Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the Matter of the United. States of America against Erhard Milch, defendant, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on g January 1947, 1945 hours, Justice Toms presiding.
THE MARSHALL: Military Tribunal Number 2 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Denney.
MR. DENNEY: If Your Honor please, in introducing Document No. 1510-PS, which is Exhibit 58, and appears in Document Boon 2-A, starting at Page 32, there is one short excerpt at the bottom of Page 38 which I should like to read. It appears in the German translation three paragraphs before the end, and it follows Arabic Numeral 4. It starts out, "The planning office --" It appears on Page 49 of the German, and it is the paragraph in the middle of the page after Number 4. - It is on Page 50, paragraph number 4, second paragraph on the page.
"The Planning Office will have to submit to Central Planning for decision the proposed assignment of manpower to the individual big sectors of employment (trade economy on war work, traffic, foodstuffs, etc.). It also has to evaluate statistically the carrying through of the assignments."
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Denney, we have not found the place.
MR. DENNEY: I'm sorry, sir. It is at the bottom of Page 38.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
MR. DENNEY: Just one short paragraph at the bottom. Sorry. The next exhibit which we offer is NOKW 311, Prosecution Exhibit Number 62. It appears at the first page of document book 2-B, page 44 of Document Book 2. This is a partial excerpt from an interrogation conducted on 6 September 1946 of Hermann Goering:
"Q. Now, to the Milch case. Who was commissioned after 1941 with the labor employment in the ministry for Air?
"A. What am I to understand by 'labor employment'?
"Q. Labor employment consisted of the drawing in of foreign workers or German workers, especially of concentration camp inmates, in order to free them for air force production.
"A. This matter wont through Udet, the Chief of Supply for tho Air Force until Udet's death, and then it went through Milch.
"Q. In what manner did the Reich Ministry for Air submit its requests to Sauckel and the approximate figure for its requirements, tho number of workers, etc? And if Sauckel received such a request from the Reich Ministry for Air, how did he undertake the distribution?
"A". The requests were made by Milch; it was he who said how many workers the air force needed, and these were forwarded to Speer. Speer then asked Sauckel for the workers for the entire armaments branch, almost for the entire industrial branch, and he then made the distribution. It was he in tho end who trade the final decision as to how many workers went to tho air force, for instance, how many for the Army, etc. As far as I know, Sauckel had actually nothing to do with the distribution of labor. The contingent was put at tho disposal of the authorities. Terrific pressure was continually brought to bear on Sauckel. If the requested number was not brought, he was given hell. I personally presided over a meeting where there were differences between Sauckel and Speer. He wanted to have more, etc. There was a mix-up, and that is how I know it; but the needs of the air force wore put forward by Milch, that is, tho Chief of the Supply for the Air Force. When difficulties arose and they did not get tho people and the program threatened to break down, then they came to me, and I supported their demands."
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Denney, this was an extra judiciary interrogation wasn't it? This was not testimony but it was a statement?
MR. DENNEY: Not testimony, no sir. It is an interrogation conducted on the late Hermann Goering, after the conclusion of the trial, and prior to the time that the judgment was announced.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Milch is speaking through the microphone.
DR. MILCH: May it please the Tribunal, I would request Your Honors not to take this interrogation, as a basis, the contentscare incorrect, the witness Goering is dead, and can no longer be cross examined, thus it is impossible to prove the falsehood of the minutes in this manner.
MR. DENNEY: Your Honor, please.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal is ready to rule, Mr. Denney. This raises the same objection as was proposed in the previous case. I will repeat because counsel for the defense was not listening. This objection is the same one as was urged by Dr. Bergold day before yesterday on which the court ruled. Consistent with that ruling, and under the broad powers relating to evidence in the Charter in the Ordnance, this exhibit will be admitted. Its credibility, of course, and weight to which it is entitled being reserved for the consideration of the Tribunal.
MR. DENNEY: The next document which becomes Exhibit No.63, is found at page 51 in Your Honors' Document Book 2-B, the one which Your Honors have just been looking at, and it appears at page 91 in the German translation. It is Document No. NI-1098, an affidavit of fritz Sauckel made 23 September 1946. The Prosecution offers this as Exhibit No. 63.
