That is, it is in the Book A -- it is the last document in that book -- and at the same time it is in Book B, the last document but four.
Witness, in this twenty-third meeting of the Central Planning Board of the 30th of October, 1942, Speer speaks of the slacker question. I would like you to explain to the Tribunal what you understood by the word "slacker" and what the discussions of the different meetings of the Central Planning Board meant.
A. The laws of war caused all people in Germany to be called up to work, including those who normally did not do any work. Some of those people were shy of work; and- they didn't like to do any work in wartime either. They didn't work properly and therefore were delighted when they were dismissed from their work after some time, for the factories could not afford to have people who gave bad examples. Those people had supplementary rations just as did their colleagues. German workers were annoyed at this and frequently complained to various departments in Germany.
Those people were then sent to different factories by Sauckel. The same thing happened again. Sometimes they could be sent around several times a month. I could not say that it was the same type of people, and they were called "Pink." As far as the female elements were concerned, their professions were similar. They were tramps, as it was usual for them to wall the roads and highways in the summer. They worked when they felt like it, that is to say, when they could not do anything else to stay alive, and, therefore, apart from calling them "slackers", we also called them "Occasional workers." The German workers who had a strong feeling for fairness, they wished those people to be tackled severely, and in that connection the statements are to be understood which sometimes were made by Speer and later on by me.
Q. Witness, in this conference Sauckel is said to have stated the following: "The- Fuehrer has said the following: If the French do not want to work, then I will have to keep the eight -- to draft the 800,000 prisoners of war back into the prisoner of war status. If they are willing to work, the French women can come to Germany to the husbands and work there." What did you understand from this quotation?
A. After the French campaign, also after the Belgium and Dutch campaign, equally Norway, a large number of prisoners of war had been released. Almost all of the small countries, for instance Norway; but they had been released on condition that the conditions in France would be observed according to the Armistice terms and the treaties which had been coming through with Italy and France.
The next point that also becomes important later on is whenever reference was made to their being called back again; that moans those prisoners of war who had been released revocably.
Q. Witness, in the course of this conference you went on to talk about having an immediate requirement of 49,000 and having reported it, that in spite of that there was a monthly deficit which accumula ted every month.
What was the purpose of those remarks. Was it a strengthening of your request, or what did it mean?
A. No, that was not meant. What I meant was to show a parallel so far as Sauckel and his crowd were concerned; that he was behind in every case, not so far as Sauckel's coal was concerned, but Sauckel was also to be shown that his promise had been kept, and that his statement to Adolph Hitler had been correct.
Q. Witness, in this conference, Sauckel speaks of having the possibility -- of having to have the possibility to take over the prisoners of war in the operations area right away. On that you declare that the normal channel would be that by order of the Fuehrer all stalags or prisoners of war camps would be handed over to him, that is, the armed forces, to catch the people, "And should hand them over to you," that is, to Sauckel, and Sauckel answered that he had no uniforms for his people, and then you proposed "after all that the men in question could wear uniforms." How did you mean that?
A. Sauckel's demand, so far as the armed forces were concerned, was so far reaching that from the point of view of a soldier, it really looked ridiculous, and, therefore, I permitted myself to joke with him, as I wished to give an answer to his ridiculous demands.
Q. Furthermore, Witness, during this conference you speak of the fact that the Prisoners of war who would come from the Ukraine generally were in very bad state, and that they would be of no benefit for the industries, even if they could be given better food as the industrial workers, that is, the German industrial workers would receive. As in the agriculture, they could got additional food, and, therefore , they should be sent there first. What was the meaning and intention you had, and why did you say it?
A. The case was to be a measure of welfare, for complaints had been made in this meeting by other parties that the latest capture of Russians had been badly fod. I said yesterday, to that, that is in those battles the people when they were captured were in a bad physical state, and that they had been starving for a long time, and I assumed this would apply here also, and know from my own experience that you can soon catch up again in the country, whereas, rations in the cities, even for workers, were somehow restricted, and the rations for the workers, and the rations for workers were thus calculated to preserve a person's physical state, but it was not intended that those rations were to be given to men as additional food to recuperate.
I knew also that workers like going into agriculture just because of the better food situation.
Q. Witness, was that a request which you had made repeatedly?
A. Yes. I made them on all these occasions when such conditions were mentioned as a proposition.
Q. Witness, now I come to the 22nd meeting of the Central Planning Board, which again is in two different parts in the Document Book, namely, the first as sixth document in Book A, and as last document, number two, is in Document Book B. In Book A there is only one part in which you speak again of feeding those prisoners of war, therefore, I have not to repeat it. Then in the second part, in Book B, the third last document, there again we have a conversation with Sauckel concerning the covering of the need or requirement, and Sauckel passed on the balance, which in general, was decreasing. Was that again a conference which was called for clarifying matters?
