dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
M. HERZOG: From 1940 the local field commandants were concerned with increasing the duration of work in their administrative zones. In France steps taken by the local authorities brought about reactions. The problem became general and was solved on a national scale. Long negotiations were imposed on the representatives of the pseudo-government of Vichy. Finally an ordinance of 22 April 1942, from the Military Command in France, reserved for the occupation authorities the right of fixing the duration of work in industrial enterprises. This ordinance appeared in their Verordnungsblatt Frankreich, 1942. I submit it to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-32 and I quote the first paragraph: "Paragraph I: For establishments and enterprises of all, kinds a minimum of working hours may be imposed. This minimum of working hours will be decreed for an entire economic region, for specified economic branches, or for individual enterprises." In Belgium working hours were fixed by a decree and by an implementing order of 6 October 1942, which appeared in the Verordnungsblatt of Belgium. I submit this ordinance to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-33. The regulating of working hours did not release a sufficient number of workers for the German factories; that is why the National Socialist authorities used a second method. Under the pretext of rationalizing production they brought about a concentration of industrial and commercial enterprises, certain of which were closed at their instigation. I cite in this relation the provisions which were made or imposed by the Germans in France, in Belgium, and in Holland. In France I would like to refer to two texts. The first is the ordinance of the Vichy Government of 17 December 1941, published in the Journal Officiel de L'Etat Francais, which I submit to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-34. The second text to which I wish to draw the attention of the Tribunal is the ordinance of 25 February 1942, issued by the Military Commandant in France.
M. HERZOG: This ordinance appeared in the Verordnungsblatt des Militarbefehlshabers in Frankreich. I shall read it to the Tribunal because it seems particularly important, as the principle for the compulsory closing of certain French enterprises is laid down by a decree by the occupying power. I shall read the first and second paragraphs of Document Number RF-35: "Paragraph I: If the economic situation, especially as regards the use of raw materials and industrial appliances, requires it, establishments and economic enterprises may be partly or completely closed. "Paragraph II: The closing of these enterprises will be announced by field headquarters by means of a written notification addressed to the establishment or to the industrial enterprise." In Belgium I refer to the 'ordinances of I the Military Commandant, 30 March and 3 October 1942, which appeared in the Verordnungsblatt in Belgium. I submit to the Tribunal the ordinance of 30 March under Document Number RF-36. In Holland the regulating provisions of the occupying authorities were more stringent than elsewhere. I present an ordinance of the Reich Commissioner for the territory of occupied Holland, 15 March 1943. 1 submit it to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-37. This ordinance presents a double interest. First, it offers precise information which emphasizes the method with which the German services executed their recruiting plan. It constitutes, on the other hand, the first document I shall submit to the Tribunal accusing the Defendant Seyss-Inquart. The policy of Sauckel was carried out in Holland with the collaboration of Reich Commissioner Seyss-Inquart. The ordinances regarding compulsory labor in Holland were all issued on the responsibility of Seyss- Inquart, whether they bear his actual signature or not. I ask the Tribunal to note this. The increase of the legal working hours and the closing of industrial enterprises deprived thousands of workers of their jobs. The defendants did not hesitate to use material constraint to incite the unemployed to work for Germany.
M. HERZOG: They threatened' the unemployed that they would do away with their unemployment compensation. This threat was made on several occasions by the local field commandants in occupied France. I find proof in the protest made by the French authorities to the German Armistice Commission. The French document is F-282, which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-38. I read the first page, third paragraph of the letter: "Moreover, the occupation authorities stipulate that the workers who refuse the work offered to them will forfeit their right to unemployment compensation and may be prosecuted by the war tribunal for sabotage of Franco-German collaboration." Far from disavowing the initiative of their local authorities, the Central Office for Labor gave them instructions to continue this policy. The proof is furnished by the circular of Dr. Mansfeld, dated 29 January 1942, which I have just submitted to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-26 (Document Number 1183-PS) in which instructions were given that the stopping of unemployment compensation -should be utilized as a means of pressure on workers from foreign countries. The circular of Dr. Mansfeld shows that the blackmail of the National Socialist leaders was practiced not only in the granting of unemployment compensation, but also in the issuing of ration cards. Moreover, the defendants tried to force the inhabitants of the occupied territories to leave for Germany by increasing their food difficulties. The proof of this intention is given in the report of the session of I March 1944 of the Conference of the Four Year Plan. This document I referred to a short time ago as Exhibit Number RF-30 (Document R-124). This is a passage which has not yet been read, which the Tribunal will please permit me to read. It is on Page 5 of the French translation, Pages 1814 and 1815 of the German text. The page numbers are at the bottom and on the right. I read on the top of Page 5 of the French text: "Milch: 'Wouldn't the following method be better than...
