dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SAUCKEL: The Buchenwald Camp originated in the following manner: The Fuehrer, who came to Weimar quite often because of the theater there, suggested that a battalion of his SS Leibstandarte should be stationed at Weimar. As the Leibstandarte was considered a picked regiment I not only agreed to this but was very pleased, because in a city like Weimar people are glad to have a garrison. So the State of Thuringia, the Thuringian Government, at the request of the Fuehrer, prepared a site in the Ettersburg Forest, north of the incline outside the town. After some time Himmler informed me, however, that he could not bring a battalion of the SS Leibstandarte to Weimar, as he could not divide up the regiment, but that it would be a newly established Death's Head unit, and Himmler said it would amount to the same thing. It was only some time later, when the site had already been placed at the disposal of the Reich, that Himmler declared that he now had to accommodate a kind of concentration camp with the Death's Head units on this very suitable site. I opposed this to begin with, because I did not consider a concentration camp at ail the right kind of thing for the town of Weimar and its traditions. However, he-I mean Himmler-making use of his position, refused to have any discussion about it. And so the camp was set up neither to my satisfaction nor to that of the population of Weimar.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have anything to do with the administration of the camp later on?
SAUCKEL: I never had anything to do with the administration of the camp. The Thuringian Government made an attempt at the time to influence the planning of the building by saying that the building police in Thuringia wished to give the orders for the sanitary arrangements in the camp. Himmler rejected this on the grounds of his position, saying that he had a construction office of his own and the site now belonged to the Reich.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you visit the camp at any time?
SAUCKEL: As far as I can remember, on one single occasion at the end of 1937 or at the beginning of 1938, I visited and inspected the camp with an Italian commission.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you find anything wrong there?
SAUCKEL: I did not find anything wrong. I inspected the accommodations-I myself had been a prisoner for 5 years, and so it interested me. I must admit that at that time there was no cause for any complaint as such. The accommodations had been divided into day and night rooms. The beds were covered with blue and white sheets; the kitchens, washrooms, and latrines were beyond reproach, so that the Italian officer or officers who were inspecting the camp with me said that in Italy they would not accommodate their own soldiers any better.
DR. SERVATIUS: Later on did you hear about the events in that camp which have been alleged here?
SAUCKEL: I heard nothing about such events as have been alleged here.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have anything to do with the evacuation of the camp at the end of the war, before the American Army approached?
SAUCKEL: When the mayor of Weimar informed me that they intended to evacuate the camp at Buchenwald and to use the camp guards to fight the American troops, I raised the strongest objections. As I had no authority over the camp, and since for various reasons connected with my other office I had had considerable differences with Himmler and did not care to speak to him, I telephoned the Fuehrer's headquarters in Berlin and said that in any case an evacuation or a transfer of prisoners into the territory east of the Saale was impossible and madness, and could not be carried through from the point of view of supplies. I demanded that the camp should be handed over to the American occupation troops in an orderly manner. I received the answer that the Fuehrer would give instructions to Himmler to comply with my request. I briefly reported this to some of my colleagues and the mayor, and then I left Weimar.
DR. SERVATIUS: The witness Dr. Blaha has stated that you had also been to the concentration camp at Dachau on the occasion of an inspection.
SAUCKEL: No, I did not go to the Dachau Concentration Camp and, as far as I recollect, I did not take part in the visit of the Gauleiter to Dachau in 1935 either. In no circumstances did I take part in an inspection in Dachau such as Dr. Blaha has described here; and consequently, above all, I did not inspect workshops or anything of the sort.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you not, as Gauleiter, receive official reports regarding the events in the concentration camp, that is to say, orders which passed through the Gau administrative offices both from and to the camp?
SAUCKEL: No. I neither received instructions for the Buchenwald Camp, nor reports. It was not only my personal opinion but it was the opinion of old experienced Gauleiter that it was the greatest misfortune, from the administrative point of view, when Himmler as early as 1934 - 35 proceeded to separate the executive from the general internal administration. There were continual complaints from many Gauleiter and German provincial administrations. They were unsuccessful, however, because in the end Himmler incorporated even the communal fire brigades into the Reich organization of his Police.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have any personal relations with the Police and the SS at Weimar?
SAUCKEL: I had no personal relations with the SS and the Police at ale I had official relations inasmuch as the trade police and the local police of small boroughs still remained under the internal administration of the State of Thuringia. DR. SERVATIUS. Did not the Police have their headquarters near you, at Weimar?
