dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. FLACHSNER: In principle we must take the stand that the responsibility of the Defendant Speer for the transportation of labor from the occupied territories to the Reich cannot be deduced from his activity within the Central Planning Board. If the Prosecution charge the defendant with the fact that he knew that a great portion of the workers made available to him by Sauckel had been brought to Germany against their will, and that he used these workers in the industry which was under his control, this conclusion encounters legal criticism. If, and insofar as, the removal of labor to the Reich alas a violation of international law, this crime would be limited, at the most to the removal of labor to the Reich. The fact that the persons removed into Reich territory were assigned to work is, legally speaking, a new fact to which the Prosecution apply the concept of slave labor. In this connection the following should be considered. By reason of the Reich Service Law, and the decree which enforced it, there existed for every German an obligation to contribute his services to the war effort. Through the labor office as the highest instance, the leaders of the State could dispose of the work of every citizen for any purpose they considered appropriate, and they did so. Foreign workers who were removed to Germany likewise became subject to this regulation. We, on our part, do not deny that the Hague Convention on Land Warfare itself contains no provision which would support the extension of compulsory labor service from German nationals to the inhabitants of the occupied territories. Since the Hague Convention on Land Warfare reflects the influence of a different concept of warfare, it is impossible that it should have taken into consideration conditions produced by economic warfare. Yet, it is not possible to answer in the affirmative the question of whether the Hague Convention on Land Warfare finally and definitely regulates all the powers of an occupation authority. Such an answer is contradicted by the practice of all the nations which participated in this war.
DR. FLACHSNER: But here, too, we can resort to the aforementioned aspect of national emergency to obtain a correct evaluation and appreciation of the case. It should be admitted that the Prosecution are right in that this extension of liability to compulsory labor can be justified from that point of view only. If we accept the Prosecution's contention that there is no legal justification for the extension of liability to compulsory labor to foreign nationals of occupied territories, we are still obliged to check the extent to which the Defendant Speer has rendered himself guilty in the employment of labor subject to such compulsion. In this connection we may refer to what was said earlier about deportation. That the Defendant Speer, although he was not responsible for this, still attempted to mitigate the living conditions of these workers, and that he also took steps to correct bad conditions-insofar as these came to his attention-is shown by Exhibits 3, 4, and 5 of the Speer document book and Pages 7, 8, 9 of the Speer document book. Reference must also be made to the testimony of the defend ant himself, in direct examination, as well as in cross-examination, where he described his activity in that field. Justice Jackson, the American chief prosecutor, when placing before the Defendant Speer, during his cross-examination, a series of documents to demonstrate the bad treatment of foreign workers by the firm of Krupp in Essen, himself stated that he did not intend to hold the Defendant Speer responsible for such individual incidents. (Session of 21 June 1946 p. m.) The documents involved were Dr. Jager's affidavit-Document D-288-discussed by Dr. Servatius, and a letter of the locomotive manufacturing department of the firm of Krupp, dated February 1942, shortly after the Defendant Speer's appointment as Reich Minister. The conditions described therein had caused Speer to intervene with Hitler in March 1942-Exhibit Speer-3, Page 7 of the Speer document book.
DR. FLACHSNER: A further document submitted, Document D-321, describes the conditions under which Russian laborers came to Essen in 1941-that is, before the Defendant Speer took office. Document D-258, Exhibit USA-896, which was submitted during cross-examination, was not produced in order to incriminate the defendant, as stated by Justice Jackson-it may therefore be passed over. Further documents submitted all deal with incidents in the Krupp works. As far as he was able to do so, the defendant explained all of them. These documents show that abuses of a general nature, for which the firm of Krupp might be held responsible, were caused by air bombardments and the resulting demolition of living quarters. But even if the incidents cited had actually occurred on the premises of that firm-which the Defense is not in a position to verify-these incidents would not supply adequate ground for the assumption that the conditions under which foreign laborers worked in armament industries were the same everywhere. No conclusions may be drawn as to a whole system simply by selecting and investigating one firm. Only evidence showing the general prevalence of such conditions would be relevant. It is true that the activity of the Defendant Speer would not affect the criminal evaluation of his actions in principle, but it would be of decisive import in establishing the degree in which he participated. When the defendant took office, the practice of employing foreign labor and prisoners of war was already in existence. Thus he cannot be considered as the originator, which fact must also be taken into consideration when passing judgment; for it appeared impossible to depart from the established practice. The employment of foreign labor in German economy was nothing unusual. Many foreign laborers were employed in agriculture, mining, and surface and underground construction in peacetime as well.
