DR. SERVATIUS: Yes. BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Sauckel issued a number of directives and gave speeches to that effect. Did he not give you more intimate instructions which were stricter?
A. The instructions which we received always agreed in principle with the instructions which he issued to larger circles.
Q. What was the result of voluntary recruiting? How many workers came on the basis of that recruiting; that is, on the basis of the conditions as described to them?
A. Of course, it is not possible for me to give exact figures. If I thing about the matter, I believe I can say that about two to three million workers could be called coluntary workers.
Q. Other workers came on the basis of the Labor Conscription Law which was introduced?
A. Yes.
Q. How high do you estimate the number of these people to be?
A. I can hardly give an estimate. It would have to be about two to three million volunteers.
Q. People were deported too. Are you sure you know what "deportation" means?
A. If I may ask, does that mean the people who were removed for military reasons? I am not quite clear as to what you mean by that.
Q. You do not know what deportations are?
A. Forcible deportations? Yes. I knew nothing about such measures in connection with the activity of the Plenipotentiary General for Labor Commitment.
Q. In connection with recruiting under the labor conscription law, there were a number of serious charges about abuses which occurred. To what extent did you learn of them?
A. I understand your question to mean abuses in recruiting itself.
Q. Yes.
A. I have no practical knowledge of the recruiting itself. As you said in your question, there were serious abuses. However, so far as I know, serious abuses were not reported to the GBA. Yesterday, in an answer, I pointed out that I knew of the case of the surrounded movie theater, and that I recall no events which surpassed that case in seriousness.
Q. Now I come to conditions in Germany. Have you heard anything about poor conditions there? You probably read the papers and know what these charges mean. Since you were one of the closest co-workers there, what did you learn?
A. Complaints about treatment of foreigners came, through various ways, to the GBA. They referred in general to questions of clothing, food, the barbed wire, which came up repeatedly, and the question of insignia for foreign workers.
Q. Witness, the prosecution is speaking here of crimes against humanity. Are those only things which could happen in normal administration, which occurred daily, or are they catastrophic things which were reported?
A. Again, such things as you call catastrophic did not come to my attention. Then I would remember them.
Q. Who supervised the execution of the orders, and how would it have had to come to your attention?
A. Various agencies were concerned with supervising the occupations of foreign workers. There were five or six different agencies. Especially the German Labor Front, on the basis of a so-called Fuehrer decision, claimed to itself the question of caring for foreign workers. And I may mention that it repeatedly said that on the basis of an assignment of the GBA (the Plenipotentiary General for Manpower) to the German Labor Front, it had a higher right to this task of caring for the workers. between the GBA and the German Labor Front on this question. Later these led to an agreement according to which these questions were entrusted to the German Labor Front by the GBA. To settle these matters, the German Labor Front established a central inspectorate which had the task thoughtout the Reich of caring for foreign workers. Labor Commitment within the German Labor Front.
Q. We will come to that in a minute.
A. Yes.
Q. What connection was there, then, between Sauckel's agencies and this inspectorate of the Labor Front? How was the connection established?
A. In the first place, a man of the German Labor Front was their liaison man for Sauckel's staff.
Q. Who was that?
A. That was Huffmann. And in the second place, the central inspectorate for the German Labor Front constantly had talks on its activity to which an official of the GBA was invited.
Q. This liaison man, Huffmann, presumably reported on what he heard from the Labor Front?
A. Yes.
Q. What did he report?
A. The things which he reported were in the same framework as I pointed out previously.
Q. The German Labor Front already had this task before Sauckel's office was set up?
A. The German Labor Front was of the opinion -
Q. (Interposing). Witness, you must answer me. The German Labor Front had this task before Sauckel came?
A. Yes.
Q. Did it consider that its powers were reduced by the fact that Sauckel was appointed?
A. I was just about to explain that. It considered its assignment a general, comprehensive one; and the newly appointed Plenipotentiary for Labor Commitment concerned himself so intensively with this matter that he himself later did a certain damage to its task.
Q. And was this agreed upon between Ley and Sauckel?
A. Yes.
Q. At whose instigation was this agreement reached?
A. As far as I recall, the suggestion went back to a wish of the German Labor Front.
Q. And what was the aim?
A. Of course, I can only give my personal opinion. I believe that the aim was in any case to express the general competency of the German Labor Front for these tasks.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have any reasons for referring to the agreement between Sauckel and Ley?
DR. SERVATIUS: It was submitted by the prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: We have it. We do not want to have his personal recollection of it, do we?
DR. SERVATIUS: The witness speaks too comprehensively. I would like to know who suggested, it and who drew it up, and when it was signed.
