dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. SERVATIUS: I was going to ask you about the arrival of workers in Germany. What happened when a transport arrived in Germany?
SAUCKEL: Upon their arrival in Germany the people of the transport had not only to be properly received but they also had to be medically examined again and checked at a transit camp. One examination had to be made at the time and place of recruitment, and another took place at a fixed point before the border. Thus, from the time of recruitment until being put to work three medical examinations and checks had to be made, according to my directives.
DR. SERVATIUS: What were the transit camps?
SAUCKEL: These transit camps were camps in which the people from the various transports came together at the border, and where they were examined and registered in the proper manner.
DR. SERVATIUS: I submit Document Number UK-39 to you. I have no exhibit number for it.
THE PRESIDENT: It is a British exhibit?
DR. SERVATIUS: I could not establish whether it already has an exhibit number; I shad have to check on that. At any rate, it was given to me.
THE PRESIDENT: You gave the Number UK-39?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, UK-39.
THE PRESIDENT: It must be a British exhibit number, must it not?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom): The series is not a British exhibit; our exhibits are "GB." It is an earlier series of documents that we have prepared. But we will try to find out.
DR. SERVATIUS: If you will look at this document, it is a letter of the Reich Security Main Office, dated 18 January 1943, concerning "Concentration Camp Hertogenbosch." Then it says, "This camp will be equipped as a transit and reception camp." Was that a place to which your workers were sent?
SAUCKEL: The Allocation of Labor had nothing at all to do with these camps and concentration camps. This was not a transit camp for workers but was obviously the transit camp of a concentration camp. These were not at all known to me. I never had to and never did concern myself with such transports and transit camps; and I would not have done it.
DR. SERVATIUS: A report of the French Government was submitted here; it is Document Number UK-78 and French Exhibit Number RF-87. The heading is "Third Study." It is a very comprehensive report. I shall quote from my notes. The report contains the following, roughly: "Immediately upon their arrival the workers were taken to these actual slave markets which were called sorting houses. The living conditions there were miserable." Is that one of your transit camps which is so described?
SAUCKEL: That is absolutely impossible; such a camp never existed.
DR. SERVATIUS: How was the distribution of the workers carried out in practice? I refer once more to the Molotov report, Document Number USSR-51. The Soviet Delegation says here that this document was submitted under that exhibit number. The report says that the workers were taken to the slave market and were sold for 10 to 15 marks. What do you have to say to that?
SAUCKEL: I believe every German employer who received these workers, either in agriculture or in war industry, is a witness to the fact that a procedure of this sort never took place in any form; that it was quite inconceivable that such slave markets were instituted through the authority of the Reich Ministry of Labor; but that these workers who passed through National Socialist labor exchanges received exactly the same contracts and conditions as the German workers themselves, with some variations, and in no case were they put to work like slaves without rights or pay, without a contract, without sickness insurance, or without accident insurance. That may be seen from the numerous directives and decrees which were issued by the Reich Ministry of Labor and by me for every race involved.
DR. SERVATIUS: What were the general living conditions of foreign workers in Germany?
SAUCKEL: The general living conditions of foreign workers in Germany as far as they were recruited through the offices of the Allocation of Labor, were exactly the same as those of German workers who were accommodated in camps. Living conditions were dependent on the circumstances of war and, in contrast with peacetime, were subject to the same limitations as applied to the German population. The adjutant of Herr Von Schirach, a man unknown to me, who appeared here as a witness yesterday, described conditions in Vienna; those conditions existed in other German cities too.
DR. SERVATIUS: What were the security measures in these camps?
SAUCKEL: In the camps themselves?
DR. SERVATIUS: Well, I mean generally.
SAUCKEL: The security measures were the responsibility of the Police, not mine, because the camps came under the various industries and the German Labor Front.
DR. SERVATIUS: Now, I submit Document Number EC-68. It contains directives issued by the Regional Food Office of Baden regarding the treatment of Poles in Germany. This is Exhibit Number USA-205, to be found in the American Document Book "Slave Labor," the fourth document. I shall now read the beginning of this document, which you have already seen. It says there: "The offices of the Reich Food Administration-(Regional Food Office) of Baden-have received with great satisfaction the result of the negotiations with the Higher SS and Police Leader in Stuttgart on 14 February 1941. Appropriate memoranda have already been sent to the district food offices. Below I promulgate the individual regulations as they were laid down during the conference and are now to be supplied accordingly: "1. In principle farm workers of Polish nationality no longer have the right to complain; consequently, no complaints may be accepted by any official agency. "2. Farm workers of Polish nationality may no longer leave the localities in which they are employed." Now, I shall omit some points and just confine myself to the essential parts. I turn to Point 5: "5. Visits to theaters, cinemas, or other cultural entertainments are strictly prohibited for farm workers of Polish nationality." Other regulations follow, prohibiting use of the railroad, and under Number 12 there is a vital provision: "12. Every employer of Polish farm workers has the right to administer chastisement..." Please comment on this document and tell us to what extent you approve of it.
