A. But that isn't the same thing, Mr. Prosecutor. In German there is an elementary difference in the language. I must point out that, that the word "exploitation" is a word which I didn't use and didn't want to use.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, would you speak a little bit lower. You quite drown the interpreter's voice.
THE WITNESS: I beg to apologize. my Lord. BY MR. DODD:
Q. I am not concerned whether or not you agree with the word "exploit".
A. That is a very important poart of this document, as I think you recognize.
Q. I won't argue with you.
A. That word is most important from the human point of view.
Q. I don't care to have any argument with you at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, the Tribunal is perfectly well able to understand the difference between the use of the words, and you have told us the translation you say is right. BY MR. DODD:
Q. Now, if you move on a little bit, do you recall having said that one million Russians would have to be brought into Germany as rapidly as possible, to become available even prior to the offensive It is the next sentence or two there in your text.
You won't see it by looking at me. Do you read the next sentence?
A. Yes, I read the next sentence: "The prerequisite for taking on the task would be the assurance that Russians would be fed approximately the same ration allowance that was in force for the German civilian population".
Q. You have skipped the sentence that I want you to read. I know that one comes along, but I want you to read the one where you say you would have to bring one million Russians into the Reich as rapidly as possible, and that is the very next or almost the next sentence after the one you have been discussing, about the word, "exploit" or "use of".
A. "---must be brought to the Reich as quickly as possible".
Q. That is all I want to know. Do you remember saying that?
A. Yes, I said that, but I must say in connection with this question that this is a record which I have never seen before or checked.
Someone made it, but I didn't have it put before me.
Q Well, I suppose it could be truthful even though you didn't make it. Let's move on here to the next to the last paragraph, and you will find a sentence which suggests:
"They" -- referring to theRussians -- "would have to be handled so roughly by the German administration in the East that they should come to feel that they would prefer to go to Germany for work."
Do you find that?
A Will you tell me where I can find that sentence? negotiation with Himmler. Maybe that will help you. SS; you succeeded in getting him to remove the barbed wire? Surely you have read that.
Do you find the sentence:
"They would have to be handled so roughly by the German administration in the East that they should come to feel that they would prefer to go to Germany to work."
Do you remember saying that?
A I can't remember that expression, and I can't say for a fact that I said, it because I have already stated that these minutes are proclamations which I myself didn't make. I cannot tie myself down to something which a third person has written down from memory. This is not a shorthand record, and it isn't signed by anyone.
Q I don't think you need to give usany long dissertation on the fact that it is somebody else's minutes. It isn't offered to you as being -
A (Interposing): Yes, but I have the right to say so.
Q Let me put a question to you once in a while. I haven't suggested that the so are your minutes. I have merely put it to you for the purpose of determining whether or not on seeing it you remember it. And do you or do you not remember it?
A I certainly de not remember that passage. I can only read here something written by a third person and I don't know who it was. He may quite well have misunderstood me.
Reichsfuehrer SS. Do you remember having said that in the course of this conversation or speech or whatever it was that you were making? to get the Reichsfuehrer SS to remove barbed wire fences. I did that. Right at the beginning of my term of office, the instructions of the Reichsfuehrer SS were being alleviated by no, and that, of course, caused arguments between us.
Q The that part of theminutes of this meeting is correct, isn't it? The reporter, or whoever it was that took this down, correctly reported what you said about your negotiations withthe Reichsfuehrer SS, did he? You find no fault with that? I haven't yet read.
Q Now, listen. You look back at that paper at which you have just been looking. You find fault with the sentence that reports that you said they were to be handled roughly in the Hast, but you don't find fault with the sentence ahead of it which says you had the barbed wire taken down, isn't that so?
You seem to be complaining about the fact that this was somebody else' report and not yours. Have you read it? about.
Do you really mean you can't find it? Do you want help?
Q All I ask you, Mr. Witness, is whether or not the sentence about your meeting with Himmler is a fairly accurate report of what you said. Is it?
A That I cannot tell you from memory. I had very few conversation with Himmler. There may have been negotiations carried out by my offices. That I can't tell you.
