A. The Jaegerstab was founded. Field Marshal Milch took part in the first talks and conferences held by the Jaegerstab but then he didn't turn up any more nor was he asked for his opinion on things to be planned.
Q. Can you tell us reasons which led to the formation of the Jaegerstab?
A. As I saw it, this was a final effort on the part of Milch to express his opinion on the necessity for the defense of the Reich and then, in effect, by taking over the responsibility for the building of fighter aircraft and transfer the responsibility to the Ministry of Armament in order to exploit the bigger powers of the armament industry. So this is new -
Q. You say the bigger power of that ministry. Were they at his disposal earlier?
A. From the conference, the so-called GL conference in which he took part, I could see quite clearly that he made demands repeatedly to be supported in his program and he made these demands in the armament industry but they were never met. The promises given to him were never met and the result was that he believed he should turn away the shame on the lack of defense of the Reich from the Luftwaffe by making the armament industry responsible for this state of affairs.
Q. Who was the real leader of the Jaegerstab? He planned the Jaegerstab or somebody else?
A. That was exclusively Saner.
Q. You said just now he wished to turn away from the Luftwaffe the shame of the lack of Reich defense. Did he make any efforts for the defense of the Reich before? Was he not more anxious to produce bombers and offensive weapons?
A. I could say this about this, that after he took over the office of GL, Milch pressed very strongly the question of the defense of the Reich in order to get his production factories and the labor for them to protect these people. This aim was to produce more and more strongly the more the enemy intensified his attacks on the Reich territory.
Q. Did he get the approval of his superiors for his plan to produce more fighters?
A. There were very strong conflicts for this program. He himself asked GL - this was probably in Autumn 1943, either in October or November. He drew up a program in which he pressed ruthlessly for the production of defensive aircraft up to a figure almost incredible at that time; namely, 1,000 aircraft per month, with certain limitations, however, and at the expense of the bomber arm. That program I was given simultaneously with the order of the Chief of the General Staff to draw up an estimate about this program for him. In order to make this program debatable, even, I had to take its basic condition that the bomber position should be kept on its present level. I was able to draw up a counter proposal which provided for 800 fighters. This estimation was drawn up by my then chief of office and myself and we passed it on to the chief of the general staff, who, despite misgivings on his part as far as the success was concerned, all the same was quite ready to press it through. After a few days I was told that this program had not been accepted. He dictated me the final figures, which provided for 400 fighter aircraft only. He himself, with his own conviction for the increase of the defense of the Reich, had not had any luck with Hitler or Goering or both of them. In the final drawing up of this program, of which Field Marshal Milch disapproved strongly, these figures of fighter aircraft were raised a little above the figure of 400.
Q. Can you tell us what reasons were given by Goering and Hitler for turning down this program?
Why did they want more bombers?
A. The reason was, in the mentality of these people who believed to press through the war in the east and finish it with all offensive weapons at their disposal in order then to have their back wall free to turn on the other enemies.
Q. Witness, do you know that Goering reproached Milch for keeping production too law although he, Goering, had put the necessary labor at his disposal?
A. These reproaches were raised frequently by Goering in talks in some of which I took part, mostly, however, statements, and the discussion had to be broken off. Goering was very indignant and could not be persuaded, and he asked for the matter to be cleared up otherwise.
Q On what did Goering base his figures on the labor which he put at his disposal?
A. I couldn't say that in detail. In any case Goering probably received his figures from the Party Chancellery or other Party offices. I, myself, in my own field of tasks, had an eternal struggle for the correctness of my figures and the correctness of figures applied from other offices.
Q. Do you know that Sauckel always explained to the offices concerned that he had supplied large numbers of workers?
A. I cannot speak about this as I never saw Sauckel or met him.
Q. How did you judge the question of labor in the Luftwaffe industry?
A. In the general conferences the question of workers was frequently discussed and it could been seen that to extend these programs or carry them out not enough labor was at our disposal. The main struggle was made to preserve management's skilled workers, for whom Milch sought, and on the other hand the struggle between OKW to obtain as many fighting people from the industry. Milch himself knew how to form his own Luftwaffe personnel, or from his own pilots to obtain about 40,000, or from soldiers on leave another 30,000 soldiers. In other words 70,000 men, as they figured it out. He withheld all those people from active service.
Q. All these were German workers?
A. Yes, they were German workers who sometimes worked on airfields and had been called up and who, by his intervention or other measures which I do not know in detail, went into the industry and were kept in the industry up to his resignation.
Q. Do you know that Milch had anything to do with forced labor on the part of foreigners?
A. I know nothing about this. In any case in the talks in which I was present this was never discussed.
Q. But you knew that the Luftwaffe industry kept foreign workers?
A. That was known to me.
Q. Can you tell us what attitude Milch took toward foreign workers?
A. I can recall that in several cases Milch helped to achieve increased production by giving additional food and facilities for enjoyment, including films, film shows, and so forth, so that these people would work more actively and production would increase, as he himself wished, after being told by industrialists, "You must give us the means", and he was to see to it that they were given the means.