A. Yes. I may point out at the meetings of 23rd October, 28th of October, 30th of October, 2nd of November and 3rd of November, these are five meetings, five consecutive- meetings, all of which were intended to prepare the steel distribution in that field for the first quarter of '43, for at the latest meeting of the 15th of November the Central Planning Board had to take measures to distribute the raw materials. And then again there were so many uncleared points as to the labor question that we were compelled to discuss that point in regard to coal and the steel production, for here again Hitler's demand was before us to distribute more steel than we could actually manufacture, and we did not think that system could be answered for.
Before the Central Planning Board existed, the Four Year Plan had distributed, very much more steel than was actually available, therefore, the whole industry had made steel memoranda, but no steel could be issued on the basis of those memoranda, and that caused chaos among the whole of our industry and the production, and we wished to finish with that state of affairs, and did not wish to continue that system.
Q. That is sufficient. I now pass on to the 23rd meeting, of which you just talked. This meeting is contained in Document Book 3-B; it is the third and fourth document.
Witness; during this conference; this 23rd conference of the Central Planning Board; you talked of three hundred melters, and in the meantime this part of the document we know pretty well, and you make a proposal that you will receive two people for one worker of this kind. what did you mean by the proposal and why did the Central Planning Board deal - if it was only an information agency as far as labor was concerned - why did the Central Planning Board deal with such trifles?
A. At that meeting I understood the proposition which was made by somebody else; that among the released prisoners of war there were some melters, and as I heard that this point had been discussed for a long time I suggested having; from among the prisoners of war still in Germany, releasing two of the prisoners of war for one melter each.
The man who came to us from France, not as a prisoner of war, of course, but as a free worker; my impression was -- without knowing myself what a melter really is - that that was such a rare type of work that it would not be too expensive to exchange one of them for two prisoners of war. Such exchanges between the German and French governmentsthat is to say, between prisoners of war and free workers -- was in full swing for a long time. That we of the Central Planning Board talked of the small quantify of three hundred people which, however, were very necessary for steel production, shows only that we did not discuss the question of labor as a whole but only the specialist questions for steel production; whether they may concern bigger numbers of workers, such as in the case of coal or a small figure as demanded by the iron industry.
Q. I now pass to the 33rd meeting. This is in the Book A, and there it is in the seventh document, and it is again in Book B, equally the seventh document. This is the meeting of 16 February 1943 and again it is a meeting dealing with the labor allocation.
Witness, there is a great discussion with Sauckel concerning, the blocked factories and the taking in of foreign workers into Germany. Do you have anything special to say on this matter?
A. As far as the date is concerned, that once again is six weeks before the quarter is up. The Central Planning Board is most anxious to distribute its raw materials. The steel industry once again has said, "We did not receive any workers. We cannot manufacture any more steel; it is not our fault." On the other hand, there is Hitler's pressure, "You have to distribute more steel. You must see to it that more steel will be manufactured."
" Witness, during this conference mention is made of the fact that the people from the Russian front should be taken back into Germany; that is, the population should be taken back a hundred kilometers behind the front, Why was that proposed?
A. I believe that meant that part of the population which was on digging work. In my opinion, as I saw it at the time, they were not people who were present in those areas. They were merely employed behind the front in digging battalions, and there was an order from Hitler that those people, as the Russians advanced, should be transported back. It was my view that they should not be transported to the homeland. They should merely be taken back, because otherwise as soldiers they would be sent against us into battle.
Q. And you wanted to prevent that?
A. I wanted to prevent that, and therefore I mentioned this figure of a hundred kilometers. There were tendencies to bring these people to Germany by force, but I said, "No, our purpose will be served if they are brought back about a hundred kilometers, because the Russian advance will probably not go any further at once." At that time I still hoped that we could hold our front until winter. I shall speak about that later on, because I had very special suggestions to make in that spring to Hitler concerning the question of hot the war should be conducted and finished and those ideas filled me since the fall of Stalingrad, and therefore 1933A that is a remark which is connected with that idea.
Q. Thank you. That is, in other words, you want to summarize that has nothing to do with labor commitment?
A. No, it has nothing to do with labor. It was merely concerned with the overall situation. I wished to prevent what had actually happened in other places -- that those people would, within twenty-four hours, fight on the enemy's side as'soldiers. We knew that from the large number of deserters.
Q. Thank you. Witness, in this conference you speak also of your French factories and you propose that sponsor-firms should be put in the relations with French factories. Was that meant to supervise the French factories in order to put pressure on them?
A. No, this was a connection between the German factories and the so-called blocked factories. I wanted to increase output in the blocked factories by seeing to it that the home industry, the German industry, would place more orders to France. Then the German blocked factories there could be increased and they were less short of workers and had fewer worries than we had in Germany. The idea was to overcome the short age of workers by giving more work to France, instead of getting the people to us as Sauckel wished.
