Q (Continuing): "---that Schacht, as one of the opponents of the totalitarian system, should be one of those to be arrested. Subsequently, Hitler spoke very severely against Schacht's activities, and he spoke about the difficulties which he, Hitler, had experienced through Schacht's economic policy with reference to rearmament. He said that actually a man like Schacht, because of his activity before the war, ought to be shot."
The last sentence of the statement says:
"Because of the severity of the statement, I was surprised to find that I was meeting Schacht alive."
Is that statement correct, too?
THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the other defendant's counsel want to ask questions?
Then, does theProsecution wish to cross examine? BY MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: he described first as your personal responsibilities, and secondly as the political part of the case, and I will follow the same division. responsible, and I want to make clear just what your sphere of responsibility was. held high rank in the Party, didyou not?
Q And what was the position which you held in the Party? labor Front, working for improvement of working conditions in German firms. Then I became Official in Charge of Construction in Hess' staff, both positions being dropped by me when I resigned in 1941. The minutes of the conference which I had with Hitler in thatrespect are available, and after the 8th of February 1942 I automatically became Department Chief of the Reich Command of the NSDAP.
Q And whit was your official title? complicated that I can't tell you at the moment what they were. But the activities I carried out were these of the Department Chief of the Reich Command of the NSDAP, Reichsdienst Leiter. fuer Technik. in the Army. formed in a general way as to the party program, were you not? because I was a participant in my capacity as an architect. Apart from that, naturally, I was generally present during official Party meetings or Reichstag meetings. program of the Nazi Warty in its broad outline, were you not? Will you tell me whether you were a member of the SS?
A. No, I was not a member of the SS.
Q. You filled out an application at one time, or one was filled out for you, and I believe you never went through with it, or something of that sort.
A. This was in 1943, when Himmler wanted me to get a high rank in the SS. He had desired that earlier, quite frequently, while I was still an architect. I extricated myself from the situation by saying that I would be willing to become an ordinary SS man under him because I had already been an SS man once before. Thereupon, Group Leader Wolff filled in a questionnaire. He wanted to ascertain how my previous SS activity in 1932 had happened and what it looked like. It turned out that at the time I was not kept on the membership lists of the SS, a fact which therefore made it impossible to carry out the SS membership affair because I did not want to be a new member of the SS.
Q. And why did you not want to be a member of the SS, which was after all one of the important Party formations?
A. No, I was known for the fact that I turned down all these honorary ranks. I did not want to have them, because it was my opinion that one should only hold a rank when one had the responsibility.
Q. And you did not want any responsibility in the SS?
A. I had too little contact with the SS, and I did not want any responsibility in that connection.
Q. Now there has been some testimony about your relation to concentration camps, and, as understand it, you have said to us that you did use and encourage the use of force labor from the concentration camps.
A. Yes, we did use these in German armament industry.
Q. And I think you also recommended that persons in labor camps who were slackers be sent to the concentration camps, did you not?
A. That was the question of the so-called idlers or slackers, (Bumelanten), and under that name we understood workers who did not come to their places of work in good time or were pretending to be ill. Against such workers, during the war, there were severe measures. I approved of those measures.
Q. In fact, in the October 30, 1942 meeting of the Central Planning Board, you brought the subject up in the following terms, did you not -quoting Speer:
"We must also discuss the slackers. Ley has ascertained that the sick list decreased to one fourth or one fifth in factories where doctors are on the staff who are examining the sick men. There is nothing to be said against SS and Police taking drastic stops and putting those know as slackers into concentration camps. There is no alternative. Let it happen several times, and the news will soon go around."
That was your recommendation?
A. Correct.
Q. In other words, the workmen stood in considerable terror of concentration camps, and you wanted to take advantage of that to keep them at their work,did you not?
A. It was certain that, as far as we were concerned concentration camps had a bad reputation, and the transfer or threat of transfer to a concentration camp would, right from the beginning, reduce these deficiencies in work. But in that meeting, as I have already said, no more was talked about that. That was one of the many remarks which one might make during wartime when one is upset.
Q. However, it is very clear -- and if I misinterpret you, I give you the chance to correct me -- that you understood the very bad reputation that the concentration camps had among the workmen and that the concentration camps were regarded as being much more severe than the labor camps as places to be.
A. That is correct. I knew that, but I did not know, of course, what I have heard during this trial. The other things were generally known facts.
Q. Well, it was know throughout Germany, was it not, that the concentration camps were pretty tough places to be put?
A. Yes, but not in the sense which has been uncovered in this trial.
Q. And the bad reputation of the concentration camp, as a matter of fact, was a part of its usefulness in making people fearful of being sent there, was it not?