DR. FLACHSNER: During the war many foreign laborers from both East and West had already been brought to Germany before the Defendant Speer took office, and only part of these belonged to the sector under Speer's control. In order to define the spheres of responsibility of the two defendants, Sauckel and Speer, it will be shown below how the assignment and distribution of workers was handled in the establishments last controlled by the Defendant Speer. Acting as organs of the Speer Ministry, commissions and pools assigned certain production tasks to individual establishments as part of the armament program. The factory then calculated the number of workers needed. This was reported simultaneously to the Armament Command and to the Labor Office, where the labor requirements of all employers in need of workers were recorded. The Armament Command examined all requests received from plants under its jurisdiction and passed them on to the Armament Production Office. Labor requirements reported to the Labor Office were forwarded by them in turn to the Gau labor offices. Armament Inspection Offices collected the requests and forwarded them to the Speer Ministry, labor allocation division. The Gau labor offices directed applications which they received to the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor. It must be noted in this connection that in 1942 the Speer Ministry controlled only construction work and ground forces armament. Navy and air armament made their requests for labor independently. In the spring of 1943 Navy armament was assigned to the Speer Ministry, and, from that time on, labor requisitions for this purpose were handled through the labor allocation division. In the fall of 1943 the rest of production was added, while aircraft armament continued to handle its requisitions independently through the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor until August 1944. An account of these details is indispensable to disprove the Prosecution's assumption that Speer was the main beneficiary of Sauckel's mobilization of labor.
DR. FLACHSNER: The fact that along with the Speer Ministry there existed essential labor employing agencies of equal importance as, for instance, the Armed Forces Administration, the Transport System, and so forth, need be mentioned only incidentally, but has also been confirmed by the testimony of witnesses. The Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor distributed the labor at his disposal among the various labor employing agencies and assigned the required labor to the Gau labor office which in turn referred them to the local labor offices where workers were assigned to individual establishments on the strength of applications previously examined by the Armament Office. An exception to this cumbersome procedure was made by the introduction of the so-called "red-slip process" which was used in the case of exceptionally urgent production assignments-I refer to Page 122 of the document book. A certain number of red slips were issued monthly by the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor and placed at the disposal of the Armaments Ministry for distribution by the latter to the plants under its supervision through the industry's administrative agencies. The plant itself then presented these red slips to the Labor Office, which had to satisfy these red-slip requests for workers regardless of the requirements of other consuming agencies. Not until this had been done could allocations be made to other establishments. General requests for labor were involved in all instances. The allocation was exclusively in the hands of labor authorities directed by the Defendant Sauckel, so that neither the individual factory nor the offices of the Defendant Speer, nor the Defendant Speer himself, had any influence on the distribution. The question of whether local, foreign, or prisoner-of-war labor should be used to satisfy requisitions was left for the labor authorities to decide-document book, Pages 8 and 9.
DR. FLACHSNER: In concluding the presentation of evidence, the Prosecution submitted the decree of 1 December 1942, Document 4006-PS, issued jointly by Speer and Sauckel. The Prosecution contend that this document, and the decree of 22 June 1944 submitted at the same time, furnish a basis for appraisal of the power ration between Speer and Sauckel. Some comment on this is, therefore, appropriate. The decree of 1 December 1942 leaves no doubt that the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor was authorized to examine requests for labor submitted to him which came from the armaments industry. Thus, when a factory asked for additional laborers in order to carry out the production job assigned to it, the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor reserved for himself the right to examine the requests submitted with a view to determine whether they were necessary. The intention was to make each factory practice the greatest possible economy in the use of labor within its own precincts. Another purpose of these commissions was to determine the extent to which an establishment might be able to release its own labor for work in other plants, without prejudice to the task assigned to it. It was the task of the Ministry for Armament and War Production, and of the agencies subordinate to it, to determine the sequence of priority of requests for labor received by establishments under its jurisdiction. They also had to determine which of the plants was in a position to release workers for other plants manufacturing similar products for similar Armed Forces requirements. To give an example: The supply program of a plant manufacturing component parts for vehicles was modified, then it was left to the Armament Command to decide that the labor power thus set free should be assigned to another factory in the same line of production. In general, the allotment of labor remained in the hands of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor.