Directing Your Honors' attention to page 54, the third paragraph of that page, it is on page 3 of the original affidavit, and. it is a paragraph which is No. L-l, L (love) 1:
"The Central Planning Board (Zentral Planung) intervened in the problem of foreign workers only the extent of determining priorities and as in representing and demanding the requirements of the economic branches consolidated in the Central Planning Board. It also represented these demands to the Fuehrer. The competent gentlemen of the Central Planning Board at the same time of course represented their Ministries as Vorstand.
Thus I am not in a position today to whether Speer, for instance, spoke in any particular capacity in connection with any special matter. At any rate the Central Planning Board determined the total labor requirements.
In practice I only obtained labor for them.
"I attended sessions of the Central Planning Board only when questions concerning the mobilization of labor were involved. Sometimes only my representatives, Dr. Timm, Landrat Berck, Stothfang, or Dr. Hildebrandt attended.
"The competent gentlemen from Speer's Ministry also attended. Speer had a labor mobilization department where the requirements of industry were collected and confirmed.
"Milch producted the figures for aviation. The same was done by Spoor in his sphere of activity. Spoor and Milch, however, also exerted influence on the allocation of workers. How far this came within their capacity as members of the Central Planning Beard I cannot say; in any case they did this in their ministerial capacity."
The next Document is No-1177, which immediately follows this one is on page 58 of your Honors' Document Book and appears at page 100 of the German translation. That is, Exhibit No.64 is Document No. No-1177, which is a parti 1 excerpt of the transcript of the trial before the International Military Tribunal. The witness is Max Timm, Deputy to Sauckel of the General Plenipotentiary for Labor. He is being examined on direct examination by Dr. Servatius, this is page 10839 of the original transcript referred to before.
Q. What was the position of the Central Planning Board towards Sauckel?
A. The Central Planning Board was an agency of the Four-Year Plan. Its task was, as far as the G.B.A. (that is General Plenipotentiary for Labor) was concerned, to collect the demands for workers of the big users of labor and at regular sessions to adjust these demands.
Since the Plenipotentiary General for Labor commitment could not judge the information of the commitment of the workers for the various sources, this question was decided in the Central Planning Board. An attempt was made, for various periods of time, for as long a time as possible to work out a balance of the workers--".
Your Honors will recall that the name "Timm" appeared frequently in the minutes which went into yesterday and the day before.
The next exhibit is No. NO-1174, which appears at page 46 of the document book in which Your Honor is presently reading. It is at page 83 of the German original. This will be Exhibit No. 65, the Document No. NO-1174. It is an excerpt from the judgment of the International Military Tribunal commenting with reference to Walter Funk: "In the fall of 1943--"
DR. MILCH: What page is that, please?
MR. DENNEY: Dr. Milch, it is at page 83 of the German original.
DR. MILCH: Proceed, sir.
MR. DENNEY: The exhibit number is No. 65. This is page 17015 of the original transcript, being part of the judgment of the International Military Tribunal in the case of United states in the case against Hermann Goering and. other's.
"In the fall of 1943, Funk was a member of the Central Planning Board which determined the total number of laborers needed for German industry, and required Sauckel to produce them, usually by deportation from occupied territories. Funk did not appear to be particularly interested in this aspect of the forced labor program me, and. usually sent a deputy to attend the meetings, often SS General Ohlendorf, the former Chief of the SD inside of Germany, and the former Commander of Einsatzgruppe D. But Funk was aware that the Board of which he was a member was demanding the importation of slave laborers, and. allocating them to the various industries under its control."
The next document is No. NO-1180, which appears in Document Book 2-A at page 40, and which is at page 51 of the German origin, and the Prosecution offers this as Exhibit No. 66, at page 40 in the Document Book 2-A, it being 282-A Document No. NO-1180, and it appears at page 51 in the German translation.
It is an excerpt from the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, pages 17098 to 17161, starting at the second paragraph on page 40 in Your Honors' book; that will be the second paragraph in the German translation. It starts out with the words, "As Reich Minister for Armaments."