A. No doubt concentration camps were means of threats to keep order.
Q. And to keep people at work?
A. I wouldn't like to say so in that form. I should like to say that foreign workers in our country worked voluntarily once they had come to Germany.
Q. Well, we will take that up later. You used the concentration camp labor in production to the extent that you were required to divide the proceeds of the labor with Himmler, did you not?
A. That I am afraid I did not understand.
Q. Well, you made on agreement finally with Himmler that he should have five percent, or roughly five percent, of the production of the concentration camp labor while you would get for your work 95 per cent?
A. No, that is not quite true.
Q. Well, tell me how it was. That is what the documents indicate, if I read them a-right.
A. Yes, that is contained in that manner in the Fuehrer record, but I should like to explain it to you. Himmler, as I explained yesterday, wanted to open factories and build them in his concentration camps. Then he would have had production under his control, which Hitler, of course, knew. This five percent of arms which were to be handed to Himmler was in a certain sense compensation for the fact that he had to forego -- that he did forego the construction of the factories in the camps. As far as I was concerned, it was not psychologically easy that Himmler, who continually suggested to Hitler that these factories should be constructed in the camps, should be deterred from his idea. I was hoping that the five percent of arms or weapons would satisfy him in fact. Actually, these five per cent were never handed over. We worked with the Chief of the Army Staff and the OKW, General Buhle, who was handling it in such a way that he did not receive the arms at all.
Q. Well, I am not criticizing the bargain, you understand. I don't doubt you did very well to get 95 per cent, but the point is that Himmler was using, with your knowledge, concentration camp lanor to manufacture arms, or was proposing to do so, and you wanted to keep that production within your control?
A. Would it be possible to turn the translation up in volume a little, because I can not understand it very easily? And could I possibly have it repeated?
Q. You knew at this time that Himmler was using concentration camp labor to carry on independent industry and that he proposed to go into the armament industry in order to have a source of supply of arms for his own SS?
A. Yes.
Q. And you also knew the policy of the Nazi Party and the policy of the government towards the Jews, did you not?
A. I knew that the National Socialist Party was anti-Semitic, and I knew that the Jews were being evacuated from Germany.
Q. In fact, you participated in that evacuation, did you not?
A. No.
Q. Well, I gather that impression from document L-156, Exhibit RF-52 -a letter from the Plenipotentiary for Manpower, which is dated 26 March 1943, which you have no doubt seen. You may see it again, if you wish. In it he says -
A. I know it.
Q. "At the end of February, Reich Leader SS, in agreement with myself and the Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions, for reasons concerning the security of the State, removed from their places or work all Jews who were still sorking freely and not in camps and either transferred them to a labor corps or collected them for removal."
Is that a correct representation of your activity?
A. No.
There is no question that they were removed and put into labor corps or collected for removal, is there?
Q Now you say you did not do it, so will youtell me who did? Party that Jews still working in armament firms should be removed from those armament firms was already well in existence. In those days I objected, and I achieved it so that Bormann issued a circular letter to the effect that those Jews should continue to work in armament firms and that Party departments were prohibited from making political accusations against the heads of those firms because of these Jews working there. These political accusations were usually made to the work leaders by the Gauleiter. That happened mostly in the Gau of Saxony and in the Gau of Berlin. Consequently the Jews could, therefore, remain in those businesses. Party was published by me in my information pamphlet, which went to all the leaders of all the firms in question, so that I would get the complaints from the work leaders in case the Party should not obey that instruction. September or October of 1942. At that time there was a conference with Hitler, during which Sauckel also was present. During that conference Hitler demanded very emphatically that now the Jews would have to come out of these armament firms, and he ordered that this should be done, something which becomes clear from a Fuehrer protocol which is still available. in these firms, and only in March of 1943, as this letter shows, did the resistance against that action collapse and the Jews finally did have to come out. we are not here concerned with the total problem of the Jews. However, during the years of 1941 and 1942, Jews joined the armament factories to do essential war work there, which essential war occupation, in turn, would enable them to escape the evacuation which was already in full swing at that moment.
They were mostly occupied in the electrical industry, and Geheimrat Buecher of AAG, and Siemens, no doubt helped the matter along a little bit so as to receive the Jews to a considerable extent. The Jews were still completely free and their families were still in their original apartments and houses. by Gauleiter Sauckel; and Sauckel says that he himself had not seen it. It is not doubt quite true, however, that before this action I had knowledge of the facets because the question had to be discussed as to how one should get replacements. But it is equally certain that I protested against it at that time also, that I protested having the experts removed from my armament industries because, apart from the various other reasons, this would mean a burden for me.