DR. FLACHSNER: The agencies of Speer's Ministry were merely concerned with directing the labor already available in this economic branch which had been procured and assigned to these establishments by the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor. The procurement of labor from other plants remained in the hands of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor, and the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor participated authoritatively in the examination of the question as to what extent plants could release labor in order to make it available to others-the so-called combing-out action. The authority of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor was, therefore, not limited to any considerable extent through this mutual agreement between him and the Reich Minister for Armament and War Production. His task, now as before, was merely to procure labor for the plants. He was even given a considerable amount of authority in labor questions-to look over the armament plants under the control of the Defendant Speer and to examine if, and to what extent, these plants could make available labor for other plants. The decree of 22 June 1944 ordained that labor which was already available was to be used in accordance with the directives of the central authorities or according to the orders of the Chairman of the Armament Commission. It must also be noted in this respect that it was not a matter of using new labor, which was unskilled in armament work, and which was still procured through the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor, but solely of so-called transfer actions from one armament plant to another. Therefore, the Sauckel agencies, in accordance with this decree, could no longer check the demands for labor made by the plants which were controlled by the Speer Ministry, if the Chairman of the Armament Commission had recognized these demands.
DR. FLACHSNER: This decree brought about a change in the basic distribution of authority, according to which the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation 23 July q6 of Labor had to procure the required labor and to handle the whole allocation of labor. If the agencies of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor allocated labor in response to demands which had been checked, then it was left to their judgment as to what type of labor, whether native or foreign, et cetera, was to be furnished. The authority of the agencies of the Minister for Armament and War Production in questions of the commitment of labor was limited to a large extent to the execution of so-called transfer actions, that is, the assignment of labor from one armament plant to another. It would be wrong to try to conclude from these decrees that there was a considerable limitation of the authority of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor and a fundamental expansion of authority on the side of Speer. It would be just as wrong to conclude from this that the influence of the Ministry for Armament and War Production had been increased over other authorities of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor. In order apparently to characterize the relationship between Speer and Sauckel, the Prosecution have finally submitted a file note by General Thomas, the Director of the War Economy and Armament Division in the OKW, regarding a discussion which took place on 24 March 1942 between the Defendant Speer on the one hand, himself, and the directors of the armament offices of the three branches of the Armed Forces on the other hand, in which Thomas states that the Fuhrer considered Speer as his main authority and his agent for all economic spheres. This note can only be understood in connection with the report of the account given by General Thomas of his activity as Director of the War Economy and Armament Office, and which has been presented to the Tribunal in excerpt form under Document 2353-PS.
DR. FLACHSNER: Prior to Speer's appointment as Minister for Armament and War Production, Thomas had to try to bring about an expansion of the position of Plenipotentiary for Economy as it had been provided in the Reich Defense Law, so that it should become an office which would control the whole war economy. When now the armament economy was confronted with heavy demands in connection with the first winter campaign in Russia, and the losses which had been sustained there, and Hitler, after the death of Dr. Todt, appointed Speer to be his successor in the Ministry for Armaments and Munitions, Thomas thought he would find in Speer a personality who would receive the authority which he had striven to obtain for the Plenipotentiary for Economy. This, however, did not occur. As has been shown from the evidence, Speer was entrusted only with the equipment of the Army and construction tasks. The control of the new office of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor by his Ministry, for which the Defendant Speer was striving, was not sanctioned by Hitler. Speer's rights as Minister for Armament and War Production are stated in the decree. The expectations which General Thomas held on the whole with regard to the appointment of Speer, were therefore not fulfilled in any way. Speer only received increased authority when in the year 1943 he took over industrial production from the Ministry of Economy. But even then he was still far from having the same field of tasks as General Thomas had expected for him. Relying on his expectations, General Thomas thought that he had found in the person of Speer the man appointed by Hitler who would settle matters on all economic questions. In the file note of General Thomas, which confines itself merely to generalities, it is a matter of an expression of opinion which was not justified by the actual state of affairs. It offers no grounds on which to answer the question as to how we must distribute responsibility for the policy of the labor commitment to which the Prosecution object.