SAUCKEL: First of all, I should like to point out that this document is dated 6 March 1941-that is, more than a year before I assumed office. Such an absurd and impossible decree never came to my attention during my term of office. But since I am now being confronted with the document and am learning about it, I should like to refer to my own decrees, which I issued entirely independently of what had gone before and which automatically revoked such decrees. In order to prevent these absurd decrees of some agency in the Reich from being effective, I had my decrees collected and published in a handbook in which it says-because of the time factor and out of respect for the Tribunal, I cannot ask the Tribunal to look at all of them; but they are in direct contradiction to such views. I would like to ask that I be permitted to quote just one sentence from the manifesto already referred to, which is directed against such nonsense and against the misuse of manpower. I refer particularly to my directives for fair treatment. The sentence reads as follows: ". . . these orders and directives, as well as their supplements, are to be brought very forcibly to the attention of works managers and leaders of camps for foreign nationals, as well as their personnel, at least four times a year by the regional labor offices. Actual adherence to them is to be constantly supervised."
DR. SERVATIUS: Does the manifesto end with that?
SAUCKEL: That is a paragraph from the manifesto which refers specifically to my orders prescribing just and humane treatment, sufficient food, leisure time, and so forth.
DR. SERVATIUS: You issued a great number of directives. Did you notice any opposition to your basic regulations; and, if so, what did you do?
SAUCKEL: As soon as I noticed opposition I made special reference to my decrees, of course, because they had been approved by the Fuehrer, upon my recommendations, for my field of activity.
DR. SERVATIUS: As far as care and welfare were concerned, did the DAF-the German Labor Front-play a special role? What was the task of the DAF?
SAUCKEL: The task of the DAF was to care for German workers and look after their interests. In this capacity it had to concern itself, as a matter of course, with the welfare of foreign workers. That was its ordinary task; and at the same time it had a corrective influence on state labor administration, an influence similar to that exerted by the trade unions on state control, as far as it exists, in other countries.
DR. SERVATIUS: What tasks did the works managers have?
SAUCKEL: They had the task of regulating the total production of their works; and, of course, they were fully responsible for their workmen and for the foreign workers who had been assigned to them.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were they primarily responsible, or was the DAF responsible?
SAUCKEL: The employers were primarily responsible, according to the law regulating German labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: Now the workers were mostly billeted in camps. Who supervised the accommodations in these camps?
SAUCKEL: The accommodations in these camps were under the final supervision of the German trade inspection office, which was under the Reich Ministry of Labor. The trade inspection office had the authority and power to enforce observance from employers who failed to comply with the orders of the Reich Minister of Labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you yourself issue any orders or decrees concerning the camps?
SAUCKEL: I personally issued orders concerning the camps, but they could be put into effect and supervised only by the Reich Minister of Labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: So much about the accommodations of the camps. Now what were the living conditions within the camps? Who was responsible for them?
SAUCKEL: In the camps themselves the camp leaders were responsible. The camp leader was appointed by agreement between the DAN and the works manager, and to my knowledge-this was not within the range of my duties-his appointment had to be confirmed and accepted by the security authorities.
DR. SERVATIUS: You speak of the security authorities. To what extent did the Police take part in the surveillance of these camps, the maintenance of discipline, and such matters?
SAUCKEL: Surveillance of the camp and maintenance of discipline was the task of the camp leader, and had nothing to do with the Police. The Police had, as I believe is the case in every country, surveillance and control rights as regards espionage and the secrecy of the plant, et cetera. Beyond that, the Police had nothing to do with the camp.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were these camps shut off from the outside world? What was the situation in that respect when you assumed office?
SAUCKEL: When I assumed office, the camps, particularly of the Eastern Workers, were very much shut off from the world and were fenced in with barbed wire. To me this was incompatible with the principle of employing productive and willing workers; and with all the personal energy I could muster, I succeeded in having the fences and barbed wire removed; and I also reduced the limits of the curfew regulations for Eastern Workers, so that the picture which was presented here yesterday could eventually be realized. Anything else would have been incompatible, technically speaking, with the workers' willingness to work, which I wanted.
DR. SERVATIUS: Now the question of food. What was the food of these foreign workers?
SAUCKEL: The feeding of the foreign workers came under the system that was applied to the feeding of the German people, and accordingly additional rations were allotted to people doing heavy, very heavy, or overtime work.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did this situation exist when you assumed office?