There are two dates under this document.
M. HERZOG: Mr. President, the document which is being mentioned now was handed in to the Tribunal. It is No. 1913-PS.
DR. SERVATIUS: It is in my document book, in the first document, book, page 79. In the English book it is Page 74.
THE PRESIDENT: What are you after? There is no value in getting the evidence of a witness who said he does not remember in detail about it, about a document which we have before us. It does not seem to me to be in the least bit useful to know who suggested that the agreement should be entered into. BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. There were other inspectorates and assistants. For example, the Gauleiter was Plenipotentiary for labor commitment. To what extent did the Gauleiters report things which occurred in their Gaus? Did they report them to the General Plenipotentiary for Labor Commitment?
A. The Plenipotentiary General for Labor Commitment, by decree, appointed the Gauleiters his deputies, with the task of dealing previsely with this matter.
Q. What did they report?
A. We did not receive any written reports from the Gauleiters on this question; at least, not to any great extent. They did not send any written reports; at least, not to our agency.
Q. At this opportunity, I should like to clear up the question of the position of the Gauleiters as deputies for labor commitment to the Gau Labor offices. Was the Gauleiter chairman of the Gau labor office, and what was the relationship of the two?
A. The president of the Gau labor office was, in administration and personnel, doubtless subordinate to the Plenipotentiary General for Labor Commitment, or to the Reich Labor Minister. But the Plenipotentiary General had made it the duty of the presidents of the Gau labor offices to keep close contact with the Gauleiters and to make constant reports on the things which occurred in their districts, especially if there was tension or lack of clarity, and to turn to the Gaulieters for aid.
Q. If I understand you correctly, the party as such had nothing to do with commitment itself?
A. I should like to say that the establishment of the Plenipotentiary General emphasized the political aspect of labor commitment, and that the Gauleiters concerned themselves, to a greater or lesser extent, with all questions of labor commitment, and other labor matters.
Q. Witness, you will understand that your testimony concerning the knowledge of the events submitted by the prosecution is received with great scepticism. Did you not unofficiall hear and see things which did not some to your attention officially, but would have given you cause to investigate them more thoroughly?
A. Of course, one heard here and there of things. Ostensibly foreign workers were treated badly in some was. As far as such things came to my attention, I have always considered them official matters and hold the report correspondingly. In such cases, the necessary investigation was made and the necessary things were done to clear up the matter.
Q. Were these individual cases not symptoms of conditions as a whole?
A. I do not believe so. At any rate, what one man might call catastrophic never came to my attention. As I have already said, there were almost always many things arising from the standpoint of housing, clothing, and so forth.
Q. What as the production and the morale for the workers?
A. The production of foreign workers varied. The production of the Eastern workers was especially good. The production of the French workers, especially was also very good.
Q. That is enough. How, I want to come back to relationships to occupied territories. Did you take part in negotiations with agencies in occupied territories?
A Not in the East; a few times in the West. I was on trips in the west a few times with the plenipotentiary General and took part in the negotiations.
Q Were you with him when he visits General Falkenhausen? ned? Were they tense, were they friendly, or what were they like? general comparatively short. I had the feeling that the two gentlemen did not suit each other.
THE PRESIDENT: The question was, were they tense or friendly or short?
DR. SERVATIUS: General Falkenhausen made an affidavit which was submitted her in which he said that Sauckel gave him orders and negotiated with him in a manner which induced him to offer strong opposition.
THE PRESIDENT: If you have General Falkenhausen's affidavit you can show it to the witness.
DR. SERVATIUS: I don't have it here at the moment. I will pass that question.
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q You were in France?
Q Were you present at negotiations with the French agaencies?
Q Of what nature were these negotiations?
Q Did the French not offer any complaints?
A Individual complaints were brought up. I recall that the complaints concerned especially wages. the methods of recruitment, forcible measures, such things, whether complaints were made about them?
A No, I don't recall any complaints of this sort, and I would surely recall them.
Q I have a few more questions concerning Sauckel's relation to the Central Planning Board and to Speer. You yourself repeatedly represented Sauckel with the Central Planning Board, is that correct?
Q What was the position of the Central Planning Board towards Sauckel?
A The Central Planning Board was at agency of the Four-Year Plan. Its task was, as far as the G.B.A. 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 fo 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 period of time, for as long a time as possible, to work out a balance of workers -
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Sauckel told us all about this already, didn't he?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Then there is no need to go into it with another witness.
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, Mr. President. BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q Do you know Speer's position?