SAUCKEL: No, it was the ridiculous part of the development at that time that, as I once explained to the Fuehrer, we had been changed from a Party state, and a state made up of provinces, into a departmental state. The Reich ministries had greatly developed, their departments being fairly well defined, and the individual district departments of the various administrations did not agree among one another. Until 1934 Thuringia had its own independent police administration in its Ministry for Home Affairs. But from that time the headquarters of the Higher SS and the Police Leader were transferred to Kassel, so that Himmler, in contrast to the rest of the State and Party organizations, obtained new spheres for his Police. He demonstrated this in Central Germany where for example the Higher SS and Police Leader for Weimar and the State of Thuringia was stationed in Kassel, whereas for the Prussian part of the Gau of Thuringia-that is to say the town of Erfurt which is 20 kilometers away from Weimar-the Higher SS and Police Leader and the provincial administration had their seat in Magdeburg. It is obvious that we, as Gau authorities, did not in any way agree with such a development and that there was great indignation among the experienced administrators.
DR. SERVATIUS: The question is: Did you cooperate with these offices and did you have a friendly association with the officials in the regime and therefore know what was going on in Buchenwald?
SAUCKEL: On the contrary, it was a continual bathe. Each separate organization shut itself off from the others. At such a period of world development this was most unfortunate. For the people it was disadvantageous and it made things impossible for any administration.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was there persecution of the Jews in your Gau?
SAUCKEL: No.
DR. SERVATIUS: What about the laws concerning the Jews and the execution of those laws?
SAUCKEL: These Jewish laws were proclaimed in Nuremberg. There were actually very few Jews in Thuringia.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were there no violations in connection with the well known events, following the murder of the Envoy Vom Rath in Paris, which have repeatedly become the subject of discussion in this Trial?
SAUCKEL: I cannot recollect in detail the events in Thuringia. As I told you, there were only a few Jews in Thuringia. The Gauleiter were in Munich at the time, and had no influence at all on that development, for it happened during the night, when all the Gauleiter were in Munich.
DR. SERVATIUS: My question is this: What happened in your Gau of Thuringia, and what instructions did you give as a result?
SAUCKEL: There may have been a few towns in Thuringia where a window was smashed or something of that sort. I cannot tell you in detail. I cannot even tell you where or whether there were synagogues in Thuringia.
DR. SERVATIUS: Now one question regarding your financial position. On the occasion of your fiftieth birthday the Fuehrer made you a donation. How much was it?
SAUCKEL: On my fiftieth birthday in October 1944 I was surprised to get a letter from the Fuehrer through one of his adjutants. In that letter there was a check for 250,000 marks. I told the adjutant that I could not possibly accept it-I was very surprised. The Fuehrer's adjutant-it was little Bormann, the old Bormann, not Reichsleiter Bormann-told me that the Fuehrer knew quite well that I had neither money nor any landed property and that this would be a security for my children. He told me not to hurt the Fuehrer's feelings. The adjutant left quickly and I sent for Demme who was both a colleague and a friend of mine and the president of the State Bank of Thuringia. He was unfortunately refused as a witness as being irrelevant...
THE PRESIDENT: I think it is enough if we know whether he ultimately accepted it or not.
DR. SERVATIUS: Let us drop that question. What happened to the money?
SAUCKEL: Through the president of the State Bank in question the money was placed into an account in the State Bank of Thuringia.
DR. SERVATIUS: What other income did you receive from your official positions?
SAUCKEL: The only income I had from my official positions was the salary of a Reich Regent.
DR. SERVATIUS: How much was that?
SAUCKEL: The salary of a Reich Minister; I cannot tell you exactly what it was. I never bothered about it. It was something like 30,000 marks.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what means have you today apart from the donation in that bank account?
SAUCKEL: I have not saved any money and I never had any property.
DR. SERVATIUS: That, Mr. President, brings me to the end of those general questions and I am now coming to the questions relating to the Allocation of Labor.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn. [A recess was taken.]
DR. SERVATIUS: To aid the Court I have prepared a plan showing how the direction of labor was managed, which should help to explain how the individual authorities cooperated and how the operation was put into motion. I will concern myself mainly with the problem of meeting the demand, that is with the question of how the labor was obtained. I shall not concern myself much with the question of the use made of the labor and the needs of industry. That is more a matter for Speer's defense, which does not quite fit in with my presentation of things. But those are details which occurred in error because I did not go into such matters thoroughly when the plan was being prepared. Fundamentally there are no differences. If I may explain the plan briefly: At the top there is the Fuehrer, in red; under him is the Four Year Plan; and under that, as part of the Four Year Plan, there is the of lice of Sauckel, who was Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor and came directly under the Four Year Plan. He received his instructions and orders from the Fuehrer through the Four Year Plan, or, as was the Fuehrer's way, from him direct. Sauckel's headquarters were at the Reich Ministry of Labor. It is the big space outlined in yellow to the left, below Sauckel's office which is in brown. Sauckel only became included in the Reich Labor Ministry by having a few of flees put at his disposal The Reich Minister of Labor and the whole of the Labor Ministry remained. In the course of time Sauckel's position became somewhat stronger, individual departments being necessarily incorporated into his, over which, to a certain extent, he obtained personal power; but the Reich Ministry of Labor remained until the end. I should now Like to explain how the "Arbeitseinsatz" was put into operation. Owing to operations in Russia and the great losses in the winter, there arose a need for 2 million soldiers. The Wehrmacht, OKW, marked in green at the top next to the Fuehrer, demands soldiers from the industries. It is marked here in the green spaces which run downwards below the OKW.
