dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SAUCKEL: None of the higher authorities, either military or civilian, expressed any misgivings. Perhaps I may add some things which the Fuehrer mentioned as binding upon me. On the whole, the Fuehrer always treated me very kindly. On this question, he became very severe and categorical and said that in the West he had left half the French Army free and at home, and he had released the greater part of the Belgian Army and the whole of the Dutch Army from captivity. He told me that under certain circumstances he would have to recall these prisoners of war for military reasons, but that in the interests of the whole of Europe and the Occident, so he expressed himself, only a united Europe, where labor was properly allocated, could hold out in the fight against Bolshevism.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you know the terms of the Hague land warfare regulations?
SAUCKEL: During the first World War I myself was taken prisoner as a sailor. I knew what was required and what was laid down with regard to the treatment and protection of prisoners of war and prisoners generally.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did foreign authorities-I am thinking of the French-ever raise the objection that what you planned with your Arbeitseinsatz was an infringement of the Hague land warfare regulations?
SAUCKEL: No. In France, on questions of the Arbeitseinsatz, Manly negotiated with the French Government through the military commander and under the presidency of the German Ambassador in Paris. I was convinced that as far as the employment of labor in France was concerned, agreements should be made with a proper French Government. I negotiated in a similar manner with the General Secretary in Belgium.
DR. SERVATIUS: Now a large part-about a third-of the foreign workers were socalled Eastern Workers. What were you told about them?
SAUCKEL: With regard to the employment of workers from the East I was told that Russia had not joined the Geneva Convention, and so Germany for her part was not bound by it. And I was further told that in the Baltic countries and in other regions, Soviet Russia had also claimed workers or people, and that in addition about 3 million Chinese were working in Soviet Russia.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what about Poland?
SAUCKEL: As regards Poland I had been told, just as in the case of other countries, that it was a case of total capitulation; and that on the grounds of this capitulation Germany was justified in introducing German regulations:
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you consider the employment of foreign labor justifiable from the general point of view?
SAUCKEL: On account of the necessities which I have mentioned, I considered the employment of foreign workers justifiable according to the principles which I enforced and advocated and to which I also adhered in my field of work. I was, after all, a German and I could feel only as a German.
DR. SERVATIUS: Herr Sauckel, you must formulate your sentences differently, the interpreters cannot translate them. You must not insert one sentence into another. So you considered it justifiable, in view of the principles you wished to apply and, which as you said, you enforced in your field of work?
SAUCKEL: Yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you also think of the hardships imposed on the workers and their families through this employment?
SAUCKEL: I knew from my own life even if one goes to foreign countries voluntarily, a separation is very sad and heartbreaking and it is very hard for members of a family to be separated from each other. But I also thought of the German families, of the German soldiers, and of the hundreds of thousands of German workers who also had to go away from home.
DR. SERVATIUS: The suggestion has been made that the work could have been carried out in the occupied territories themselves, and it would not then have been necessary to fetch the workers away. Why was that not done?
SAUCKEL: That is, at first sight, an attractive suggestion. If it had been possible, I would willingly have carried out the suggestion which was made by Funk and other authorities, and later even by Speer. It would have made my life and work much simpler. On the other hand, there were large departments in this system which had to provide for and maintain the different branches of German economy and supply them with orders. As the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor I could not have German fields, German farming, German mass production with the most modern machinery transferred to foreign territories-I had no authority for that-and those offices insisted that I should find replacements for the agricultural and industrial workers and the artisans whose places had become vacant in German agriculture or industry because the men had been called to the colors.
DR. SERVATIUS: You said before that the manner in which you had planned the employment of workers was such that it could have been approved. What then were your leading principles in carrying out your scheme for the employment of labor?
SAUCKEL: When the Fuehrer described the situation so drastically, and ordered me to bring foreign workers to Germany, I clearly recognized the difficulties of the task and I asked him to agree to the only way by which I considered it possible to do this, for I had been a worker too.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was not your principal consideration the economic exploitation of these foreign workers?
SAUCKEL: The Arbeitseinsatz has nothing to do with exploitation. It is an economic process for supplying labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: You said repeatedly in your speeches and on other occasions that the important thing was to make the best possible economic use of these workers. You speak of a machine which must be properly handled. Did you want to express thereby the thought of economic exploitation?
SAUCKEL: At all times a regime of no matter what nature, can only be successful in the production of goods if it uses labor economically-not too much and not too little. That alone I consider economically justifiable.
DR. SERVATIUS: It was stated here in a document which was submitted, the French Document RF 22, a government report, that the intention existed to bring about a demographic deterioration, and in other government reports mention is made that one of the aims was the biological destruction of other peoples. What do you say about that?