Q That is exactly the point that I want to emphasize. As I understand it, you were struggling to get manpower enough to produce the armaments to win a war for Germany. trained technicians away from you and disabled you from performing your functions. Isn't that the fact?
A I am afraid I didn't understand the sense, or the meaning of your question. was made very much more difficult by this anti-Jewish campaign whichwas being waged by others of your co-defendants.
A That is a certainty; and it is equally clear that if the Jews who were evacuated had been allowed to work under me, that would have been a considerable advantage to me.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Justice Jackson, has it been proved who signed that document L-156? It apparently has asignature on it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: There is a signature on it, I believe; the Plenipotentiary General for Manpower is my thought on it. We willlookat that.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps the defendant could tell what the signature is.
(A document was submitted to the witness.)
THE WITNESS: This man is unknown to me; I don't know who he is. It must be a subordinate of an official of thePlenipotentiary for Manpower, because I knew all the immediate associates of Sauckel personally.
I beg your pardon. The document comes from the Government President of Koblenz. It is an associate in the Government District of Koblenz, who therefore is, of course, unknown to me.
BY MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: as you have explained it? labor. As I understand it, you knew about the deportation of 100,000 Jews from Hungary for subterranean airplane factories, and you told us in your interrogation of October 18, 1945, that you made no objection to it. That is true, is it not? it was no secret to you that a good deal of the manpower brought in by Sauckel was brought in by illegal methods. That is also true, is it not? pression was used by the interrogating officer, and the expression he used was that they came against their wish; and that I affirmed. were brought in in an illegal manner? Didn't you add that yourself?
A No, no. That was certainly not so. ference in August of 1942 the Fuehrer had approved of all coercive measures of obtaining labor if they couldn't be obtained on a voluntary basis, and you knew that that program was carried out. attention to the legal side of this thing, did you? You were after manpower; isn't that the fact?
Q And whether it was legal or illegal was not your worry? dering the views which we had, that was justified. ment, and that was as far as you inquired at the time, was it not?
office, in February of 1942, all the perpetrations or violations
A Yes. I am of the opinion that the moment I began in my of international law of which I can be accused today were realized on that very day.
Q And you don't question that you share a certain responsibility for that program--whether it is a legal responsibility or not, in fact--for bringing in this labor against its will? You don't deny that, do you? will, and I had no objection against their being brought to German; against their will. On the contrary, during the first period, until autumn of 1942, I certainly used my energy that as many workers as possible should be brought to Germany in this manner. labor, did you not, as among different plants or different industries that were competing for labor?
A No. That would have to be explained in detail -- I don't quite understand. did you not, in reference to the distribution of labor after it reached the Reich? I had to tell Sauckel, of course, in which one of my programs they were needed most. But that sort of thing was dealt with by general instructions. ent industries in their claim for the labor when it came into the Reich.
A That was a matter of course; naturally, that had to be done.
Q. Now, as to the employment of prisoners of war, whatever disagreement there may be about the exact figures, there is no question, is there, that prisoners of war were used in the manufacture of armament?
internees were used for the production of arms. Regarding the use of French and other prisoners of war, I have had several conferences with Keitel about their being used in the armament industry, and I must tell you that Keitel always adopted the view that these prisoners of war could not be used in violation of the Geneva Convention. I can claim that on the strength of his statement I no longer used my influence to bring it about so that these prisoners of war should nevertheless be used, against the Geneva Convention, in armament industries.
The conception, of course, of the phrase "armament production" is very much open to argument. It is important which position you recognize, whether you limit the conception of armament very much or not at all.
Q You succeeded to Dr. Todt's organization, and you had all the powers that he had, did you not? letter from the OKW, which is in evidence here as Exhibit 214, Document EC 294, which provides that the deputies of the Reich minister for arms and ammunition are to be admitted to prisoner of war camps for the purpose of selecting skilled workers. That was among your powers, was it not?
A No. That was a special action which Dr. Frank had initiated on the strength of an agreement with the OKW, which was not carried out later, however. this Planning Board, you mode this complaint, did you not, Mr. Speer? "There is a statement showing in what sectors the Russian PW's have been distributed, and this statement is quite interesting It shows that the armament industry received only 30%. I always complained about that."
That is correct, is it not?
A I believe that has been wrongly translated. It should not say "ammunitions industry"; it should say, "The armament industry received 30%".
Q I said "armament".
A Oh, no. But then, this still is not a proof that these prisoners of war were employed in violation of the Geneva Convention because in the sector of the armament industry there was ample room to use these workers for producing articles which did not come under the Geneva Prisoner of war agreement, and accordingly were armament products. prisoners of war, there was not the same value attached to the Geneva Convention as there was in the case of prisoners of other countries.