Q Well, your answer to all of this is, then, that you don't remember what you said there; this doesn't help you any to remember.
Q I am perfectly willing to rest it there. There is the written record against your failure of memory, and I will leave that with the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT : MR. Dodd, I think you should put to him -
THE WITNESS (Interposing): I didn't know before.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you should put to him the next paragraph, "Thirdly..." which follows after the sentence about handling then so roughly.
MR. DODD: Yes, sir. BY MR. DODD: you won't lose it, and you will find the next sentence begins.
"Thirdly, he had termed the prevailing wage rates decreed by the Reichsmarshal as intolerable, and had persuaded the Reichsmarshal that Russians should have the possibility to earn up to one-half of the wages of German workers." by the way? length temy defense counsel -- there were instructions from the Ministerial Council regarding wages, and I continuously improved those wages, four times, in fact, as far as I could manage to.
THE PRESIDENT: That is not on answer to the question. The question you were asked was: What had the Reichsmarshal suggested as the wages for these workers? You can answer that.
A The Reichsmarshal did not make any suggestion to me. When I came into office I found provisions which I considered insufficient.
Q Well, tell us a little more about it. What do you mean insufficient? You use the word here "intolerable." What was the situation when you came into office with respect to wages? counsel and I have an example to show that. An eastern worker, when I came into office, drew wages of about 60 pfennige per hour, which after deductions for food and lodging would leave him about four and a half marks in cash. I altered that after I came into office and the cash payments were doubled after I came into office. It was probably the purpose of the earlier instructions, for reasons of currency, that too much circulation of cash should be prevented.
MR. DODD: This exhibit, Mr. President, becomes U.S.A. 881.
DR. BALLAS: Dr. Ballas replacing Dr. Horn for defendant von Ribbentrop. BY DR. BALLAS: under the French Ambassador Scabini was discussed you made the statement and it was said that this was done for Frenchmen in Germany. Is it true that it was on defendant Ribbentrop's request that this was organized? That is correct. create this organization? standing between the French and German population by means of having particularly careful welfare for Frenchmen working in Germany. treatment of French prisoners of war. Just me minute. make such an arrangement even when there was still a state of war between France and Germany and establish an institution which after all is unusual?
Petain and the German Government and there were careful attempts made to bring about an understanding. of war. necessity and I wanted to say in that connection that this organization did not in any way get divided later on. APart from Scabini there was Herr Broehne who was particularly taking care of French civilian workers. created an organization for the purpose of bringing artists, lectures and books from occupied countries into Germany so as to win these workers over and have them return to France as friends of and with an understanding of Germany? Minister and with the collaboration of the Reich Propaganda Ministry and the Greman Laborers Front and my service department, that this organization was created so that foreign artists and lecturers should make the free time of these foreign workers pleasant. Many Russian artists came to Germany for that purpose and they also served the purpose of bringing periodicals and books from their home countries to these people.
DR. BALLAS: Thank you, we have no further questions.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, for the purpose of rectifying the draftsmants error in document 1 I shall just toy and obtain confirmation from the witness.
(witness handed document) BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q Witness, under the "Bedarfstraeger" you have mentioned Dr.Funk's department. inspectorate and under that the Reichsautobahn. These two departments have been wrongly drwn by the draftsman. They do not belong there. Is it true that these two squares should have to be crossed off?
DR. SERVATIUS: May I ask, MR. President, that the drawing be rectified by merely raising these two squares? They belong to Speer's ministry but I have not concentrated on that side and I do not wish to have a discussion about it. pictures which have been offered, which show the defendant together with Himmler. BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q Mr. Witness, can you ascertain the time, approximately when that meeting took place, from that picture? There are certain indications which you have discussed with me. Will you briefly state that to us?
A Yes. The left-hand top picture shows that this is still a state of affairs during which construction work was still going on -there is construction still taking place. I see unfinished roadbeds and such. This appears to be a period of construction, therefore. dress of the various people?
A. The dress shows quite clearly that this is a time before the war because Himmler was wearing a black uniform which, of course, he never were during the war.
Apart from that he was carrying a sword which was never carried during the war.