Q What was Speer's attitude to Sauckel and vice versa? Could Speer give Sauckel orders? entiary General for Labor commitment, and Speer hold the point of view that he, as Armament Minister, was competent for all affairs belonging to the production of munitions, that is raw materials, coal, and also labor commitments, and that he must have great influence to these things.
Q Could Speer give Sauckel orders on did he, in fact, give them? In fact, there was always a certain tension between the two men because the Armament ministry more or less wanted to claim the power to issue instructions. Tension was, in general, cleared up through talks or exchanges of letters between the two men. A few times it led to conferences headed by Reichsminister Lammers.
Q What was the result of these conferences? times taken down in writing and, in my opinion, led to an increasingly strong influence of the Armament Ministry on the labor aommitment.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no more questions to put to this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other counsel want to ask anymore questions?
DR. FLAECHSNER: Dr. Hans Flaechsner Counsel for Speer. BY DR. FLAECHSNER: question. You have testified to tension between the Defendants Sauckel and Speer because Speer claimed the right to give instructions. Do I understand you correctly if I assume that the tension arose from the fact that Sauckel energetical disputed this right to issue instructions? fact that Speer, as Plenipotentiary General for Armament. said: "I must have control of all things which belong to my field of work. Then it is essential --"
Q I understood that witness. My question is only, did this tension arise from the fact that Sauckel refused to recognize this right to issue instructions whic you say was assumed by Speer? petent and responsible for all questions of labor commitment. sidered unjustified, have the point of view that he was responsible only to the Fuehrer?
A In that regard, I don't remember that. He was Plenipotentiary General -
THE PRESIDENT: Surely this is very far re eved from anything we have got to deal with. He says that the tension was cleared up by conferences. What more is there to discuss?
DR. FLAECHSNER: That was the last question which I wanted to ask the witness about that. BY DR. FLAECHSNER:
Q You spike of conferences headed by Minister Lammers. In the minutes of the session of 11 July 1944 and of 4 January, 1944, which have been submitted here, there is no mention at all of such differences. I would be grateful to you if you could tell me what sessions with Law was you have in mind?
A Unfortunately, I cannot give the time of the session exactly. I know only that the Plenipotentiary General for labor commitment had the wish to report those conditions to the Fuehrer and that the two men, as I recall, agreed that this question should be discussed with the Fuehrer. In order to avoid burdening the Fuehrer with these matters constantly, a conference was held with Reichs minister Lammers.
Q You cannot give any details about that?
A I recall, for example, that the question of "blocked industries" in France was discussed.
DR. FLAECHSNER: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Does the Prosecution wish to cros examine the witness? BY. M. HERZOG:
Q Witness, were you a member of the National Socialist Party?
Q From what date on?
A In 1933 I applied for admission. First my application was denied and, as I recall, in 1934 or '35 it was approved.
Q Have you been a member of the SA organization?
A I was a member of the SA for a short time. Then I left the SA when proceedings were instituted against me in the SA.
Q. Have you been a member of the SS?
A. No.
Q. What were your functions up to the time you entered Sauckel's office?
A. I was employed in the Labor Department of the Reich Labor Ministry, in the Labor Recruitment Department.
Q. When did you first meet Sauckel?
A. As far as I recall, I saw him far the first time when Sauckel visited State Secretary Sirup in the Reich Labor Ministry and all the individual officials were invited to this visit.
Q. At what time did this take place?
A. I can not give the time exactly. I believe it was about a few weeks after the appointment of Sauckel as Plenipotentiary for Labor Commitment.
Q. What was your exact position at the time that Sauckel was nominated?
A. In the main section, Labor Recruitment and Unemployment Compensation. I headed the Labor Recruitment Section.
Q. And at the end, what was your position?
A. At that time I was a Ministerial Counsellor in the Reich Labor Ministry
Q. Will you tell me where Sauckel's offices were in Berlin.
A. I did not understand the question.
Q. Will you tell me where Sauckel's offices were installed in Berlin?
A. In Berlin Sauckel personally worked in Thuringia House, while the Experts Section, made available by the Labor Ministry, worked in the Labor Ministry in Saarland Strasse, and after a part of the Building had been destroyed, in quarters near Berlin.
Q. Thank you. The offices at 96 Saarland Strasse therefore depended on Sauckel's administration, did they not?
Q. The agency in Saarland Strasse 96 was not a new agency. That was the Reich Labor Ministry. The two sections had been made available by a Fuehrer decree to carry out the tasks of the G.B.A.
Q. A document which has at the head "General Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, Labor Department, Saarland Strasse 96" therefore comes from Sauckel's offices?