DR. SERVATIUS: The line then turns left downwards to the industries which are marked as having 30 million workers. The Wehrmacht withdraws 2 million workers but can only do so when new labor is there. It was at that moment that Sauckel was put into of lice in order to obtain this labor. The number of men needed was determined by the higher authorities through the socalled "Requirements Board," marked at the top in yellow, which represented the highest offices: the Armaments and Production Ministries, the Ministry of Air, Agriculture, Shipping, Traffic, and so on. They reported their requests to the Fuehrer and he decided what was needed. Sauckel's task was carried out as follows: Let us go back to the brown square. On the strength of the right of the Four Year Plan to issue orders, he applied to the space on the right where the squares are outlined in blue. They are the highest district offices in the occupied territories, the Reich Ministry for the Eastern Territories, that is, Rosenberg; then come the military authorities; and as things were handled a little differently in each country, here are the various countries, Belgium, Northern France, Holland, et cetera, marked in yellow. These agencies received the order to make labor available. Each through its own machinery referred the order to the next agency below and so on down to the very last, the local labor offices which are under the district authorities, and here the workers were assigned to the factories. That is the reserve of foreigners. Beside that there are two other sources of labor available, the main reserve of German workers, which is marked in blue to the left at the bottom, and the reserve of prisoners of war. Sauckel had to deal with all these three agencies. I will now put relevant questions to the witness. This is only to refresh our memories and to check the explanation. I will submit other charts later. There is a list of the witnesses drawn up according to their offices so that we know where they belong; and later there will be another chart showing the inspection and controls which were set up.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Servatius, you will no doubt be asking the witness whether he is familiar with the chart and whether it is correct.
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, you have seen this chart. Is it correct? Do you acknowledge it?
SAUCKEL: To the best of my memory and belief it is correct, and I acknowledge it.
DR. SERVATIUS: On 21 March 1942 you were made Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor. Why were you chosen for this office?
SAUCKEL: The reason why I was chosen for this office was never known to me and I do not know it now. Because of my engineering studies and my occupation I took an interest in questions concerning labor systems, but I do not know whether that was the reason.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was your appointment not made at Speer's suggestion?
SAUCKEL: Reichsleiter Bormann stated that in the preamble to his official decree. I do not know the actual circumstances.
DR. SERVATIUS: I beg to refer to Sauckel Document Number 7. It is in Document Book 1, Page 5.
SAUCKEL: I should like to add that this appointment came as a complete surprise to me, I did not apply for it in any way. I never applied for any of my offices.
THE PRESIDENT: What number are you giving to this document?
DR. SERVATIUS: Document Number 7.
THE PRESIDENT: I mean the chart. What number are you giving to the chart?
DR. SERVATIUS: Document 1.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I see, and Document Number 7, Page 5.
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes. This document is a preamble added by Reichsleiter Bormann to the decree and which shows that it was Speer who suggested Sauckel for this position. Was it an entirely new office which you then entered?
SAUCKEL: No. The Arbeitseinsatz had been directed by the Four Year Plan before my appointment. A ministerial director, Dr. Mansfeld, held the of lice then. I only learned here, during these proceedings, that the office was already known before my time as the office of the Plenipotentiary General.
DR. SERVATIUS: On taking up your office did you talk to Dr.Mansfeld, your socalled predecessor?
SAUCKEL: I neither saw Dr. Mansfeld nor spoke to him, nor did I take over any records from him.
DR. SERVATIUS: To what extent was your office different from that of the previous Plenipotentiary General?
SAUCKEL: My office was different to this extent: The department in the Four Year Plan was given up and was no longer used by me. I drew departments of the Reich Labor Ministry more and more closely into this work as they had some of the outstanding experts.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the reason for this reconstruction of the office?
SAUCKEL: The reason was to be found in the many conflicting interests which had been very prominent up to the third year of the war in the political and state offices, internal administration offices, Party agencies and economic agencies, and which now for territorial · considerations opposed the interdistrict equalization of the labor potential, which had become urgent.