Q. The defendant, at a meeting of the Central Planning Board, said that foreign workers should be whipped so that they would work. Is that his real attitude, or how would you say that such a statement came about?
A. I didn't hear that statement myself. I was not present at that meeting where apparently he said so. But I can well imagine that, as an impulsive character, he talked himself into a certain excitement, and whenever he did that he used expressions which went far beyond the conventional courtesy, including those present. In most cases he apologized almost immediately and said he didn't mean it, they shouldn't take too serious a view of it.
Q. You don't think that this remark about whipping - do you think that is the same sort of thing when he said, "I will hang people."?
A. This hanging and shooting business seemed to come easy to him but nobody took it seriously, all the more, as he had hardly the power to hang people.
Q. So you only saw Milch make efforts to obtain as favorable conditions as possible for foreign workers?
A Yes.
Q. Thank you. Do you know that he was even opposed to the recruiting of large numbers of foreign workers into factories?
A No, he was opposed to that because he knew very well that thereby production would not increase. He has been the head of the Lufthansa for far too long a time not to see things very clearly.
Q Witness, your reply was a little confusing. I asked you whether you know that he was opposed to the leading into factories, and you said no. That is not the correct reply to my question.
A I wanted to say he did not advocate this because he did not expect increased production.
Q Is it correct that at the end of 1941 when Milch was to go with the office of GL, the air armament was weak?
A Unfortunately, yes.
Q. Was his citing for increased interest in the production was his citation for increased production the result of that, or did he merely wish to enslave foreign workers?
AA reply to that question goes beyond my competency. I can only give my impression that I am of the opinion that he wished to enslave foreign workers, but he looked on the GL office and concentrated on it more strongly in order to increase the production.
Q Did the German Armed Forces know at that time that the American Air Armament figures were very much higher in relation to the German figures?
A The Luftwaffe knew that.
MR. DENNEY: Your Honor, I don't mind this witness being lead, but when he is asked what the knowledge is of what the German Armed Forces know, that is objectionable. This man is a colonel, and he can be asked what he knows, but my goodness, let's not get out of this witness the knowledge of the Wehrmacht.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, it is a fact that the point is why Milch wished to increase production, and that the American figures were really higher is not the opinion of him but what the Germans believed.
MR. DENNEY: Now what Germany believed but what did Milch believe.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: But that is not what you asked him.
DR. BERGOLD: All right.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Please confine your reply to Milch. What did Milch think of the American figures, what did Milch think the American figures were?
A I can not say this because I have no knowledge.
THE PRESIDENT: He answered the question by saying he can not say what Milch thought.
989 a BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Please tell, witness, whether the Luftwaffe Office had finished material at their disposal?
A Yes, they had material, but that went to a different part of the Ministry. How that material came to the factory I could not say.
Q Witness, when you cited an increasing production, were you given this enemy figure for comparison?
A Yes, in some cases I did some myself; these were materials which I received from the Swiss figures published by Henry Kaiser.
Q Was he present at that talk?
A No, he was not present.
Q You believe, in other words, that he had no idea how strong the enemy airforce was?
A No, no, I could not say that. Naturally, he had a certain idea, because he himself had thought of the figures, which he did not get from me.
Q But you do think he was informed?
A Yes, he certainly was informed.
Q Witness, to increase the Fighter Staff Army, was that meant for offensive warfare, or to defend the homeland?
A Milch looked on it as a defensive army for the homeland, in order to safeguard arms production.
Q Witness, do you know of the Central Planning Board?
A No. I heard the term but what it really was I could not say, because we were sorry to see that up to the end of the war there was no coordinating office.
THE PRESIDENT: Now just a minute. He said when he answered your question that he did not know of the Central Planning Planning Board, period.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, a document has boon submitted in which the Central Planning 990 a Board is described as a coordinating office for the whole German War Industry.
Was there such an office, really?
A No, we were sorry to say that there was no such coordination office which would coordinate the request for service of the Wehrmacht and the coordinating with the potentiality of material available.
Q Witness, in these conversations, it was usual in Germany to take down verbatim the record of it; was it known to you?
A Yes, it is.
Q You yourself were present at the conversation?
A Yes.
Q Did you ever check up or road through these records?
A Yes, that was one of my obligations, to read through these records, be cause it very often lead me to take certain actions.
Q What was your impression of the exactitude of these records?
A The records which were taken down by the stenographers were verbatim, and afterwards were worked on in an abridged form , or submitted to other offices, and were not always according to what had been said, particularly one of these last meetings, when those conferences were held with several persons speaking at the same time, or when discussions were very excited. I myself in two cases had to insist that the record should be changed, because my own words had been taken down completely contrary to what I had said before.
Q Do you know also that when Milch used strong language, for instance, that the stenographers were told "Don't put that down", or "Don't put it in this form."
A Oh, yes, that happened usually when he had used a few strong expressions, or had exploded in an unpolite manner.
Q You were present at conferences of the Jaegerstab?
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.