I now speak of French prisoners of war -- that French prisoners of war were not used in the manufacture of materials which directly contributed to the war, or is it your contention that although they were used it was legal under the Geneva Convention? not used contrary to the rules of the Convention. I cannot check that, because control with reference to employment did not come within my jurisdiction. During numerous inspection of work, I never noticed that any prisoners of war from the Western Powers were working directly on armament products. by way of manufacture. What were they working on?
A That I cannot answer. I already explained yesterday that the allotment of prisoners of war or foreign workers, or German workers for that matter, to the individual firms was not a matter for me to decide. But the allotment was carried by the local labor office in collaboration with the prisoner of war camps as far as we were concerned, with prisoners of war. I received only a survey of the number of workers who had gone into the firm in toto, and I therefore could not obtain a survey of the individual types of workers which were being employed in the various fir Therefore, I cannot give you a sufficient answer to your question. yesterday you removed and put to work in a different location, that Sauckel complained about. What did you put then to work at?
Q Let us take up those workers. What were you doing with them?
A These workers were working on the Atlantic Wall. From there they were transferred to the Ruhr where they worked on the two dams which had been destroyed by air attacks, and which they repaired. That is not being said in this connection. Yet the transfer of these 50,000 workers took place first of all without my knowledge, and the results of the transfer of these 50,000 workers from the West of Germany were catastrophic for us who were wor king on the Atlantic Wall, because as a consequence of it, more than a third of all the workers loft their work on the Atlantic Wall, because they, too, were afraid that they might be taken to Germany.
That is why we rescinded the entire order as quickly as we possibly could, so that the confidence of the French workers who were working on the Atlantic Wall had in us could be maintained ing for the Todt Organization were not employed under coercion; otherwise, they could not have left in such numbers after realizing that under certain circumstances they, too, might be taken to Germany. The measure by which 50,000 workers of the organization started in France, therefore, was only temporary, which I corrected as soon as possible. It was a mistake, which can happen if a minister gives force to his instructions which are then carried out by law authorities with every means at their disposal. the labor organization of the Todt had to recruit its manpower by force?
Q I beg your pardon?
AAt this moment I cannot recollect. Could I see the document?
Q Yes, if you would like to. I just remind you that the evidence is to the contrary of your testimony on that subject.
It is Page 42, the paragraph which reads:
" Unfortunately the assignments for the Todt Organization on the basis of Article 52 of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare have for some time decreased considerably, because the larger part of the manpower allocated does not turn up. Consequently further compulsory measures must be employed. The Prefect and the French labor exchanges cooperate quite loyally, it is true, but they have not sufficient authority to carry out these measures".
A I believe that perhaps I have not been understood correctly. I did not say that a large number of the workers working for the Organization Todt in the West had been called up and that they came to the building site because of their compulsory status. But on the spot, we had no possibility of retaining then by force, or of preventing them from leaving by force. Therefore, if leave/ they were unwilling to work, they could/their place of work and either join the resistance movement or go into hiding somewhere else.
Q This calling-up system was a system of compulsion, was it not ? France. But here again I want to add something, if I may. This report is dated June, 1943. In October, 1943, the Organization Todt, in its entirety, was declared a restricted or "blocked" firm, by which means it had the advantages which other blocked firms had, which I explained sufficiently yesterday. Because of this, the Organization Todt also had a large in-take of workers who were there voluntarily, unless, of course, you consider the same pressure which was applied to the people who went to Germany as not voluntary.
Q Were they kept in labor camps ?
A That is the custom in the case of such construction work. The sites were far away from any villages, and therefore workers' camps were established in which the German workers and the foreign workers were accomodated. But there were also some of them accomodated in villages as far as it was possible to accomodate them there. I believe that it was not at all the principle that they should be accomodated in camps, but I cannot tell you that for certain.
THE PRESIDENT : Has this been introduced before ?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON : I was just going to give it to you. The document from which I have quoted is United States Exhibit 892. BY MR. JUSTICE JACKSON :
THE PRESIDENT : Is it new, Mr. Jackson ?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON : No, it has been in.
THE PRESIDENT : It has been in before ?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON : I am told that I am wrong about that, and that it is new.
892 is a new number. BY MR. JUSTICE JACKSON :
THE PRESIDENT : Could tell us what the document is and where it comes from ? I see it is EC 60 : so it must be captured.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON : It is one of the economic documents. It is a very large document.
THE PRESIDENT : Could you tell us what it is or who signed it ? It is a very long document, apparently, is it not ?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON : It is a long document, and it is a report of the Oberfeldkommandant -- L-I-L-L-E is the name of the signer. BY MR. JUSTICE JACKSON :
THE PRESIDENT : Let me look at the document, will you ?