"As Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions and General Plenipotentiary for Armaments under the Four Year Plan, Speer had extensive authority over production. His original authority was over construction and production of arms for the OKH. This was progressively expanded to include naval armaments, civilian production and finally, on August 1, 1944, air armament. As the dominant member of the Central Planning Board, which had supreme authority for the scheduling of German production, and the allocation and development of raw materials, Speer took the position that the Board had authority to instruct Sauckel to provide laborers for industries under its control and succeeded in sustaining this position over the objection of Sauckel. The practice was developed where Speer transmitted to Sauckel an estimate of the total number of workmen needed, Sauckel obtained the labor and allocated it to the various industries in accordance with the instruction supplied by Speer."
I should like to call Your Honors' attention to the date, August 1 1944 on which Spoor took over Air Armament, which was prior to that date that the defendant was in charge of the Air Armament.
Then turning to page 41, its the paragraph beginning with "Sauckel continually informed." That is two paragraphs later: "Sauckel continually informed Speer and his representatives that foreign laborers were being obtained by force. At a meeting of March 1, 1944, Speer's Deputy questioned Sauckel very closely about his failure to live up to the obligation to supply four million workers from occupied territories. I might interpolate at this point, Your Honors' will recall the meeting of March 1st 1944, Speer was not present, Milch was presiding. The deputy referred to here was Milch. In some eases Speer demanded laborers from specific foreign countries. Thus, at the conference of August 10-12, 1942, Sauckel was instructed to supply Speer with "A further million Russian laborers for the German armament industry up to and including October 1942." At a meeting of the Central Planning Board an April 22, 1943, Speer discussed plans to obtain Russian laborers for use in the coal mines, and flatly vetoed the suggestion that this labor deficit should be made up by German labor."
There is one more excerpt which I'd like to put in. I don't seem to have it at the moment -- if Your Honors would bear with me. The next document is No. 1176, N-O-1176, which we offer as prosecution Exhibit No. 67. It appears on Page 85 of Your Honors' Document Bock and page 138 of the German translation. It's in Document Book 2-C, page 85. It's offered as Prosecution Exhibit No. 67. It's an excerpt from the decision of the International Military Tribunal.
"One of the important parts of this mobilization was the systematic exploitation, by force, of the labor resources of the occupied territories. Shortly after Sauckel had taken office, he had the governing authorities in the various occupied territories issue decrees establishing compulsory labor service in Germany. Under the authority of these decrees Sauckel's Commissioners, backed up by the police authorities of the occupied territories, obtained and sent to Germany the laborers which were necessary to fill the quotas given them by Sauckel. He described so-called 'voluntary' recruiting by Janates 'a whole batch of male and female agents just as was done in the olden times for shanghaiing'. That real voluntary recruiting was the exception rather than the rule is shown by Sauckel's statement on March 1, 1944, that 'out of the five million foreign workers who arrived in Germany, not even 200,000 came voluntarily'. Although he now claims that the statement is not true, the circumstances under which it was made, as well as the evidence presented before the Tribunal, leave no doubt that it was substantially accurate."
If Your Honors please, that concludes the exhibits which the Prosecution wishes to offer at this time. On this question the next phase of the case under which we wish to go is that of the Jaegerstab, and I am sorry to inform your Honors that we don't have another Document Book and will not have one today. We realize that Your Honors will not sit tomorrow or Friday and we certainly hope to be ready to proceed at 9:30 on Monday.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you explain what the next phase in the case will involve, Mr. Denney, so that we may think about it ahead.
MR. DENNEY: That next, phase of the case, if Your Honor please, involves the Jaegerstab, a force which --or rather a Board-- which was set up by Speer at Milch's request early in 1944 to take care of the increase of fighter aircraft production in Germany.
The German aircraft industry had suffered greatly as a result of the Allied bombings, particularly by strategic Air Forces, and their problems were briefly these:
1) The quick repair of airplane factories which had been damaged by bombing or strafing operations;
2) The dispersal of aircraft production and the going underground of aircraft production insofar as it was possible, particularly for fighter planes; and, of course,
3) The ever-present problem of raising the German fightercraft production so that they would be able successfully to cope with the Allied armadas in the air.
