dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SPEER: His decision was a useless compromise, as was often the case with Hitler. These blocked factories were to be maintained, and for this purpose Sauckel was given the order to obtain 3,500,000 workers from the occupied territories. Hitler gave the strictest instructions through the High Command of the Armed Forces to the military commanders that Sauckel's request should be met by all means.
DR. FLACHSNER: Did you agree to this decision?
SPEER: No, not at all; for if it were executed my program of shifting industries to the West had to collapse.
DR. FLACHSNER: And what action did you take after that?
SPEER: Contrary to the Fuehrer's decision during that meeting, I informed the military commander of the way I wanted it, so that in connection with the expected order from the High Command of the Armed Forces the military commander would have two interpretations of the meeting in his hands. Since the military commander was agreeable to my interpretation, it could be expected that he would follow my line of thought.
DR. FLACHSNER: In this connection, may I present a document whim is on Page 29 of the English text of my document book' Page 26 of the German and French texts. This is a teletype message from Speer to General Studt in Paris. It will be Exhibit Number 10. Two things appear from this letter. First, Speer wrote, and I quote: "Gauleiter Sauckel will start negotiations with the appropriate agencies with regard to the occupied western territories, in order to achieve clarity on the manner and possibility of the execution."
THE PRESIDENT: What is the point in reading that, Dr. Flachsner?
DR. FLACHSNER: Mr. President, the Prosecution has submitted this document, 1292-PS, to prove...
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant just told us what's in the document. He has told us the substance of the whole affair. We quite understand what the difference of opinion between Sauckel and Speer was.
DR. FLACHSNER: This document shows the reaction on the part of the defendant, namely what he did, so that Hitler's decision, as such, would be contravened or at least weakened. In this letter the defendant said to General Studt...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Flachsner, the Tribunal has given you the clearest possible indication of the view they take about these matters of different plans and differences of view between Sauckel and Speer. Why don't you pass on to some other part of your case if there is any other part of it?
DR. FLACHSNER: Mr. President, I do not wish to discuss the argument between these two. I am trying to show the actions taken by Speer so as to put his point of view into practice. This does not refer to...
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but that is irrelevant. As I said just now, the defendant has told us what he did. It is not necessary to read it all out to us again.
DR. FLACHSNER: Very well. In that case, may I go on to present a document which is on Page 30 of the English text of my document book, Page 27 of the German and French texts; Exhibit Number Speer-11. It is a letter from Speer to Sauckel dated 6 January 1944, and it is ascertained in this letter that for the French industrial firms working in France 400,000 workers should be reserved at once, and another 400,000 workers during the following months, who therefore would not be deported. What results did these two letters have, Herr Speer, with reference to Hitler's order that 1 million workers should be taken from France to Germany? SPEER I should like to summarize the entire subject and say a few words about it. We had a technique of dealing with inconvenient orders from Hitler that permitted us to by-pass them. Jodl has already said in his testimony that for his part he had developed such a technique too. And so, of course, the letters which are being submitted here are only clear to the expert as to their meaning and the results they would have to have. From the document which is being presented now, from Sauckel's speech on 1 March 1944, Document Number R-124, it is evident, too, what the results were in regard to the labor allocation in the occupied territories. The result is clear and I have already described it here, and I think we can therefore pass to Page 49.
DR. FLACHSNER: Herr Speer, can you give me a description of the results of the air attacks on the occupied' western territories?
SPEER: Yes. In this connection I should again like to summarize a few points. The invasion was preceded by heavy air attacks on the transportation system in the occupied western territories. As a result of that, beginning with May and June 1944, production in France was paralyzed and 1 million workers were unemployed. With that, the idea of shifting production had collapsed as far as I was concerned; and according to normal expectations of the French officials, too, the impression was general that a large-scale movement toward Germany would now set in. I gave the order that in spite of the fact that the entire French industry was paralyzed the blocked factories should be kept up, although I knew as an expert that their rehabilitation, considering the damage to the transportation system, would not be possible in less than 9 or 12 months, even if the air attacks should cease entirely. I was, therefore, acting against my own interests here. The French Prosecution has confirmed this in Document RF-22. The corresponding passages are indicated in the document book. Between 19 and 22 June I had a conference with Hitler and' I obtained a decree according to which the workers in the occupied territories, in spite of the difficulties of transport, had to remain on the spot no matter what happened. Seyss-Inquart has already testified that a similar decision applied to Holland. Upon my orders the workers in these blocked factories even continued to receive their wages.