M. HERZOG: to protect the "S" factories, German administration should take over the feeding of the Italians and say to them, "No one shall receive food unless he works in a protected factory (S-Betrieb) or leaves for Germany?"' "Sauckel: 'It is true that the French workman in France is better fed than the German workman in Germany. The Italian workman, even if he does not work at all, is better fed in the part of Italy which we occupy than if he worked in Germany."' I have shown the Tribunal the economic and social measures which the National Socialist authorities took to force workers in the occupied territories to accept labor contracts offered by the German authorities. This indirect coercion was reinforced by direct pressure which was simultaneously put on the local governments, the employers, and on the workers themselves. The National Socialist leaders knew that their recruiting policy could be facilitated by the local authorities. That is why they tried to make the pseudo-governments of the occupied territories guarantee or indorse the fiction of voluntary enrollment. I submit to the Tribunal an example of the pressure which the German services placed on the Vichy Government to that purpose. They first arranged that the State Secretariat of Labor should issue a circular to all prefects on 29 March 1941. The German authorities were not satisfied with this circular. They were conscious of the illegality of their recruiting methods and they wished to justify them by an agreement with the de facto government of France. They required that this agreement be made known by public statement. Negotiations were carried out for this purpose in 1941 and 1942. The violence of the German pressure is substantiated by the letters addressed by Dr. Michel, chief of the administrative staff, to the Delegate General for Franco-German Economic Relations. I refer especially to his letters of 3 March 1942 and 15 May 1942, which constitute Exhibits Numbers RF-39 and 40 (Documents Numbers P-526 and F-525).
M. HERZOG: I read first to the Tribunal the letter of 15 May, which is under Exhibit Number RF-39 (Document Number F-526): "Paris, 15 May 1942. "Subject: The Recruiting of French Labor for Germany. "As the result of the conversations of 24 January 1942, and after repeated appeals, the first draft of the declaration of the French Government concerning recruiting was presented 27 February. On the German side it was accepted with slight modifications and in written form on 3 March, on the condition that at the time of its transmission to the organizational committees, attention should be directed to the fact that the French Government expressly approved of the acceptance of work in Germany. "On 19 March attention was drawn to the fact that a draft for a memorandum to the organizational committees should be submitted, whereupon the draft was submitted on 27 March. On 30 March a proposal for modification was delivered to M. Terray, who was to take it up with M. Bichelonne." I skip the two following paragraphs, and I will read the last paragraph: "Although no reason appears for the unusual and incomprehensible delay, the draft has not been presented up to now. As more than 2 months have passed since the first request for the submission of the memorandum, it is requested that the new draft be submitted by 19 May. "For the Military Commandant; for Chief of the Administrative Staff. Signed, Dr. Michel." The Tribunal undoubtedly has observed that Dr. Michel demanded not only the circulation of a public declaration, but also insisted that the text of this statement be officially transmitted to the organizational committees. The pressure which occupation authorities put upon French industrial enterprises to stimulate them to encourage the departure of their workers to Germany was brought about, in fact, through the medium of the organizational committees. The German offices for labor collaborated directly with the organizational committees. They ordered conferences in the course of which they dictated their will to the leaders of these committees.
M. HERZOG: They also insisted that the organizational committees should be informed of all the measures which the French authorities had to take. The committees could then be associated with these measures in the interests of German policy. The correspondence of Dr. Michel offers numerous examples of the constant efforts of the German authorities to act upon the organizational committees. I have just offered an example of this to the Tribunal in the document which I have read. I now offer another. In 1941 the Germans demanded that the circulars, especially the directive of 29 March 1941 addressed to the prefects regarding the recruiting of laborers for Germany, should be officially transmitted to the organizational committees. The occupation authorities obtained satisfaction through a circular of 25 April, which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-41 (Document Number F-521). But the terms of this circular did not receive the approval of the German authorities, and on 28 May 1941 Dr. Michel protested in violent terms to the Delegate General for Franco-German Economic Relations. This protest constitutes our Document F- 522. I submit it to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-42, and read it: "Paris, 28 May 1941. "Subject: Recruiting of Workers for Germany. "Reference: Your letter Number 192 of 29 April 1941. "From your explanations I gather that even before my letter of 23 April was received a circular for the organizational committees had been drafted and sent on 25 April. "This circular, nevertheless, does not seem to me adequate to support in an efficacious manner the recruiting of workers carried out by Germany. That is why I consider that it is necessary that, in a further directive, attention may be drawn to the points which were particularly mentioned by me on 23 April and I request you to submit to me as soon as possible the appropriate draft.