A. I did not quite understand.
A. A document which has the following heading: "General Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, Plenipotentiary for Labor and --"
THE PRESIDENT: Why not show him the document? BY M. HERZOG:
Q. I show you document L-61, which was submitted to the Tribunal in the course of the last few sessions. This document hears, as you know, the following heading: At the top on the left, "The Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan. Plenipotentiary for Labor. On the top of the right hand corner, "Berlin, Saarland Strasse." It is dated 26 November 1942, and if comes, therefore, does it not, from Sauckel's offices?
A. This document comes from the Plenipotentiary for Labor Commitment; that is, from Sauckel's agency.
Q. Thank you. You have represented Sauckel in the conferences of the Central Planning Office for the Four Year Plan?
A. I represented him, or I went with the Plenipotentiary to take part in the sessions. Not always, but frequently.
Q. When you represented him there, you received instructions before going there, did you not?
A. When we went to more important conferences, we received the announcement through the Thuringia House that there was a session, and we received directives on how we were to represent the Plenipotentiary General at the session.
Q. And when you came back from these meetings, you reported to Sauckel concerning them, did you not?
A. After the sessions, we either reported to him personally or we reported through his personal representatives.
Q. The declarations that you made in the various meetings, therefore, engaged Sauckel's responsibilities, did they not?
A. As an official, it was always my duty when I made reports in a session, I had to ascertain -
Q. That is not what I asked. Will you answer my question? You received instructions before the conferences; you reported to him afterwards what had happened in the conferences, so Sauckel was responsible for what happened there, was he not?
A. I should like personally to explain -
THE PRESIDENT: Is it not really a matter of law, not a matter of evidence?
M. HERZOG: I will go to the next question, Mr. President. BY MR. HERZOG:
Q. You declared a short while ago that the conversations at which you had been present in Paris had been friendly conversations. Do you remember participating at the conference of January 12, 1943?
A. At the moment it is not possible to confirm my participation according to the date, but I could know according to the content of the talk whether I was present.
Q. I submitted yesterday to the Tribunal this document which is a document 809 and contains the minutes of this conference. In the course of the conference, Laval, amongst other things, said to Sauckel:
"It is no longer a matter of a policy of collaboration by, on the French side, a policy of sacrifice, and on the German side, a policy of constraint. We can not take any measures of policy without immediately coming up against a German authority which has substituted itself for us. I can not guarantee measures which I have not taken. It is, finally, not possible for me simply to hove a power of attorney in the implementation of German decisions."
Do you think that those ore friendly remarks?
A. I did not understand the one word.
Q. Friendly questions. You have said that these conversations were friendly. I have given you an extract from these conversations. Do you still say that they were friendly?
A. I can only confirm the spirit of the conferences at which I took part. These statements in the form as given are not known to me.
Q. If you had known them, would you still have said that these were friendly conversations?
THE PRESIDENT: He was not there. He just said that he did not know about about it.
We can judge for ourselves whether the tome of it is friendly. BY M. HERZOG:
Q. You stated earlier that you had no knowledge of forced deportations.
A. I said that I knew of no forced deportations under the authority of GBA, and I do not know of any.
Q. Do you remember having been present on 15 and 16 July 1944 in Wartburg, having been present at a conference where Sauckel and a number of other presidents of general offices and people cooperating with him were present?
A. The conferences of the presidents of the Gau Labor Offices? I was there for this conference.
Q. Thank you. Do you remember having spoken there?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you remember making statements on methods of recruiting?
A. I do not recall that, not from memory, no.
Q. I'will have submitted to you document 810, which I submitted under the Number RF 1507 yesterday. The Tribunal will find it on page 10, the extract which I want to submit to the witness. Plenipotentiary for Labor was having with the Army concerning the Army's cooperating with recruiting, and you said:
"The Fuehrer has approved the use of measures of coercion to the fullest extent."
Do you contest the fact that you knew of this? That you knew that workers were being recruited for forced deportations?
A. I ask for a moment's time. I have not yet found the place. commander of Paris. I do not have my statement on this question at hand, but I imagine that the Plenipotentiary General -
Q. Will you look higher on page 8, paragraph 4?
A. Page 9, yes.
Q. Under Roman IV, on page 8:
"Concerning the utilization of European labor, the problems which arise therefore under me and processes which can be used --" "Timm made the following remarks:
First in Northern Europe. Second, in the Southeast. Third, in Italy. Fourth, in France." explanation, because you made this statement. Will you answer me? Do you still contest the fact that you had knowledge of the fact that these deportations were forced?