DR. FLACHSNER: In this connection I submit Exhibit Number Speer-12. It is an extract from the Fuehrer conference from 19 to 22 June 1944, and I beg the Tribunal to take judicial notice of it. The document is on Page 22 of the English text of my document book. Herr Speer, you would have had to be aware of the fact that following this decision of yours at least 1 million unemployed workers in all the western territories would be unproductive for quite a long time. How could you justify such a decision?
SPEER: I must say quite openly that this was the first decision of mine which had its inner justification in the war situation having deteriorated so disastrously. The invasion was a success. The heavy air attacks on production were showing decisive results. An early end of the war was to be forecast and all this altered the situation as far as I was concerned. The practical conclusions I drew from this situation will become apparent through various other examples which I shall put forward in the course of the Trial. Of course, Hitler was not of the same opinion during that period. On the contrary, he believed that everything ought to be done in order to utilize the last reserves of manpower.
DR. FLACHSNER: Please describe briefly your attitude toward the meeting of 11 July 1944, to which we have already referred once before. This was Document 3819-PS. Please be very brief.
SPEER: During this meeting of 11 July I maintained my point of view. Once again I pointed to Germany's reserves, as becomes apparent from the minutes, and I announced that the transport difficulties should not be allowed to influence production, and that the blocked factories were to be kept up in those territories. Both I and the military commanders of the occupied territories were perfectly aware of the fact that with this the well-known consequences for these blocked factories would be the same as before, that is, that the transfer of labor from the occupied western territories to Germany would be stopped.
DR. FLACHSNER: The French Prosecution has presented a Document Number 814, Exhibit RF-1516. It presented it during the session of 30 May, if I remember correctly. It came up during the cross-examination of your Codefendant Sauckel. According to this order troops were to round up workers in the West. Please give a brief statement on that. So as to refresh your memory, I want to say that reference is made in this telegram to the meeting of 11 July.
SPEER: The minutes of the meeting show, as I said before, that I opposed measures of coercion. I did not see Keitel's actual order.
DR. FLACHSNER: Number 824 is another document submitted by the French Prosecution on the same subject. It is a letter by General Von Kluge dated 25 July 1944; Exhibit RF-515. It refers to the telegram from Keitel which has been previously mentioned. Do you know anything about it, and whether that order was ever actually carried out?
SPEER: I know that the order was not carried out. To understand the situation, it is necessary to become familiar with the atmosphere prevailing about 20 July. At that time not every order from headquarters was carried out. As the investigations after 20 July proved, at that time in his capacity as Commander, West, Kluge was already planning negotiations with the western enemies for a capitulation and probably he made his initial attempts at that time. That, incidentally, was the reason for his suicide after the attempt of 20 July had failed. It is out of the question...
THE PRESIDENT: You gave the number 1824. What does that mean?
DR. FLACHSNER: Mr. President, Number 824 is the number which the French Prosecution has given to this document. That is the number under which it has submitted it. Unfortunately, I cannot ascertain the exhibit number. I have made inquiries, but I have not had an answer yet. I am just given to understand that it is RF-1515. That is its exhibit number.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
SPEER: It is out of the question that Field Marshal Kluge, in the military situation in which he found himself, and considering his views, should have given orders for raids and measures of coercion at that moment. The release of the Sauckel-Laval agreement, which was mentioned in this document, had no practical significance, since the blocked factories were maintained, and thus this agreement could not become effective. This was well known to the officials in France, and the best proof for the fact that the order was not carried out is Document RF-22 of the French Prosecution, which shows that in July 1944 only 3,000 workers came to Germany from France. If the military authorities had used measures of coercion, it would have been a simple matter to send a very much larger number of workers than these 3,000 from France to Germany.
DR. FLACHSNER: Did you use your influence to stop completely the allocation of labor from occupied territories to Germany?
SPEER: No; I must state quite frankly that although I did use my influence to reduce the recruitment of labor or to put an end to measures of coercion and raids, I did not use it to stop the allocation of labor completely.
DR. FLACHSNER: I shall now pass to another problem. The Prosecution has touched upon and mentioned the Organization Todt. Can you briefly explain the tasks of the Organization Todt to the Tribunal?