Q. Are these people wearing decorations?
A. That I cannot see as to whether they are wearing decorations.
Q. And so I can assume that these pictures were taken sometime before the war?
A. Yes, quite certainly some time before the war, because I myself have not worn a SS uniform during the war and not for sometime before it.
Q. The Document 810 was submitted yesterday. That is a report about a meeting on the Wartburg. On page 25 thereof is the German version of a report which was compiled by Dr. Sturm, according to which it had been said that there had been collaboration with the Gestapo in concentration camps and that was the right road to take. You were asked whether that was your view, that such collaboration would be correct.
How did you understand that. Do you want to say by that the methods in concentration camps, such as they were employed in practice by Himmler, were agreeable to you?
A. Under no circumstances. I wanted to indicate that it was correct as the document shows, that step by step the workers discipline should be enforced if it was not obeyed. First of all there should be reprimands, then small interior fines which are in fact contained in my instructions 13 which I want you to submit in the document and that only after there had been reprimands and internal small disciplinary penalities and these were found insufficient should there be further treatment of those cases such as is mentioned in the document through the attorney general's office and through proper procedure. I was thinking of the correct penal procedure. Methods in concentration camps were not described, as correct by me and they were not even known to me at that time in any way.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, I have a document, 1764-PS, before me and I have not been able to ascertain when and if it has been offered.
I have only now received a photostatic copy. It is a so-called Hemmen report, a report which Ambassador Hemmen had made about a sector of the employment program in France.
I want to read a short passage to the defendant which deals with the number of Frenchman employed in Germany, and I want him to confirm it.
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Witness, I shall read youa passage.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Servatius, it is not usual to allow documents to be put in re-examination. Why was this not used in examination in chief?
DR. SERVATIUS: There was an argument about figures during crossexamination. That is why I wanted to put it. I was not too interested in finding out how many people were being sent back and forth.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. SERVATIUS: But I can come to that when I plead.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal was not saying you could not use it now. As it arose out of cross-examination, I think you may be able to use it.
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Witness, I should briefly like to read to you the important passage and I want you to tell me whether the conception which is represented there is correct.
Ambassador Hemmen's report in a letter of the 2d February 1944. It was received on the 2d February 1944, in the Foreign Office at Berlin.
"Reports under III as follows:
"Regarding the employment of workers Germany:
"It started with voluntary recruitment of workers which until the end of 1942 produced four hundred thousand men. During the first half of 1943 two further voluntary actions for two hundred fifty thousand non each were being carried out. The first, which promised all the advantages of holidays; of prisoners of war, at the ratio of one to three, or the granting of the workers statute, produced some two hundred thousand men, whereas the second, by using the new compulsory service, that is to say, coercion, when carried out, only produced one hundred twenty-two thousand men."
I skip the end of the page and come to page eight.
"The total result of the Sauckel action is eight hundred thousand predominately men who went to Germany. Only 186, sixty-eight of when came because of compulsory service and of those at the end of January 1944, there were still one hundred twenty thousand left". correct?
A. May I remark in this connection that Ambassador Hemmen at the embassy in Paris was dealing with these questions there and this is correctly stated. At the end I think you were probably thinking of 428,000, not 248.
Q. Yes, 428,000.
A. That is the decisive point, that because of that short duration of contracts for Frenchman who changed every six months, only one half could be there at one time.
Q. Yes, you have already said that.
A. As an explanation I would like the permission totell the Tribunal that if there was a ratio of one to three, meaning that Germany would give one prisoner of war in return for three workers, there there would have, after one and half years, been both prisoners of war as well as the French civilian workers who had replaced them, that they had both already returned to their own country because they only stayed therefor six months.
It was very hard to gain the Fuehrer's permission for that particular arrangement.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions, Mr. President.
(A recess was taken).
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal with hear some supplementary applications for witnesses and documents at 2 o'clock on Monday.