M. HERZOG: "On the German side an impressive contribution toward the creating of a favorable atmosphere has been made by means of the intended release of an additional large number of prisoners of war, which was considered by you at the time of our conversation of 24 March as a primary condition for the success of a reinforced recruiting of workers for Germany. I am therefore probably not wrong in expecting that you will send to the economic organizations a communication so designed that the attitude of expectation, maintained by French economy up until now, will develop also in the field of the release of labor into a constructive co-operation. I therefore expect that you will submit to me your proposals with all possible speed." And, finally, the German services placed direct pressure upon the workers themselves. First, moral pressure. The operation de la releve (prisoner exchange plan) tried in France in the spring 'of 1942 is characteristic. The occupation authorities promised to compensate for the sending of French workers to Germany by liberating prisoners of war. The return of a prisoner was to take place upon the departure of a worker. This promise was fallacious, and reality was quite different. I quote in this connection the report on compulsory labor and the deportation of workers, which I submitted this morning to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF 22 (Document Number F-515). I quote Page 51, both in the French original and in the German translation.
M. HERZOG: In the French original it is the third paragraph of Page 51 and in the German translation the first paragraph: "If the press, inspired by the occupying power, pretends in its commentaries to applaud the replacement plan of one prisoner for one worker, it is undoubtedly done to order and based on calculation; and also it seems because until 20 June 1942, 2 days before the speech cited before"-it was a speech of the chief of the de facto government of France-"it was, indeed, this proportion which the Germans Michel and Ritter had pretended to accept in their reports to the French administrative services. "The proportion, in fact, of one to five, appears to have been  last-minute surprise of which the press had never breathed  word." The pressure of which foreign workers were the victims was also a material pressure. I said that the fiction of voluntary enrollment could not be maintained in view of the arrests. I wish to submit a document to the Tribunal which furnishes a characteristic example of the German mentality and of the methods utilized by the National Socialist administrations. This is a document which in the French archives is Number 527, which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-43. This is a letter from the delegate of the Reich Labor Minister in the French department of Pas de Calais. This official enjoins a young French workman to depart for Germany as a free worker under threat of unfavorable consequences. This is in Exhibit Number RP-43 (Document Number F-527), third page: "Sir: "The 26th of March last, in Marquise, I ordered you to go to work in Germany in your profession. You were to leave with the convoy of the 1st of April for Germany. You paid no attention to this summons. I warn you that you must present yourself, with your baggage, next Monday, 28 April, before 19 hours, at 51 Rue de la Pomme d'Or in Calais. I call your attention to the fact that you leave for Germany as a free worker, that you will work there under the same conditions, and earn the same wages as the German workers.
M. HERZOG: "In case you do not present yourself, I must tell you that unfavorable consequences may very well follow. "Delegate for the Labor Ministry of the Reich"-signed-Hanneran." The proof of the constraint which the German authorities exercised on the workers of the occupied territories to bring about their allegedly voluntary enrollment may be continued. The National Socialist authorities did not merely impose labor contracts tainted with violence on foreign workers, they themselves deliberately failed to honor these contracts. I find proof of this in the fact that they unilaterally prolonged the duration of the contracts signed by foreign workers. This proof is based on several documents. Some ordinances were issued by the Defendant Goering in his capacity as Delegate for the Four Year Plan; others by the Defendant Sauckel. I now call the attention of the Tribunal to an order of Sauckel's, dated 29 March 1943, which I submit to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-44. It is an extract from Verfugungen, Anordnungen, Bekanntmachungen, Volume 5, Page 203: "Extension of work contracts, fixed for a period of time, of foreign workers, who during the time of their contract have absented themselves from their work without proper excuse. "The Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor decrees: "The regular' carrying out of the clauses of a contract for a fixed period of time concluded by a foreign worker necessitates that the worker should devote all his energy to the enterprise for the whole duration of the contract. Nevertheless, it happens that foreign workers as a result of idleness, delays in their return to work from visits to their homes," - I draw the Tribunal's attention to the following words-"serving terms of prison, internment in a camp of correction, or for other reasons, remain absent from their work ... without just cause, for a longer or shorter period of time. In such cases foreign workers cannot be authorized to return to their country when the period of time has elapsed for which they agreed to work voluntarily in Germany.