SAUCKEL: When I assumed office and received the order from the Fuehrer that in addition to the foreign workers who were already in the Reich I was to bring further quotas into the Reich, the first step I took was to visit the Reich Minister for Food, for it was obvious to me that bringing in foreign workers was in the first place a question of feeding; poorly fed workers, even if they want to, cannot turn out satisfactory work. I had many detailed conversations with him; and by referring to the Fuehrer and the Reich Marshal, I succeeded in obtaining suitable food for the workers, and food quotas were legally fixed. It was not easy to do this because the food situation, even for Germans, was always strained; but without these measures it would not have been possible for me, also from a personal point of view, to carry through my task.
DR. SERVATIUS: Details with regard to the food situation were mentioned here which would justify the assumption that extremely had conditions existed. Was nothing of this sort brought to your attention, or did you yourself not hear anything?
SAUCKEL: As far as bad feeding conditions in the work camps of civilian laborers is concerned I never had any very unfavorable reports. I personally made repeated efforts to have this matter in particular constantly looked into. The works managers themselves took the problem of food very seriously.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you not, in a decree and letter to the Gau labor offices and Gauleiter, deal with the subject of good treatment of foreigners; and did you not on that occasion criticize existing conditions?
SAUCKEL: Immediately after I assumed office, when the Gauleiter were appointed as plenipotentiaries for the Allocation of Labor in their Gaue, I called their attention to the food situation and ordered them to give their attention to that question and also to the question of accommodation. I heard that in two Gaue my instructions were not being taken seriously enough. In one case I myself went immediately to Essen and remedied the situation there -it concerned the barbed wire-and in another case, in eastern Bavaria, I also intervened personally. Besides that, I made use of these two incidents to write to the Gauleiter and the governments of the German Lander and provinces and again pointed out the importance of observing these instructions.
DR. SERVATIUS: I refer to Document 19, that is in the English Book Number 1, Page 54; Document Sauckel-19.
THE PRESIDENT: 19?
DR. SERVATIUS: This is Document Number 19, in the first document book, Page 54. Only a portion of this is reproduced. In a circular to all the Gau labor offices and Gauleiter is the following: "If in a Gau district the statement is still being made that 'if anyone in the Gau has to freeze this winter, the first ones should be the Russians' (that is, the Russian civilian laborers employed for work in the Gau), such a statement shows plainly that in that region of the Gau the contact between the administrative labor office and the competent political offices is as yet not close enough. It is one of the most important tasks of the Avocation of Labor and the collaboration between you and the Gauleiter as my deputies for the Allocation of Labor to see to it that the foreign workers recruited for the German armament industry and food economy are looked after in such a manner as to enable them to give the maximum of efficiency. There is, therefore, no question of protecting from want German fellow countrymen only and being satisfied with inadequate provisions for- laborers of foreign origin. On the contrary, it is imperative to bear constantly in mind the fact that, in order to bring about victory, a maximum of efficiency must be demanded not only of German fellow countrymen but also of the foreign workers. It would . be absurd to bring foreign workers into the country, at considerable expense, for work for German economy and then to allow their efficiency to be impaired or ruined through lack of proper care." In conclusion there follows a reminder that Sauckel's decree must be observed. [Turning to the defendant.] What was the situation with regard to the clothing of foreign workers?
SAUCKEL: The clothing of foreign workers from the western regions gave us relatively little trouble for these workers were well supplied and they were also compensated for their clothing. But the clothing of the Eastern Workers was a problem. On behalf of the Eastern Workers I applied to the Reich Minister of Economy for a quota of clothing and provided 1 million Eastern Workers with all necessary under and outer clothing. To supply this quota of clothing 10,000 workers were required as well as 30,000 tons of raw materials. Thus, every care was given to the question of clothing, and this clothing was actually issued.
DR. SERVATIUS: The French Delegation has submitted Document Number RF-5. It is a propaganda brochure, Work for Europe. I had also submitted this, and the Tribunal took judicial notice of it. I should like to submit it again and refer to three pictures contained therein. The essential thing about these pictures is that some of the workers coming from the East arrived barefoot, and later there are pictures where these workers are seen well dressed in Germany, and it is evident that the situation as regards the clothing of these workers had made considerable progress in Germany.
THE PRESIDENT: Is this Sauckel-5?
DR. SERVATIUS: No, it is a document of the French Delegation, Document RF-5. [Turning to the defendant.] What was the situation with regard to working hours? Who regulated the working hours?
SAUCKEL: The working hours were regulated on the basis of decrees by the Fuehrer, the Ministerial Council, and later on by Reich Minister Goebbels. The carrying out of these decrees was my task.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the average working time?