M. HERZOG: Mr. President, I would like to come back briefly to document D-655, that is to say, to the photograph showing the defendant Sauckel at the concentration camp of Buchenwald. photographs date to a period during the war. Quite to the contrary, the original, whichhas been shown to you, has the date of those photographs and the year is 1938. visited Buchenwald in the company of Italian officers. I don't see a single Italian officer on those photographs; I simply see the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler. dated from a year other than 1938.
Dr. SERVATIUS: MR. President, I have one last question in connection with document 82 from the document book Sauckel III, at page 206 and the following pages. On page 207 we find a statement under the num ber "3" which I should like to put to the defendant a gain, because the prosecutor for the Soviet Union has stated that Sauckel had declared here that there was no protection against crime. I would like to read the sentence to the defendant again and asking for an explanation. I had quoted it before, but apparently there is a misunderstanding. It is a vary short sentence: "You can ask for any kind of protection from me, but none for crimes." BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q Does that mean, witness, that you did not grant protection for crimes?
A On the contrary. From that document it can be seen very clearly that I did not tolerate any crime. I did not protect these people who were not subordinate to no when they committed crimes. They were not to do that; that was what I Prohibited.
DR. SERVATIUS: I believe it can be seen very clearly from the wording that the explanationof the defendant as he has just given it is correct.
BY THE TRIBUNAL (MR. Biddle):
Q. Defendant Sauckel, I want to ask you a number of questions. Will you try to speak a little more quietly and will you listen carefullyto the questions and try to make your answers responsive to the questions?
Q First I am going to ask you a little bit about your personnel. You had one large central office, I take it, did you not -- one large central office?
Q How many employees werein that office? Council, Dr. Stothfang, and a -
Q Just a moment; how many? as assistants.
Q Did your inspectors work out of that office? Labor, which had been installed there. That was a special department which was established in the Reich Ministry of Labor at my request. to you, did they? of Labor. I was informed in important cases. The inspectors had the right and the duty to correct bad conditions whereever they found them.
Q How many inspectors were there?
A. There were, in Department 9-
Q. How many in all?
A. There were various inspectorates.
Q. Just a moment, defendant. Just listen to the question. I asked how many inspectors there were in all the inspection offices.
A. Could not say about the part the Labor Front played in it from my own knowledge; that would have been a matter for Dr. Ley to speak about.
Q. You know about how many inpsectors were working on the inspection of the labor work. You must know about how many there were, don't you?
A. I cannot give you accurate figures, but it could have been approximately 60 or 70, if you take all of them together including these of the German Labor Front, the DAF.
Q. Did they go outside of Germany, or did they work only in Germany?
A. These inspectors worked primarily in Germany.
Q. And the would inspect such matters as food and travel and conditions in the camps, and so on, would they not?
A. That was their task.
Q. Would the important reports come to you?
A. No. According to an agreement, the reports had to be sent to the highest competent Reich offices, in order to correct these conditions. For conditions in industry or in camps, the Secretary's office had the inspection under Reich Minister of Labor Selte. That was the highest office.
Q. Didn't any of them come to you?
A. These were complaints which were brought before me, but I could do nothing but approach these executive offices and demand that they should do everything possible to correct the situation, and I have done that.
Q. Did the inspectors's reports come to you. That is, any of the inspectors' reports?
A. The reports did not come directly to me; they went, through channels, to those offices which were concerned with correcting the situation.
Q. Defendant, I am asking you not whether they came directly, but did they come to you eventually? Did you get them? Did you see them?
A. Very seldom did such reports come to me.
Q. So you don't know what the conditions were, then, since you didn't get the inspectors' reports; is that right?
A. My assistants and these inspectors, every quarter of a year or half year, were sent by me to the Gauleiters in the various German Gaus, and whatever they discussed there and saw there was reported to me. Those were not of a catastrophic nature, but just short-comings in the execution of the directives which I had issued. I was informed about things of that sort.
Q. So you are telling us that you never not any reports or complaints of a catastrophic nature; is that right?
"catastrophic nature"; is that right?
to me in discussions with Rosenberg. And then immediately I took the necessary measures.
But that was not frequently -
Q (Interposing) Defendant, if you would listen to the question and try to answer it, I think we would get along much faster.
You used the expression "catastrophic nature"; those were your words.