M. HERZOG: "Such procedure is not in keeping with the spirit of a work contract for a fixed period of time, whose object is not only the presence of the foreign worker, but also the work accomplished by him." Kept by force in the German factories which they had entered under compulsion, the foreign workers were neither voluntary workers nor free workers. The expose of the methods of German recruiting -will suffice to show the Tribunal the fictitious character of the voluntary enrollment on which it was supposed to be based. The foreign workers who agreed to work in the factories of the National Socialist war industry did not act through free will. Their number, however, remained limited. The workers of the occupied territories had the physical and moral courage to resist German pressure. This is proved in an admission by the Defendant Sauckel, which I take from the minutes of the meeting of 3 March 1944 of the Conference of the Four Year Plan. This is from an extract which has already been read by my American colleague, Mr. Dodd, so I will not read it again to the Tribunal: I merely wish to recall that the Defendant Sauckel admitted that out of 5 million foreign workers who came to Germany, there were not even 200,000 who came voluntarily. The resistance of the foreign workers surprised the Defendant Sauckel as much as it irritated him. One day he expressed his surprise to a German 'general who replied, "The difficulty comes from the fact that you address yourself to patriots who do not share your ideal." Indeed, only force could constrain the patriots of the occupied territories to work in behalf of the enemy. The National Socialist authorities resorted to force. The Germans had, from the first, the possibility of imposing their policy of force on that kind of labor whose particular status guaranteed recruitment and apparent submission-the prisoners of war. From 1940 on, the German military authorities organized labor task forces in prison camps.
M. HERZOG: They constantly increased the importance of these task forces, which were put at the disposal of agricultural economy and the war industry. The importance of the work required from war prisoners is substantiated by the report on forced labor and the deportation of workers, which I have submitted to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-22 (Document Number F-515). We find on Page 68 of the French and German texts the following estimates: There were, at the end of 1942, 1,036,319 French prisoners of war in Germany; 987,687 had been assigned to the work groups and only the surplus, that is 48,632 prisoners, remained unemployed. The utilization of prisoners of war in German factories does not constitute a distinct phenomenon which can be dissociated from the general plan for the recruiting of foreign workers; it is, on the contrary, an integral part of this plan. The National Socialists have always considered that the obligation to work applied just as much to war prisoners as to the civilian workers of the occupied territories. They have on many occasions expressed this conviction. I refer especially to three documents. The first is the decree of the appointment of the Defendant Sauckel, which I submitted to the Tribunal at the beginning of my explanatory remarks. The second document to which I wish to draw the attention of the Tribunal is the 10th decree of Sauckel, which I submitted some time ago under Document Number RF-17. This decree formulates the principle of the obligation to work and applies to war prisoners, according to the terms of its Article 8. Finally, Sauckel had, in another document, affirmed that the prisoners of war were to be subject to work in the same manner as civilian workers. This is found in the letter which he wrote to the Defendant Rosenberg on 20 April 1942, some days after his appointment, to explain his project to the latter. This is Document 016-PS, which my American colleague, Mr. Dodd, has already submitted to the Tribunal. I present it as Exhibit Number RF-45.
M. HERZOG: I shall not read from it, but I point out that on Page 20 of the German text the problem of compulsory labor is treated in the general heading entitled, "Prisoners of war and foreign workers." These documents bring a double proof to the Tribunal. First of all, they reveal the willingness of the National Socialists to force prisoners to work in behalf of the German war economy within the general frame of their recruiting policy. In the second place, these documents establish that the utilization of prisoners of war was not undertaken only by military authorities; this utilization was ordered and systematized by a civilian organization -that of the Arbeitseinsatz. As well as the responsibility of the Defendant Keitel, it entails also that of the German leaders who conducted the labor policy: the Defendant Sauckel, the Defendant Speer, and the Defendant Goering The Tribunal knows that international law regulates the conditions under which prisoners of war may be forced to work. The Hague Convention formulated rules which were closely defined by the Geneva Convention in Articles 27, 31, and 32: "Article 27: Belligerents may use as workers healthy war prisoners, according to their rank and their capabilities, with the exception of officers and corresponding ranks. Nevertheless, if officers, or those of similar rank, ask for suitable work, it will be supplied for them as far as possible. Noncommissioned officers, who are war prisoners, can be required to work only as supervisors, if they do not expressly request remunerative occupation.... "Article 31: The work furnished by the prisoners of war .....