SAUCKEL: I can say most definitely that biological destruction was never mentioned to me. I was only too happy when I had workers. I suspected that the war would last longer than was expected, and the demands upon my office were so urgent and so great that I was glad for people to be alive, not for them to be destroyed.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the general attitude toward the question of foreign workers before you took office? What did you find when you came?
SAUCKEL: There was a controversy when I took up my office. There were about two million foreign workers in Germany from neutral and allied states and occupied territories of the East and the West. They had been brought to the Reich without order or system. Many industrial concerns avoided contacting the labor authorities or found them troublesome and bureaucratic. The conflict of interests, as I said before, was very great. The Police point of view was most predominating, I think.
DR. SERVATIUS: And propaganda? What was the propaganda with regard to Eastern Workers, for example?
SAUCKEL: Propaganda was adapted to the war in the East. I may point out now-you interrupted me before when I was speaking of the order given me by the Fuehrer-that I expressly asked the Fuehrer not to let workers working in Germany be treated as enemies any longer, and I tried to influence propaganda to that effect.
DR. SERVATIUS: What else did you do with regard to the situation which confronted you?
SAUCKEL: I finally received approval from the Fuehrer for my second program. That program has been submitted here as a document. I must and will bear responsibility for that program.
DR. SERVATIUS: It has already been submitted as Document 016-PS. It is the Program for the Allocation of Labor of 20 April 1942, Exhibit USA 168. In this program you made fundamental statements. I will hand it to you and I ask you to comment on the general questions only, not on the individual points. There is a paragraph added to the last part, "Prisoners of War and Foreign Workers." Have you found the paragraph?
SAUCKEL: Yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: If you will look at the third paragraph you will find what you want to explain.
SAUCKEL: I should like to say that I drew up and worked out this program independently in 1942 after I had been given that difficult task by the Fuehrer. It was absolutely clear to me what the conditions would have to be if foreign workers were to be employed in Germany at all. I wrote those sentences at that time and the program went to. all the German authorities which had to deal with the matter. I quote: "All these people must be fed, housed, and treated in such a way that with the least possible effort"-here I refer to economics as conceived by Taylor and Ford, whom I have studied closely-"the greatest possible results will be achieved. It has always been a matter of course for us Germans to treat a conquered enemy correctly and humanely, even if he were our most cruel and irreconcilable foe, and to abstain from all cruelty and petty chicanery when expecting useful service from him."
DR. SERVATIUS: Will you put the document aside now, please. What authority did you have to carry out your task?
SAUCKEL: I had authority from the Four Year Plan to issue instructions. I had at my disposal-not under me, but at my disposal-Sections 3 and 5 of the Reich Labor Ministry.
DR. SERVATIUS: What departments did they represent?
SAUCKEL: The departments, "Employment of Labor" and "Wages."
DR. SERVATIUS: Could you issue directives and orders?
SAUCKEL: I could issue directives and orders of a departmental nature to those offices.
DR. SERVATIUS: Could you carry on negotiations with foreign countries independently?
SAUCKEL: I could carry on negotiations with foreign countries only through the Foreign Of lice or, when I had received permission, with the ambassadors or ministers in question.
DR. SERVATIUS: Could you give your orders independently or was agreement and consultation necessary?
SAUCKEL: My field of work, as in every large branch of an administration, made it absolutely necessary for me to discuss the questions and have consultations about them with neighboring departments. I was obliged to do so according to instructions.
DR. SERVATIUS: With whom did you have to consult, apart from the Four Year Plan under which you were placed?
SAUCKEL: I had first of all to consult the departments themselves from which I received the orders, and in addition the Party Chancellery, the office of Reich Minister Lammers-the Reich Chancellery, the Reich Railways, the Reich Food Ministry, the Reich Defense Ministry.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did things go smoothly, or were there difficulties?
SAUCKEL: There were always great difficulties.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have any dealings with Himmler?
SAUCKEL: I had dealings with Himmler only insofar as he gave instructions. He was Reich Minister and was responsible for security, as he said.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was not that a question which was very important for you in regard to the treatment of workers?
SAUCKEL: During the first months or in the first weeks, I believe, of my appointment I was called to see Heydrich. In a very precise way, Heydrich told me that he considered my program fantastic, such as it had been approved by the Fuehrer, and that I must realize that I was making his work very difficult in demanding that barbed wire and similar fences should not and must not be put around the labor camps, but rather taken down. He then said curtly that I must realize that if it was I who was responsible for the allocation of labor, it was he who was responsible for security. That is what he told me.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you accept the fact that these strict police measures now existed?