THE PRESIDENT: To what part of the indictment is this proof directed?
MR. DENNEY: This has to do again with the employment of slave labor, if Your Honor please.
THE PRESIDENT: We are still in that same category?
MR. DENNEY: Yes, sir. We do not go into the medical experiments at all in the Jaegerstab.
THE PRESIDENT: That explains it.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: As we understand it, at this time you have not rested your case on the slave labor feature of the case.
MR. DENNEY: No.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: This is just one phase of it?
MR. DENNEY: Yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, the Tribunal will be in recess until next Monday then at nine thirty.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until 0930 hours, next Monday morning, 13 January 1947.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 13 January 1947, at 0930 hours.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the Matter of the United States of America against Erhard Milch, defendant, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 13 January 1947, 0940-1700, Justice Toms presiding.
MR. DENNEY: If Your Honors please, before we go into the Jaegerstab, there are one or two matters which should be cleared up for the sake of the record.
First, if Your Honors will recall, on the first day of the evidence there was a discussion with reference to a translation, and Dr. Bergold and I discussed that in my office, and he is agreeable with the translation as it appears in the document and a was read to Your Honors.
Now, we have the extra page. If Your Honors will recall, in Exhibit 51 which was presented last week, NOKW 198, was a chart which was prepared with reference to the slave labor. I got the original for Your Honors, and it was noted that there was one page which had not been photostated. We now have that page photostated, and we offer that to be added to Exhibit 51, which appears at page 59-A of Document Book 2-B.
And, if Your Honors will recall, in reading the minutes of the 54th session of the Central planning Board, which appeared in Document Book 3-A, there was a discrepancy in the translation. We now have the balance of the pages, and they should be added after page 12 in Document Book 3-A. Page 13 in Document Book 3-4 should be dropped because it is included in this new material, and Page 12, as it appears in your Document Book, should only go down to the bottom of the German page 1816, which is the speech of Sauckel appearing just before the German Page 1824. These pages are offered as an addition to Page 12 of Document Book 3-A, being Exhibit Number 48-A, and they are pages 12-A through H, and with Your Honors' permission, I will read them into the record.
This is a continuation of the 54th meeting of the Central Planning Board, which was held 1 March 1944.
The defendant is talking:
"Milch: Unfortunately Reich Minister Speer is not present today. He certainly must have had his opinion about the whole system. His agreement with Bichelonne was to activate an additional labor supply in France itself for out armament with the aid of existing French capacities. We cannot compute the result here of what that action achieved. Whether the result he dreamed of has been achieved can not be decided just now; that is: have the S-plants given us an increase of armaments which is greater than what we would have achieved if the people had worked in Germany? I would propose that Minister Speer himself one day clarify this problem again. Because if only a negative resuly had been achieved, he would automatically change his point of view, too.
"The first question is: Is the percentage of trained people in the S-plants so great that all the others are to be regarded as rubbish? And the second question is: Is it possible at all, with the lack of so-called executive power and the different opinions on this question, to seize and transfer to Germany the remaining 80 per cent who arc not in the S-plants? So, in view of the general political and organizational conditions in France, would you be able to transfer some 10 - 15 per cent of the best of these 80 per cent?
"Sauckel: I must take them out.
"Milch: Can you do it at all?
"Sauckel: Today I can not promise anything. Today I can only work.
"Milch: I mean if as regards the other 80 per cent your hands are not tied by the different circumstances that, firstly, there is nothing to attract these people to Germany, that secondly they reckon with Germany's defeat in a short time, that thirdly they are attached to their families and to their country and that fourthly they shun work because they can still exist and without it they look on the whole period as a period of transition they expect to get over.
On the other hand you have the fact that the army docs not assist you and that the German authorities are hostile to each other, a fact which is very cleverly utilized by the French.
"Sauckel: That has changed since my last visit. All the German authorities, the military commander, Field Marshal von Runstedt, Field Marshal Sperrle, have supported me considerably in these affairs.
"Milch: I refer to the smaller authorities, the Executives.
"Sauckel: That has boon spoiled--pardon me if I have to bring this up--because all departments, even armaments over there, were of the opinion up to 4 January that my claims and especially my figures were a crazy demand.