Q Witness, during the same conference the assignment of Russians to the ack-ack batteries is mentioned, and you said the following: "We have requested that in our ack-ack batteries a certain percentage of Russians are to be assigned, 50,000 in total should be assigned and 30,000 gunners are already there. This is a funny thing that these Russians have to man the guns." I ask you to explain your position on this quotation, because if you say it is a funny thing, then you approve the fact.
A Lay I say first of all this must be a misprint. It should mean insane, insane, mad, in German.
DR. BERGOLD: Lay it please the Tribunal, may I say that we have in German the word Witzig meaning funny, and the word Wahnwitzig, meaning insane. Both words are just the contrary of one another.
THE WITNESS: May I say that the whole text here, I am convinced, has not been reproduced. Very well, which happened frequently. I don't think that I spoke quite so unclearly as it sounds. I do believe, however, that the sense must be clear undoubtedly because everything else which I said on the naval situation in other conferences would be quite wrong. Perhaps I may put in my words how the situation was, because after all, I know it quite well.
At Hitler's orders the Luftwaffe, personified by Goering, ordered that certain services in the anti-aircraft batteries should be done by socalled Russian auxiliaries. Russian auxiliaries were Russians, Russian soldiers who were prisoners of war, who had declared themselves to be anti-Stalin and were prepared to volunteer to fight against Stalin. They were not small in numbers either. That went into many hundred thousands. There were quite a few who remained in that organization up to the end, until after the collapse they were sent back to Russia. I saw hundreds of them commit suicide only to avoid being sent back to Russia. Those Russians should be recruited from the auxiliary units of the Army, and from the 50,000 they supplied 30,000. The OKW now said, "We have no more auxiliaries at our disposal, for the auxiliaries make up a large number of divisions with the Army and they should not be dissolved for the anti-aircraft batteries."
1935A Thereupon the OKW said; that us to say, in this case Hitler also, "Then the Luftwaffe industry; which is employing Russian prisoners of war, should supply the other 20,000 Russians."
That was roughly the biggest part of all Russian prisoners of war which we had in the Luftwaffe industry. That would have caused a collapse for me in several branches of the industry; for no other substitutes were given us in reality.
A (Continuing) I, therefore, was strongly opposed to giving up the Russians for anti-aircraft purposes, and I said either here or somewhere else, I can't remember where, I was morally very indignant, and said that was a piece of nefariousness, it was nefarious to employ these people shooting against their own allies, for the Russians themselves did not fly over the areas of those batteries. I overlooked unconsciously that these people wished to fight voluntarily, but I think if is quite clear that I, as the responsible man for armament, would not stand up for this interference with my industry and fought back with all means at my disposal, and as far as I know those people were not supplied by us, but I took measures in order to avoid carrying out this order by Hitler.
Q Witness, I now come to the thirty-sixth meeting. This is the third document in Book 3-A of the prosecution. This is the meeting concerning the coal economy-plan. In this conference Timm speaks of the fact that the recruitment would meet considerable difficulties, at least at the time, and that they had started to draft the people by year call. At this occasion I would ask you to explain your position to the question, what you thought, of how and whether it was justified to bring those people to Germany. What were your thoughts with reference to that question?
A This is a statement by Timm? Yes, it is. And do I understand you correctly, you wish to hear my attitude about this?
Q Yes.
A Before I became GL, that is to say, in the year of 1941, I had been ordered by Goering to work as Udet's adviser. According to my document, ten days later on 30 June, I had a long talk with Udet on the question of foreign workers and prisoners of war.
Udet said that the situation was the following, and that his information had come to him from the O.K.W. The first question was french prisoners of war. There was an agreement with the French Government that French prisoners of war should, some of them, be released, I believe the older age groups, married men, and that the younger age groups, however, should remain in Germany to be at disposal for all sorts of work, that is to say independent of the rulings of the Geneva Convention, for the French Government of the day wished to have a balance determiner with Germany being firmly convinced at the time that Germany would win the war, and that it would therefore be advisable for France to be on good terms with the future victor. Then there were agreements on the exchange of the older prisoners of war. I should call it the second oldest generation, for French civilian workers which would be recruited in France. I believe that system worked quite well for a long time. I may anticipate here that later on, long after Udet's death, as far as I know, there were agreements between Sauckel and the French Government to the effect to have old age groups called up for purposes of work, and the French Government, the Vichy Government, undertook the obligation to call up the people and put them at Germany's disposal. That is what I meant by the age group which I mentioned so often. That system was carried out only half, or even less than that, out Germany had a legal claim on the basis of those treaties on the age groups.
I now go back to the question accrued in '41, the Russian prisoners of war, and there were also the Russian and Polish civilian workers who had been recruited. As far as I know the Polish prisoners of war were immediately made civilian workers so that Polish prisoners of war with soldiers' ranks really no longer existed as such. They were simply civilian workers now.