SPEER: Here, again, I shall give a little summary. The tasks of the Organization Todt were exclusively technical ones, that is to say, they had to carry out technical construction work; in the East, particularly road and rail construction, and in the West the construction of concrete dugouts which became known as the so-called Atlantic Wall. For this purpose the Organization Todt used foreign labor to a disproportionately high degree. In the West there were about 20 foreigners to 1 German worker; in Russia there were about 4 Russians to 1 German. This could only be carried out in the West if the Organization Todt could use local construction firms and their work-yards to a considerable extent. They supplied the technical staff and recruited their own workers, it being clear that these firms had no possibility to recruit by coercion. Accordingly a large number of workers of the Organization Todt were volunteers; but naturally a certain percentage always worked in the Organization Todt under the conscription system. Here the Organization Todt has been described as part of the Armed Forces. As a technical detail it should be stated in this connection that foreign workers did not, of course, belong to it, but only German workers who naturally in occupied territories had to figure as members of the Armed Forces in some way or other. The Prosecution had a different opinion on this matter. Apart from the Organization Todt there were certain transport units attached to my Ministry, which were working in occupied territories, and it is for a certain reason that I am anxious to state that they were on principle recruited as volunteers. The Prosecution has alleged that the Organization Todt was the comprehensive organization for all military construction work in the occupied territories. That is not the case. They only had to carry out one quarter to one-fifth of the construction program.
SPEER: In May 1944 the Organization Todt was taken over by the Reich and subsequently made responsible for some of the large-scale construction programs and for the management of the organization of the Plenipotentiary for Control of Building in the Four Year Plan. This Plenipotentiary for Control of Building distributed the contingents coming from the Central Planning Board and was responsible for other directive tasks, but he was not responsible for the carrying out and for the supervision of the construction work itself. There were various official building authorities in the Reich, and in particular the SS Building Administration had their own responsibility for the building programs which they carried out.
DR. FLACHSNER: The Prosecution has alleged that you had concentration camp inmates employed in the armament industry and has submitted Document R-124, Exhibit USA-179. Mr. President, this document is on Page 47 of the English text in my document book. It is about a conference with Hitler in September 1942. How did that conference come about, Herr Speer?
SPEER: When in February 1942 I took over the armament department of the Army there were demands for considerable increases all along the line; and to meet them it was necessary to construct numerous new factories. For this purpose Himmler offered his concentration camps both to Hitler and to me. It was his plan that some of these necessary new constructions, as well as the necessary machinery, should be housed within the concentration camps, and were to be operated there under the supervision of the SS. The chief of the armament department of the Army, Generaloberst Fromm, was against this plan, and so was I. Apart from general reasons for this, the first point was that uncontrolled arms production on the part of the SS was to be prevented. Secondly, this would certainly entail my being deprived of the technical management in these industries. For that reason when planning the large armaments extension program in the spring of 1942, I did not take into consideration these demands by the SS. Himmler went to see Hitler and the minutes of this conference, which are available here, show the objections to the wishes which Hitler put to me upon Himmler's suggestions.
DR. FLACHSNER: Mr. President, in this connection I should like to draw your attention to Page 44 of the German text, which is Page 47 of the English text. It is Point 36 of a Fuehrer protocol. There it says, and I quote: ". . . beyond a small number of workers it will not be possible to organize armament production in the concentration camps . . ."
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Flachsner, the witness has just given us the substance of it, has he not?
DR. FLACHSNER: Herr Speer, according to this document you proposed that factories should be staffed entirely with internees from concentration camps. Did you carry that out?
SPEER: No, it was not carried out in this form because it soon became clear that it was Himmler's intention to gain influence over these industries and in some way or other he would undoubtedly have succeeded in getting these industries under his control. For that reason, as a basic principle, only part of the industrial staff consisted of internees from concentration camps, so as to counteract Himmler's efforts. And so it happened that the labor camps were attached to the armament industries. But Himmler never received his share of 5 to 8 percent of arms, which had been decided upon. This was prevented due to an agreement with the General of the Army Staff in the OKW, General Buhle. The witness will testify to this.