SAUCKEL: Through constant efforts I had these police measures gradually reduced as far as they concerned the workers who were employed in Germany through my agency and my office.
DR. SERVATIUS: What did your authority to issue instructions consist of? Could you issue orders or had you to negotiate, and how was this carried out in practice?
SAUCKEL: The authority I had to issue instructions was doubt ful from the beginning because, owing to the necessities of war, the lack of manpower, and so on, I was forbidden to establish any office of my own or any other new office or organization. I could only pass on instructions after negotiation with the supreme authorities of the Reich and after detailed consultation. These instructions were, of course, of a purely departmental nature. I could not interfere in matters of administration.
DR. SERVATIUS: How was this right to issue instructions exercised with regard to the high authorities in the occupied territories?
SAUCKEL: It was exactly the same, merely of a departmental nature. In practice it was the passing on of the Fuehrer's orders which were to be carried out there through the individual machinery of each separate administration.
DR. SERVATIUS: Could you give binding instructions to military authorities, to the Economic Inspectorate East, for example?
SAUCKEL: No, there was a strict order from the Fuehrer that in the Army areas, the operational areas of the Commanders-in-Chief, the latter only were competent, and when they had examined military conditions and the situation, everything had to be regulated according to the needs of these high military commands.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did that apply to the military commander in France, or could you act directly there?
SAUCKEL: In France I could, of course, proceed only in the same way, by informing the military commander of the instructions which I myself had received. He then prepared for discussions with the German Embassy and the French Government, so that with the Ambassador presiding, and the military commander taking an authoritative part, the discussion with the French Government took place.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what happened as far as the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories was concerned?
SAUCKEL: In the case of that Ministry I had to transmit my orders to the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories and had to consult with him. With Reich Minister Rosenberg we always succeeded in arranging matters between ourselves in a way that we considered right. But in the Ukraine there was the Reich Commissioner who was on very intimate terms himself with headquarters, and, as is generally known, he was very independent and acted accordingly by asserting this independence.
DR. SERVATIUS: How did these authorities in the occupied territories take your activities at first?
SAUCKEL: In the occupied territories there was naturally much opposition at the start of my work, because I brought new orders and new requirements and it was not always easy to reconcile conflicting interests.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was there any apprehension that you would intervene in the administration of the territories?
SAUCKEL: From my own conviction I refrained entirely from any such intervention and I always emphasized that in order to dispel any such apprehensions, since I myself was not the administrator there; but there were many selfish interests at work.
DR. SERVATIUS: We Will discuss this on another occasion. Now I should like to ask you: You had deputies for the Arbeitseinsatz- when did you obtain them?
SAUCKEL: I was given these deputies for the occupied territories through a personal decree of the Fuehrer on 30 September 1942, as far as I remember.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the reason?
SAUCKEL: The reason for appointing these deputies was to do away more easily with the difficulties and the lack of direction which prevailed to some extent in these areas.
DR. SERVATIUS: I refer in this connection to Document 12, "The Fuehrer's Decree Concerning the Execution of the Decree of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor." No, it is Document 13. "Decree Concerning the Appointment of Deputies"- on Page 13 of the English document book, and I also refer to Document 12 which has already been submitted as 1903-PS, Exhibit USA-206. Did you not have two different kinds of deputies, I mean, were there already some deputies previously?
SAUCKEL: There were previously deputies of the Reich Labor Ministry who in allied or neutral countries were assigned to the German diplomatic missions. They must be distinguished from those deputies who were assigned to the chiefs of the German military or civilian administration in the occupied territories.
DR. SERVATIUS: What position did the deputies hold in the occupied territories?
SAUCKEL: In the occupied territories the deputies had a dual position. They were the leaders of the labor sections in the local government there-a considerable burden for me-and at the same time my deputies who were responsible for the uniform direction and execution of the principles of the allocation of labor as laid down by me.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have your own organization with the deputy at the head, or was that an organization of the local government?
SAUCKEL: I did not have any organization of my own. The local governments were independent separate administrations with an administrative chief as head to whom the various departments were subordinated.
DR. SERVATIUS: How many such deputies were there in one area?
SAUCKEL: In the various countries I had one deputy in each of the highest offices.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the task of the deputy?
SAUCKEL: The task of the deputy, as I have already said, was to guarantee that German orders were carried out in a legal way and, as member of the local administration, to regulate labor questions which arose there.
DR. SERVATIUS: What tasks did they have as regards the interest of the Reich and the distribution of labor for local employment and in the Reich?