SAUCKEL: One can hardly talk of an average working time in Germany during the war. There was the -legal working time of 8 hours. For anything beyond 8 hours, overtime had to be paid. In the year 1943 the average working time per week was at first set at 54 hours; later, as far as it was necessary, at 10 hours per day When Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels became Reich Delegate for Total War Effort, against my objections and against the objection of other offices but on the basis of the authority which he had, he demanded and proclaimed a 10-hour working day for all offices and industries. However this could not be carried through at all, for in many industries and offices work had to be regulated according to the difficulties which were already then appearing-difficulties of raw materials, power supply, and the amount of work. But in exceptional cases, which were not infrequent, 11 and 12 hours of work were put in where production demanded it. German workers as well worked longer hours. All workers were then compensated accordingly.
DR. SERVATIUS: In the French Document Number RF-22, on Page 101 of the German text, is the following: "From the interrogations by the agencies of the Ministere des Prisonniers of deported workers who had returned home, it can be seen that the average time of work per week was at least 72 hours." Then the source of this information is mentioned, but that does not interest us here. "Sixty-four-hour weeks were not infrequent. Cases of 100-hour weeks with 30 to 38 consecutive hours were mentioned." What can you tell us about this? Did such cases come to your attention?
SAUCKEL: I cannot comment on these reports, because I do not know whether they concern people who were being used in concentration camps or those who were used as civilian workers in the other sector for which I was responsible. It is correct that in very exceptional cases there were periods in which long hours of work were put in. That was decided by the factory and applied also to · the German workers. But in such cases appropriate rest periods had to be interspersed. These long hours were worked only for the completion of important contracts. Where these people actually worked, I cannot determine from the interrogation and, therefore, I cannot give you a precise answer.
DR. SERVATIUS: What were the provisions for free time?
SAUCKEL: Free time was at the disposal of the workers.
DR. SERVATIUS: Who was responsible for regulating free time?
SAUCKEL: The regulation of free time was the responsibility of the DAN as far as the arrangements of details for free time were concerned.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the situation regarding the employment of children and young people?
SAUCKEL: By German Reich law children under 12 years of age are not permitted to work. Children under 14 are only permitted to work a few hours on the land.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you issue decrees about working hours for children?
SAUCKEL: I issued decrees or confirmed the laws which were already in existence insofar as they applied to this work.
DR. SERVATIUS: Now I shall show you Document Number 345-PS, which is a letter written by Reich Minister Rosenberg to Lammers, dated 20 July 1944. [The document was handed to the defendant.]
THE PRESIDENT: Has this been put in before? Has this been offered in evidence before?
DR. SERVATIUS: This document was submitted in cross-examination. I myself have just received it. It deals with the recruitment of young people of 15 to 20 years of age for employment in the Reich during the war. Then the document refers to the transfer to the Reich of young people aged 10 to 14 years; that is the "Hay Action." And it goes on to say: "The object of this action is the further care of young people through the Reich Youth Leadership and the training of apprentices for German economy in a manner similar to that which has already been successfully carried out with the White Ruthenia Youth Service in co-operation with the GBA"-which means you. Please comment on whether you had use made of these young people.
SAUCKEL: No, I had nothing whatever to do with this action; and in the index of addresses my name is not mentioned. I do not know of this matter.
DR. SERVATIUS: So you did not violate your own rules by issuing special directives?
SAUCKEL: No. This was a transaction with which I did not concern myself.
DR. SERVATIUS: Then I should like to submit another letter to you, which was also submitted by the Prosecution in connection with the Schirach case. It is Document Number 1137-PS, a letter dated l9 October 1944. On Page 3 of this document, the following appears: "In addition to this, other labor was supplied to the German armament industry earlier-namely, first of all, 3,500 boys and 500 girls to the Junkers Works; secondly, 2,000 boys and 700 girls to the OT... "The agency under the Hitler Youth has procured from the Occupied Eastern Territories for the armament industry"- I leave out what does not interest us-"5,500 boys and 1,200 girls." Did you authorize the use of this labor, or did this matter pass through your hands?
SAUCKEL: No.
DR. SERVATIUS: How yeas this labor brought into the armament industry?
SAUCKEL: Well, I personally am unable to explain that in detail. Apparently this took place on the basis of an agreement between offices of the Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories or those of Hauptbanufuehrer Nickel. I have heard only during the proceedings here that the young people involved were of an age at which work is prohibited for them. I understood that it was more in the nature of pre-employment care, but...
DR. SERVATIUS: That is known.
SAUCKEL: It did not go through me or through my office.
DR. SERVATIUS: What about the use of foreign women?