A. I have no intention to deny anything. I can only say that Sauckel did have powers from the Fuehrer to take all sensible means to activate the obtaining of workers. Measures were instituted and carried out in France, in agreement with its Prime Minister at that time, which one might be able to call compulsion.
Q. Thank you. I have one last question to ask you. In this quotation you say, "The Fuehrer has approved-- ". If the Fuehrer has approved, it means, therefore, that it had been proposed to him. Is that not a fact?
A. As far as I can remember, Gauleiter Sauckel always reported the results of his talks in Paris to the fuehrer. It is possible that he brought up the question of methods or recruitment, which he had discussed with Laval, and that he reported to the Fuehrer, and it was customary, as I said in introducing my testimony, that he asked for approval from the Fuehrer of certain measures so that he would not work in opposition to the Feuhrer's ideas.
Q. Thank you.
M. HERZOG: No more questions. BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Witness, the document which was submitted to you, L-61, from Saarland Strasse, is not here in the original, but it says, "Signed Sauckel". The defendant Sauckel has informed me that it is possible that he did not sign it himself, but that he was only generally informed. That is, that there were so many letters that were normally mailed that he gave authorization to sign. Is that not true?
A. It was so -
THE PRESIDENT: Did Sauckel state that in evidence, or are you telling us simply what he said to you? Do you remember?
DR. SERVATIUS: I can not say exactly whether he stated that here.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on then. BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Answer the question.
A. Yes, it happened as Sauckel continued his functions as Gauleiter in Weimar that things did not reach him. The section in Saarland Strasse presented its drafts to the personal representative in the Thuringia House, and I know from my own knowledge of the conditions that the contents of the drafts was transmitted by telephone and that the personal representative was authorized to sign the name of the Plenipotentiary General.
exact knowledge of individual letters?
Q That is enough. One more question---Fuehrer, Sauckel, Speer. Is it true that the defendant Sauckel told you that the Fuehrer had ordered him to fulfill all Speer's defends?
A Whether such statement was made directly, I don't know. about the attitude or of the conduct of the German agencies. Did this complaint refer to Sauckel's activities or wasn't it so that those complaints were reported in that he thanked Sauckel for his attitude? ly expressed to Sauckel his gratitude for the fact that measures suggested by him had been put into effect. Specifically, Laval was always interested, as he said, in clearing up the climate and the atmosphere and that he wished to have talks with Hitler himself as soon as possible and he asked Sauckel to open the way for him. As far as I know, Sauckel carried out talks of this kind and Laval thanked him for doing so.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no more questions for this witness. BY THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): men who had been taken into the army out of industry. That was largely your work, was it not? was it not?
Q All right. Now, you were therefore told beforehand the number of people that the army was taking out of industry, weren't you, so you could make up your estimates?
Board. That was the task of the Central Planning Board.
Q Wait a minute. I don't care who examined the figures, but your organization certainly had knowledge of the needs of the army, of the number of people the army was taking out of industry. You had to have that information, didn't you? Central Planning Board.
Q Reported to the Central Planning Board. Now, then, they were taking people out of industry also who were not needed for the army, weren't they? I mean Jews. They were taking Jewish people out of industry, were they not? Sauckel said yesterday that Jewish people were being taken out of industry. You admit that, don't you?
Q All right; and I suppose the Central Planning Board was given the number of Jewish people that were taken out of industry, were they not?
A That is not known to no. In the sessions whore I was
Q Don't you assume that that must have been the case If they had to find the number of replacements. It must have been so, was it not?
A I can't judge that because I only learned the total number of men to be drafted but independently of the Jewish question---I can't make any personal judgment on that.
Q Don't you know that Himmler and the SS told the Central Planning Board the number of Jews that were being taken out of industry for whom replacements were needed? You know that as a fact, don't you?
Q You don't?
A No. I know only that we received certain figures from the Reichsfuehrer SS that the forces had been withdrawn and through the objection of the Plenipotentiary General, I recall, these measures were in part withdrawn.
Reichsfuehrer SS was to withdraw Jews from industry; you know that. withdrawn from industry.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): That is all.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may retire. The Tribunal will adjourn.
(A recess was taken.)
DR. SERVATIUS: With the permission of the Court, I now call the witness Hildebrandt.
HUBERT HILDEBRANDT, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Will you repeat this oath after me: the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated, the oath).
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down. BY DR. SERVATIUS: correct?
Q You were subordinate to him?
Q What was your special field? of iron and metal economy, and textiles, and after 1940 I also dealt with questions of western workers.
Q That is, France, Belguim, and Holland? of Sauckel?
Q But you participated in the staff conferences? happenings in ether offices?