"Milch: But only people who thought that could not understand such figures.
"Sauckel: Up to 4 January it was the same everywhere, from the Military Commander to the German Ambassador and the German armament departments. Up to then all the agencies in Franco had in general hold the opinion without exception it has not been decided yet by any means, Sauckel's figures are not correct, so we have to take it easy here. And that penetrated naturally to the lower ranks of French Authorities too.
"Milch: That is just what I mean about the differences of opinion between the different authorities, today, the difference between you and Minister Speer. You say, the best thing for mo is to approach the protected industries; Speer says: Leave those people alone, take 80 per cent away from the others. And if one is neutral, one has to say always under the condition that these 20 percent in the SPlants really achieve something for us. Speer is right when he says: Please do not touch my 20 percent; there are enough among the 80 percent for you to use.
And now I say Why do you not take tho others? Is it so difficult to approach then?
"Sauckel: No. I need tho people as well. The fact is that Spoor's plants are filling up nowadays. For instance, I received the information tho day before yesterday that the urge to work for the protected industries is especially strong just now in France and so the supply of quality work ers to Germany is practically cut off.
People of duality are only to be found in these plants.
"Kehrl: May I explain briefly the opinion of my minister? Otherwise the impression might be created that the measures taken by Minister Speer had been unclear or unreasonable, and I do wish to prevent this from happening. Seen from our viewpoint the situation is as follows: Up to the beginning of 1943 manufacturing for the use of Germany was done in France only to a relatively modest extent, since generally only such work was transferred for which German capacity did not suffice; these were some few individual products, and moreover some basic industries. During all this time a great number of Frenchmen were recruited and voluntarily went to Germany.
"Sauckel: Not only voluntarily; some were recruited forcibly.
"Kehrl: The calling up started after the recruitment no longer yielded enough results, "Sauckel:
Out of the five million foreign workers who arrived in Germany not even 200,000 came voluntarily.
"Kehrl: Let us forget for the moment whether or not some slight pressure was used. Formally, at least, they were volunteers. After this recruitment no longer yielded satisfactory results, we started calling up according to age groups, and with regard to the first age group the success was rather good. Up to eighty percent of the age group was caught and sent to Germany. This started about June of last year. Following developments in the Russian war and the hopes raised thereby in the Western nations, the results of this calling up of age groups became considerably worse, as can be proved by the figures noted; viz., the men tried to dodge this call-up for transport to Germany, partly by simply not registering at all, pertly by not arriving for the transport or by leaving the transport on its way. When they found out through these first attempts that the German executive either was not able or was not willing to catch these shirkers and either to imprison them or take them forcibly to Germany, the readiness to obey the call-ups sank to a minimum.
Therefore, relatively small percentages were caught in individual countries. On the other hand, those men, moved by the fear the German executive might after all be able to catch them, did not enter French, Belgian, or Dutch factories, but took to the mountains where they found company and assistance from the small partisan groups existing there.
"Milch: Another question, Since now through the transfers of industry so much is covered by French labor, as in the textile industry, etc.
, a corresponding number of German workers just necessarily become free as a result.
"Kehrl: Then they will not be required where they would have been required formerly.
"Timm: Nobody is going to be released. Probably other requests will be sent to tho same factories.
"Sauckel: in this respect I must also draw attention to the fact that the German factories which were slut down wore much more up to date and probably worked with loss personnel than tho French factories.
"Milch: But we do want all the factories to work for armaments.
"Kehrl: That would also result in spreading tho risk in case of air warfare.
"Filch: I believe the system to be good, as a still severer commitment of workers for Germany would have the effect of making a considerable part of them remain over there for good. I wish you had something at the back of you to make tho thing a necessity. I do not think that anyone in France will enforce it.
"Sauckel: How about Germany setting about the thing in tho right way. It is not the insignificant French workman who should be punished, but the French policeman, who, instead of supplying people to Germany, goes to them beforehand and says: 'I'm coming tomorrow; you'd better get out,' The French subordinate and intermediary authorities have to be punished.