DR. SERVATIUS: What sort of task did you have then? What was your sphere of work?
SAUCKEL: My chief sphere of work was in directing and regulating German labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: What task were you given then?
SAUCKEL: I had to replace with suitably skilled workers those men who had to be freed from industry for drafting into the German Wehrmacht, that is, into the different branches of the Wehrmacht. Moreover, I also had to obtain new labor for the new war industries which had been set up for food production as well as for the production of armaments, of course.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was your task definitely defined?
SAUCKEL: It was at first in no way definitely defined. There were at that time about 23 or 24 million workers to be directed, who were available in the Reich but who had not yet been fully employed for war economy.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you look on your appointment as a permanent one?
SAUCKEL: No. I could not consider it as permanent.
DR. SERVATIUS: Why not? SAUCKEL Because in addition to me the Reich Labor Minister and his state secretaries were in office and at the head of things; and then there was the whole of the Labor Ministry.
DR. SERVATIUS: What sources were at your disposal to obtain this labor?
SAUCKEL: First, there were the workers who were already present in the Reich from all sorts of callings who, as I have said, had not yet been directed to war economy, not yet completely incorporated in the way that was necessary for the conduct of the war. Then further there were the prisoners of war as far as their labor was made available by the army authorities.
DR. SERVATIUS: At first then, if I have understood you correctly, proper distribution, and a thrifty management of German labor?
SAUCKEL: When my appointment...
DIE PRESIDENT: Defendant, I do not understand the German language, but it appears to me that if you would not make pauses between each word it would make your sentences shorter; and pause at the end of the sentence. It would be much more convenient for the interpreter. I do not know whether I am right in that. That is what it looks like. You are pausing between each word, and there fore it is difficult, I imagine, to get the sense of the sentence.
SAUCKEL: I beg your pardon, Your Lordship.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on, Dr. Servatius.
DR. SERVATIUS: What did you do to carry out your task?
SAUCKEL: I will repeat. First, as I had received no specific instructions I understood my task to mean that I was to fill up the gaps and deficiencies by employing labor in the most rational and economic way.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the order you received? How many people were you to obtain?
SAUCKEL: That question is very difficult to answer, for I received the necessary orders only in the course of the development of the war. Labor and economy are fluid, intangible things. However I then received the order that if the war were to continue for some time I was to find replacements in the German labor sector for the Wehrmacht, whose soldiers were the potential of peacetime economy.
DR. SERVATIUS: You drew up a program. What was provided for in your program?
SAUCKEL: I drew up two programs, Doctor. At first, when I took up my office, I drew up one program which included a levee en masse, so to speak, of German women and young people, and, another, as I already said, for the proper utilization of labor from the economic and technical point of view.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was the program accepted?
SAUCKEL: The program was rejected by the Fuehrer when submitted it to him and, as was my duty, to the Reich economic authorities and ministries which were interested in the employment of labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: Why?
SAUCKEL: The Fuehrer sent for me and in a lengthy statement explained the position of the German war production and also the economic situation. He said that he had nothing against my program as such if he had the time; but that in view of the situation, he could not wait for such German women to become trained and experienced. At that time 10 million German women were already employed who had never done industrial or mechanical work. Further, he said that the results of such a rationalization of working methods as I had suggested, something like a mixture of Ford and Taylor methods...
DR. SERVATIUS: One moment. The interpreters cannot translate your long sentences properly. You must make short sentences and divide your phrases, otherwise no one can understand you and your defense will suffer a great deal. Will you please be careful about that.
SAUCKEL: In answer to my proposal the Fuehrer said that he could not wait for a rationalization of the working methods on the lines of the Taylor and Ford systems.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what did he suggest?
SAUCKEL: May I explain the motives which prompted the Fuehrer's decision. He described the situation at that time, at the end of the winter of 1941 42. Many hundreds of German locomotives, almost all the mechanized armed units, tanks, planes, and mechanical weapons had become useless as a result of the catastrophe of that abnormally hard winter. Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers had suffered terribly from the cold; many divisions had lost their arms and supplies. The Fuehrer explained to me that if the race with the enemy for new arms, new munitions, and new dispositions of forces was not won now, the Soviets would be as far as the Channel by the next winter. Appealing to my sense of duty and asking me to put into it all I could, he gave me the task of obtaining new foreign labor for employment in the German war economy.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have no scruples that this was against international law?
SAUCKEL: The Fuehrer spoke to me in such detail about this question and he explained the necessity so much as a matter of course that, after he had withdrawn a suggestion which he had made himself, there could be no misgivings on my part that the employment of foreign workers was against international law.
DR. SERVATIUS: You also negotiated with other agencies and there were already workers within the Reich. What were you told about that?