DR. FLACHSNER: In summarizing, it must be stated to this count of the Indictment: Speer is not responsible for the means employed for the procurement of foreign labor, nor for its removal to Germany. He is at the most responsible for the utilization of part of this labor in Germany. As a further count of the Indictment, it has been stated that the defendant employed prisoners of war in the economic sector which was under his direction, and that he thereby violated Article 32 of the Geneva Convention of July 1929, regarding the treatment of prisoners of war. The defendant never denied that he employed prisoners of war in plants under his control. This, however, cannot be regarded simply as a violation of Articles 31 and 32 of the previously mentioned agreement. The expression "armament economy" and/or "armament plant" has not the same meaning as "plant" or "economy," the task of which is the manufacture of arms and direct war requirements. The term "armament plant" can only be understood from its development. When, at the beginning of rearmament, there began to be a limitation of raw materials, plants which were working for rearmament were given preference in obtaining raw materials. These plants were controlled by the armament inspections, which were set up by the Armed Forces and called "armament plants." In addition to all other plants, those were included in it which served the manufacture of iron, steel, and metals, as well as those plants which manufactured machine boilers, vehicles, and appliances; also the entire manufacture of raw steel in the first stages of preparation-foundries, rolling works, forges-as well as the whole remaining subsidiary supply industry, for example, electrotechnical plants, plants which produced optical instruments, plants which manufactured ball bearings, cogwheels, et cetera. This is shown by the testimony of the witness Schieber question 9, document book, Page 114.
DR. FLACHSNER: Only 30-35 percent, roughly, of the whole iron production was used for the production of armaments to the extent previously described, and 60 percent for the maintenance of production for other consumers-Reich railroads, the construction of merchant vessels, agricultural machines, export goods, appliances for the chemical industry, et cetera. We refer to the testimony of the witness Kehrl, which has been submitted under Exhibit Speer-36, and particularly to his answer to Question 5. Since the iron quota assigned to the armament industry also includes the production of raw steel and the different stages of manufacture, it can be safely presumed that of all the plants which were combined in the armament inspections, only approximately 20-30 percent manufactured armament products in the sense implied in the Geneva Convention. These details had to be examined in order to gain an idea as to what extent Article 31 of the Geneva Convention could be violated by the employment of prisoners of war. The Prosecution have presented an affidavit of the American economic statistician Deuss under Document 2520-PS, in order to prove thereby how many prisoners of war and foreign workers were employed in the armament industry. This compilation, which is principally supported by figures taken from the documents in the possession of the Defendant Speer, does not, however, state in which branches of the armament industry the individual prisoners of war worked. A large enterprise which falls under one of the above-listed categories and as a result thereof was considered an armament plant in its entirety, needs only to manufacture a fraction or perhaps no weapons or equipment at all which stand in direct relationship to war activities. If prisoners of war are employed in it, then their occupation does not represent a violation of Article 31 of the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention. Such a plant, however, appears in its entirety in Deuss' affidavit.
DR. FLACHSNER: The affidavit thereby loses its value as evidence as to what extent Article 31 of the Geneva Convention was violated. Thus we have no proof of whether, and to what extent, Article 31 was violated by the employment of prisoners of war in the armament industry. The French Prosecution have taken the point of view that the employment of French civilian workers who had been released from confinement as prisoners of war, and who were employed in the armament industry, was also to be considered a violation of Article 31. This is not applicable. From the time of their release the former prisoners of war were free people who were unlimited in their freedom of movement, and who were restricted only by the obligations embodied in their labor contracts. In addition to this, no French prisoner of war could be forced to agree to his release under the obligation of putting himself as a worker at the disposal of German industry. It was his own free decision if he preferred to accept his release as a prisoner of war under these conditions. If he did so, from this moment onward he was no longer a soldier, and was no longer subject to military discipline; he received his working wages like every free worker, and was not subjected to any camp discipline or any other restrictions of the same nature. To those prisoners of war who preferred to agree to their release under these circumstances, the advantages apparently appeared far greater than the protection which they enjoyed as prisoners of war. If they did so, then their occupation, even in work which in itself is prohibited for prisoners of war in accordance with Article 31, cannot be considered a violation of this article. The employment of prisoners of war in the industry of the country which is holding them prisoner is not prohibited by the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention. Only that work is prohibited which is directly connected with military operations-for example, the use of prisoners of war for fortification works for a combat unit. The Defendant Speer cannot be accused of anything of that kind.