Did you get any reports of a "Catastrophic nature"?
Q Those were what you call "catastrophic" cases?
Q What were they?
movies had been surrounded in the procedure of recruiting. I considered that "catastrophic."
The second case was the case of the transport back, where, dren were alleged to have died on the way, and were outside the trains.
I considered that "catastrophic."
Q (Interposing) You have answered that now.
Did you get any complaints about Koch?
and others received complaints about Koch. Koch disputed that very frequently.
Q Then you had complaints from several people about Koch?
Q And the complaints said what Koch was doing, did they?
Q (Interposing) Now, wait -
A (Interposing) But from some people -
Q (Interposing) You have answered the question now. I did not ask you if you have received many complaints. I said, "The complaints said what Koch was doing." Is that right?
Q And what did you do with those complaints? have been discussed here. I called a conference in my office. That was immediately after the complaints from Rosenberg; and on that occasion I took the position which my defense counsel has quoted from the meeting of the 6th of January and pointed out.
Q And the Koch matter ended after the conference, I take it? That was all you did?
A (No response)
Q That was the end of it as far as you were concerned? on several occasions that I considered it quite impossible to treat the people in the East badly; and on the basis of the decrees which I had issued continuously and which I had put down in my documents, I did whatever I could do in order to prevent these things. I asked -
Q (Interposing) I have asked you about your central office. Did you have any branch offices.
A No, I had no branch offices. But two departments of the Ministry of Labor, 5 and 6, were put at my disposal for the carrying out of my task of an administrative nature.
Q All right. That is enough.
Q (Interposing) Wait a minute. Now, were the recruitment officers in the Ministry of Labor?
A No. In the Ministry of Labor -
Q (Interposing) Never mind. That is all you have to say.
Now, where were the recruitment offices?
Q I understand that. But under what office? What administration? What department? in the administration of these territories, as can be seen very clearly from the decree, because that had been done in the same manner before I came into office. They were an integral part of the local administration.
Q Of the local administration. When you mentioned the 1500 district offices, were those the recruitment offices? which represented the administration on the lowest level.
Q You do not answer the question. I asked you whether they were recruiting offices. Were they recruiting offices?
A They were not only recruiting offices; they were the offices -Dienststellen -- of the local labor administration on the lowest level.
Q They did administration and recruiting?
A (No response).
Q They did recruiting, did they not?
A I understand that that was one and the same. The recruitment, according to German principles, was done as part of the administration. Outside the administration, such a thing could not be carried out.
Q They were recruiting offices, then? The answer is yes, is it not? They were recruiting offices?
Q Right. You should have said that in the beginning. That is what I wanted to know. Now, I want to know the relation of your offices to the party offices. The Gaus and the Gauleiters worked in cooperation with you as plenipotentiary, working with you, did they not?
A No. Your Honor, that is a mistake. The Gauleiters had nothing to do with recruiting.
Q Now, wait. I said nothing about recruiting. I asked you the relation of your offices to the Gauleiters. The Gauleiters cooperated with you in the general program, did they not?
A Not in the general program, your Honor; only in the program of the care for German and foreign workers.
Q I see. The Gauleiters, then, had nothing to do with recruiting; is that right?
A No. That is right. recruited; is that right?
Q In the Reich?
work for you, or do you/consider that theywere part of the Reich?
A (No response)
Q Let me ask the question again. I do not think it is very clear. had they not?
Q (Interposing) Again I am not asking you the number that was incorporated; I just said certain of the occupied territories, certain parts of them, were incorporated into the Reich. Is that right? not, the Gauleiters in those territories which had been incorporated into the Reich; is that right?
A Yes. But they have given up nothing of their functions as Gauleiters. Only they were Reich Governors, Statthalter; that is, when they had a state administration under them, those were two entirely separate machineries with different personnel. in his Gau? Gaus of which we have just spoken?
Q I mean only the Gaus of which we have just spoken. They each had a labor office, did they not? Gau labor president.
Q That is enough. Now,do you know the organization of the Gau in the labor administration? Did they also have a Kreisleiter who attended to the labor work? labor program, then?