SAUCKEL: It was expressly pointed out that they were to produce labor in reasonable proportions with consideration for local conditions; they also had to see to it that my principles were observed with respect to the treatment, feeding, and so forth of workers from the occupied zones. That is laid down in the form of a directive.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you not have your own recruiting commissions?
SAUCKEL: There were no recruiting commissions in the sense in which the expression is often used here and in our own documents. It was a question of reinforcements of experts which were requested by the local government, in order to carry out the tasks in the countries concerned. DR. SERVATIUS What instructions did these recruiting commissions have?
SAUCKEL: They received the instructions which are frequently and clearly expressed in my orders and which, as they have been laid down, I need not mention.
DR. SERVATIUS: I refer here to Document 15 which has already been submitted as 3044-PS; Exhibit Number USA-206, and also USSR-384. That is the Order Number 4 of 7 May 1942, which settles in principle all the problems relating to this question, and gives the necessary directives to the deputies regarding recruitment. Were those directives which you issued always adhered to?
SAUCKEL: The directives I issued were not always adhered to as strictly as I had demanded. I made every effort to impose them through constant orders, instructions, and punishment which, however, I myself could not inflict.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were these orders meant seriously? The French Prosecution has submitted in the government report one of your speeches, which you made at that time in Posen. It was termed a speech of apology. I ask you whether these principles were meant seriously or whether they were only for the sake of appearances, since you yourself believed, as the document stated, that they could not be carried out?
SAUCKEL: I can only emphasize that in my life I had worked so much myself under such difficult conditions that these instructions expressed my full conviction as to their necessity. I ask to have witnesses heard as to what I thought about it and what I did in order to have these instructions carried out.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was there any noticeable opposition to your principles?
SAUCKEL: I have already said that to a certain extent my principles were considered troublesome by some authorities and injudicious as far as German security was concerned. When I was attacked on that account, I took occasion, in addition to a number of instructions to the German Gauleiter, to issue a manifesto to all the highest German government of flees concerned.
DR. SERVATIUS: May I remark that this is Document S-84, in Document Book 3, Page 215. I submit the document once more in German because of the form in which it is printed. It is in the form of an urgent warning and was sent to all the authorities.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it Document Number 84?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes. Witness, did you, in a meeting of the Central Planning Board. . .
SAUCKEL: May I be allowed to say a word with regard to l this manifesto?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes.
SAUCKEL: When I issued the manifesto, I was met with the objection, mainly from Dr. Goebbels, that a manifesto should really be issued only by the Fuehrer and not by a subordinate authority such as myself. Then I found that I was having difficulties in getting the manifesto printed. After I had had 150,000 copies printed for all the German economic offices, for all the works managers and all the other offices which were interested, I had it printed again myself in this emphatic form and personally sent it once more, with a covering letter, to all those offices. In this manifesto, in spite of the difficulties which I encountered, I especially advocated that in the occupied territories themselves the workers should be treated in accordance with my principles and according to my directives and orders. I respectfully ask the Court to be allowed to read a few sentences from it: "I therefore order that for all the occupied territories, for the treatment, feeding, billeting, and payment of foreign workers, appropriate regulations and directives be issued similar to those valid for foreigners in the Reich. They are to be adjusted to the respective local conditions and applied in accordance with prevailing conditions. "In a number of the Eastern Territories indigenous male and female civilian labor working for the German war industry or the German Wehrmacht is undernourished. In the urgent interests of the German war industry in this territory this condition should be remedied. It is checking production and is dangerous. And endeavor must therefore be made by all means available to provide additional food for these workers and their families. This additional food must be given only in accordance with the output of work.
SAUCKEL: "It is only through the good care and treatment of the whole of the available European labor on the one hand, and through its most rigid concentration"-here I mean organizational- "leadership and direction on the other hand, that the fluctuation of labor in the Reich and in the occupied territories can be limited to a minimum, and a generally stable, lasting and reliable output be achieved." May I read one more sentence: "The foreign workers in the Reich and the population in the occupied territories who are being employed for the German war effort must be given the feeling that it is to their own interests to work loyally for Germany and that therein alone will they see and actually find their one real guarantee of life." May I read still one sentence in the next paragraph: "They must be given absolute trust in the justness of the German authorities and of their German employers."
THE PRESIDENT: I think we had better not go further in this document. Can you indicate to us at all how long you are likely to be with this defendant?
DR. SERVATIUS: I shall probably need the whole day tomorrow. THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, would it be convenient for you some time to deal with the documents of the remaining defendants?
MR. DODD: Yes, Mr. President, any time that you might set aside.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know how far the negotiations and agreements with reference to documents have gone.
MR. DODD: I do with some, but not with all. I can ascertain the facts tonight, or before the morning session, and advise you at that time.