DR. FLACHSNER: May I further draw your attention to Document 1584-PS, on Page 48 of the English text in my document book. It is Exhibit USA-22'1, and is a letter from Himmler to Goering dated 9 March 1944. Himmler is emphasizing the fact that if his responsibility, that is to say, that of the SS, would be extended, a speeding-up and an increase in production could be expected. The accompanying letter from Pohl to Himmler shows that it was proposed to supervise and control the employment of concentration camp inmates and even to use the SS as responsible works manager. According to his experience and knowledge, it would not be sufficient merely to assign the internees to other industries. The SS, therefore, wished to supervise and control the labor employment in these industries. This document shows something else, however; for it confirms the statement of the Defendant Speer that inmates of concentration camps were also paid premiums if they proved particularly efficient; furthermore, it shows on the last page that on an average the working hours of all internees were 240 hours per month, which would correspond to 60 working hours per week. I also refer to a document which has already been mentioned yesterday; it is Number 44 and has already been submitted by me as Exhibit Number 6; it is in the second document book. Mr. President, that is the first book in the supplementary volume. This document shows clearly how far the extension of the SS industries was determined by Himmler's and Pohl's ambition. The document also states, and I quote: ". . . the monthly working hours contributed by concentration camp inmates did not even amount to 8 million hours, so that most certainly not more than about 32,000 men and women from concentration camps can be working in our armaments industries. This number is constantly diminishing." Mr. President, this sentence is on Page 90, at the bottom. You will find it there in the English text.
DR. FLACHSNER: The letter also shows that the author computes nearly the same number of working hours as is mentioned by Pohl in his letter; namely 250 hours per month, which is approximately 63 hours per week. Herr Speer, through this letter you learned of the fact that workers, particularly foreigners, were not returned to their old places of work when for certain acts they had become involved with the Police, but that they were taken to concentration camps. What steps did you take then?
SPEER: Here again I should like to summarize several points. I received the letter on or about 15 May in Berlin, when I returned after my illness. Its contents greatly upset me because, after all, this is nothing more than kidnaping. I had an estimate submitted to me about the number of people thus being removed from the economic system. The round figure was 30,000 to 40,000 a month. The result was my declaration in the Central Planning Board on 22 May 1944, where I demanded that these workers, even as internees, as I called them, should be returned to their old factories at once. This remark, as such, is not logical because, naturally, the number of crimes in each individual factory was very low, so that such a measure was not practicable. Anyhow, what I wished to express by it was that the workers would have to be returned to their original places of work. This statement in the Central Planning Board has been submitted by the Prosecution. Immediately after the meeting of the Central Planning Board I went to see Hitler, and there I had a conference on 5 June 1944. The minutes of the Fuehrer conference are available. I stated that I would not stand for any such procedure, and I cited many arguments founded entirely on reason, since no other arguments would have been effective. Hitler declared, as the minutes show, that these workers would have to be returned to their former work at once, and that after a conference between Himmler and myself he would once again communicate this decision of his to Himmler.
DR. FLACHSNER: I submit Exhibit Number 13, which is an extract from the Fuehrer conference of 3 to 5 June 1944; you will find this document on Page 92 of the document book.
SPEER: Immediately after this conference I went to see Himmler and communicated to him Hitler's decision. He told me that no such number had ever been arrested by the Police. But he promised me that he would immediately issue a decree which would correspond to Hitler's demands; namely, that the SS would no longer be permitted to detain these workers. I informed Hitler of this result, and I asked him once more to get in touch with Himmler about it. In those days I had no reason to mistrust Himmler's promise because, after all, it is not customary for Reich Ministers to distrust each other so much. But anyhow, I did not have any further complaints from my assistants concerning this affair. I must emphasize that the settling of the entire matter was not really my affair, but the information appeared so incredible to me that I intervened at once. Had I known that already 18 months before Himmler had started a very similar action, and that in this letter, which has been submitted here...
DR. FLACHSNER: Mr. President, this is Document 1063-PS, and it is Exhibit USA-219. I have reproduced it on Page 51 of the English text of my document book. That is the document to which the witness is now referring. How far did your efforts go to get workers for the armaments industry from concentration camps?
SPEER: I wanted to make a brief statement with reference to the document. Had I known this letter, I would never have had enough confidence in Himmler to expect that he would correctly execute his order as instructed by Hitler. For this letter shows quite clearly that this action was to be kept secret from other offices. These other offices could only be the of lice of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor or my own office. Finally, I want to say in connection with this problem that it was my duty as Minister for Armament to put to use as many workers as were possibly available for armaments production, or any other production. I considered it proper, therefore, that workers from concentration camps, too, should work in war production or armament industries. The main accusation by the Prosecution, however, that I deliberately increased the number of concentration camps, or caused them to be increased, is by no means correct. On the contrary I wanted just the opposite, looking at it from my point of view of production.