"Filch: Even if Bichelonne and Laval have the best intention there will be resistance from the mayors, the gendarmes, and the prefects, just because those people are afraid that firstly, they will be called to account afterwards for this affair, and secondly because of their national point of view, which makes them say: 'We must not work for the enemy of our country." Therefore I would like to have an authority in our administration which would force these people to do it, because then the French could say:
"If you force us, we will do it, but voluntarily we will not do it.' The same applies to Italy. There they say: 'Who knows who will win, whether it will be Mussolini or Badoglio or the King; only if you force us we are ready to do it.' Therefore we have to have some tiling on our side which will exercise this pressure. I don't at all see why big divisions should be necessary for this. The existing forces should be sufficient to accomplish it.
"Timm: I have the feeling that in this problem we are keeping too close to the question of figures and are overlooking the question of quality. The present development may permit us to fulfill our programs with regard to figures, but in the demands made by the factories the important thing for them is to have so many metal workers, etc. Then we practically have to say:
'You will get only unskilled workers.'
"Kehrl: This point is clear to all of us. The plants are getting unskilled workers, at the utmost it may be possible to obtain quality workers by transferring plants from Italy to Germany.
"Sauckel: Then it will happen that in the course of years the factories will declare: 'We cannot use these workers.' And over against this you have the fact that in France we have a reservoir of unused skilled workers.
"Milch: I am not worrying about that. Naturally our plants will say: 'We want skilled workers.' But they also need a certain number of unskilled workers.
"Timm: Will it not happen that the offices making the demands say 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.
I can imagine that first he immediately Introduces a propertionate number so that the extent of the output in the S-plants is fixed, and that secondly it is decided later on that if a part of the S-plants has not worked properly after a certain period, they lose their protection again and the people from those plants can be transferred collectively. I can foresee now already that air armaments a part of the plants will turn out such bad production that I shall not be interested in keeping them up. So that protection for certain plants will simply be lifted again. And this will have a positive effect on the other plants, too, because they will say: 'If we do not work decently, we shall be transferred.' Now during the transfer it is necessary to see that the people really do arrive and do not run away before or during the transfer. If a transport has left a town and has not arrived, 500 to 600 persons from this place must be arrested and sent to Germany as prisoners of war.'
Here we have a Field, Marshal, a member of the Wehmacht, recommending in an order that forced labor be brought to his country that if when a transport leaves, some of them don't show up in Germany, to get the questionable benefits of the Third Reich's policy with reference to those laborers, ho says, "arrest five or six hundred people and send then to Germany as prisoners of war," probably to be sent to Mr. Himmler's stalag.
"Such a thing is than talked about everywhere. If actions like this and other similar ones are carried out often, they would exert a certain pressure. The whole thing would be made easier if we had control of food. The stuff offered by the black market has to come from a certain depot, and there we ought to cut in.
"Kehrl: That is difficult. The transport of food by parcel post has taken on extraordinary proportions in Franco.
"Milch: I personally as military commander would confiscate all goods sent by parcel post."
Again indicating that fine demeanor ho had toward everything connected with this slave labor program, he suggests there that the military commanders confiscate all the parcel post packages.
There is one more document which appears in Your Honors' Document Book 4, which should be offered at this time. page 118
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Denney, may I interrupt before you leave this document, this document refers to protected industries and S-Plants.
MR DENNEY: These, if Your Honor please, are the same. That was a plan whereby Spoor and his ministry set up certain protections over plants in foreign territories whereby the product of those plants was coming into the German war economy, and anybody who worked there was exempt from being seized for forced labor.
THE PRESIDENT: I understood that; but they are synonymous?
MR DENNEY: Yes, as I understand it; yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: "S-Plants" means "protected industries"?
MR DENNEY: Yes. It happens to be a difference in translations. One translator works on one part and calls it "S-Plants" which is the German indication for it, some one else works on another cart and calls it protected industries, In Document Book 4 at Page 118, this is an interrogation of Speer conducted on 18 October 1945, by Lt Col Murray I. Curfein.
It was conducted here in Nurnberg, and this is offered as Prosecution's Exhibit No. 68a. Hr King, in his presentation of the Jaeger Stab, will have occasion to refer to it at some length. However, the first