You see, Mr. Justice Jackson, my attention has been drawn to the point that as far as the record is concerned, we have only this extract which you read. *---* do not have the date, and we do not have the signature, if any, on the document.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON : I was merely refreshing his recollection to get out the facts, and I was not really offering the document for its own sake. I will go into more detail about it, if your honor wishes. There is a great deal of irrelevant material in it.
THE PRESIDENT : If you do not want to offer it, then we need not bother about it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON : A great part of it is not relevant.
THE PRESIDENT : Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON : The quotation is adequately verified.
THE PRESIDENT : In that case, you may refer to it without the document's being used. Then we need not have the document identified as an exhibit. BY MR. JUSTICE JACKSON : and coming to the questions dealt with in the second part of your examination, I want to ask you about your testimony concerning the proposal to denounce the Geneva Convention. Convention. Will you tell us who made those proposals ?
Dr. Goebbels. It happened after the air attack on Dresden but Goebbels and Ley had earlier, that is, as early as April 1944, bad frequent conversations to the effect that the war effort should be increased with every means so that I had the impression that Goebbels was merely making the Dresden attack the cause for a suggestion to renounce the Geneva Convention. was the proposal made at that time?
A I couldn't ascertain by my own direct observation that gas warfare,was to be started but I knew from Ley, Goebbels, from various associates of Ley's and Goebbels that they were discussing the question of using our two gasses, Tabun and Sarin, and they desired to have it used. They believed that these two gasses would have a particular effect and they did in fact produce the most frightful results. We made these observations as early as the autumn of 1944 when the situation was deteriorating considerably and quite a number of people were very worried about it. and their effects; their qualities and the preparations that were made for gas warfare?
A That, I could not tell in detail. I am not enough of an expert. All I knew is that these two gasses had the most unusual outstanding effects and that no respirator, no protection would be of any use against them as far as they go, so that the soldiers would therefore have been unable to protect themselves against this gas in any way. We had for the manufacture of this gas, we had approximately three factories all of which were undestroyed and which until November 1944, were working at full speed. When rumors regarding the possibility of the employment of gas reached us, I stopped gas production in November 1944. I stopped it by the following means. I blocked the supplies for the component parts and components of the gasses; according to evidence before the Allied authorities, the gas production was in fact stopped--came to an end by January, 1945. First of all, I tried to write to Hitler a letter, which is available and which is dated October 1944, to use legal means to obtain his permission that these gas factories should stop to produce.
The reason I gave him was that the component products, mostly sozian, were needed urgently for other purposes because of air attacks. Hitler informed me right away that the gas production would have to continue under all circumstances but I gave the instruction that the component products should no longer be supplied. fare? them were in favor of gas warfare. All the reasonable militarists turned the gas warfare down as being utterly insane because, considering your superiority in the air, it would merely mean that the unprotected German cities would suffer the most tremendous catastrophy in no time at all. group around Hitler, didn't it? limited. They were mostly Ley, Goebbels and Bormann, always the same three, who with every means wanted to increase the fight and a man like Fegelein certainly belonged to that same group. As far as Himmler is concerned, I wouldn't even be so certain about that because at the time Himmler had distanced himself from Hitler a little because he allowed himself the luxury of running an army group of which he knew absolutely nothing. these who were proposing to use it on others and I suppose your motive was-concern that under certain circumstances there might be the employment of gas and the con ection of ideas of using that actual gas, that that is quite clear, is due to that in my guess.
Q And your reasons I take it, were the same as themilitary's, that is to say, it was certain Germany would get the worst of it if Germany started that kind of warfare. That is what was worrying the military, wasn't it?
A No, not only that. At that stage of the war, it was perfectly clear that under no circumstances should there be the committing of international crimes which would then be held against the German people after the war was lost. That was the decisive reason for me.
at England day after day; who favored that?
A You mean the rockets? most Expensive affair. Their effect compared to the output was negligible. We did not, therefore, find ourselves particularly interested in producing this affair to a very considerable degree. The person who was advancing this most was Himmler in this case. He gave Obergruppenfuehrer Kammler the task of supervising and carrying out the firing of the rockets against England. In army circles, they were of the same opinion thatI was, namely, that these rockets would be or were too expensive and in airforce circles, the impression was similar because at the expense of one rocket on e could build a fighter. It is quite clear that it would have been so much better for us if we hadn't permitted this nonsense. characteristics of this gas of an exceedingly high temperature? When it was exploded it created exceedingly high temperature so that there could be no defense against it?