dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR.FLACHSNER: Through continual air raids, the aerial war was directed against economic targets in France, Belgium, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Austria, and had as its further aim the interruption and disruption of the whole system of communications-not only on the front and immediately behind it but also hundreds of kilometers away from it-in order to paralyze vital functions of the adversary. The Allied air offensive against Japan is a particularly clear indication of this. This war went beyond the bounds of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare. It ceased to make any further distinction between the adversary's territory proper and the occupied territories, which were likewise included in the enemy blockade. In this war which sought not only to destroy the adversary as a nation but also to ruin its economic system and its power of production, we may speak of a real national emergency. When the Defendant Speer was appointed Minister, the economic war just described was in full swing on both sides. In fact, the task assigned to Speer's department was that of solving the production problems caused by it. Speer, therefore, found himself in the thick of this war of economies; and we now have to decide whether, and to what extent, the measures taken on the German side were capable of alleviating the state of emergency.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Flachsner, I would like to ask you this question. Is there any communication between states, either at the League of Stations or elsewhere, since the war of 1914-18, which suggests that the Hague Rules on Land Warfare were no longer applicable? Perhaps you would consider that question and answer it at your convenience?
DR.FLACHSNER: Mr. President, I can answer this question immediately in the negative. In the period between the two wars, these problems were dealt with only very superficially and, as far as I am acquainted with the facts, the questions considered lay in the sphere of naval warfare and also land warfare in connection with the treatment of prisoners of war. The Hague Convention on Land Warfare itself contained no additions or amendments whatsoever, apart from separate agreements concerning particular methods of conducting warfare. I might add that in the meantime various methods of warfare have been banned by treaties. But, as far as principles are concerned-and that is the basis of my argument-the principles laid down in the Hague Convention have undergone no changes through treaties in the meantime.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Then I understand you to say there has been no communication between states, since the 1914-18 war, which suggests that the Hague Rules on Land Warfare are no longer applicable?
DR. FLACHSNER: Yes, that is correct. We must decide whether, and to what extent, the measures taken on the German side were effective in remedying the state of emergency. In the course of the Trial, the Prosecution have claimed, on several occasions, that the imported labor was to be used to release workers for service at the front. This is certainly one reason why the recourse to foreign workers was used, but it is by no means the decisive reason-not even the most important reason. It is a fact that the total blockade of the German Reich carried out by the adversary compelled the Reich to an increasing extent to build plants for the production of substitute raw materials in order to carry on the war in the technical form which it had now assumed. It is also a fact that the disturbances caused in economic life by aerial warfare made it essential to employ an increased number of workers. As an example, let me say how much additional labor was necessary for the repair of air raid damage. This situation involved a state of emergency insofar as the waging of a war of self-preservation would no longer have been possible without the erection of such additional production plants. Should it be contended that it is impossible to speak of an emergency overriding the illegality of the proceedings in terms of international law, since the war was begun as a war of aggression and was, therefore, illegal from the outset, it may at least be said in favor of the Defendant Speer, that he believed in the existence of such a state of emergency and had reason to do so. The examination of evidence has revealed that the underlying causes which led to the war, so far as they have been exposed here by the Prosecution, were not known to most of the defendants, and least of all to the Defendant Speer. Insofar as the deportation of foreign workers to the Reich constitutes an objectively illegal measure according to international law, it remains to be examined what share of it can be charged to the Defendant Speer.
DR. FLACHSNER: At his interrogation prior to the beginning of the Trial, on 18 October 1945, the Defendant Speer admitted knowing that, at least as far back as September 1942, foreign workers had ceased to come voluntarily to the Reich. He said he had countenanced that because there was no possibility of meeting the labor requirements otherwise. It must be concluded from this declaration that the defendant was convinced of the necessity for this emergency measure. Subjectively, therefore, he must be credited with believing in the existence of such a state of emergency overriding illegality. But in the first place, we must examine to what extent the Defendant Speer actually contributed to the dispatch of deportees to Germany. Here we must start from the principle that the Defendant Speer had a purely technical assignment which he described adequately in his evidence, to which reference can be made. In order to carry out this assignment, he stated his labor requirements. The way in which these requirements were met has beer described in detail by the witnesses Schieber and Schmelter. Requirements were submitted in terms of totals needed, and it was incumbent upon the Defendant Sauckel to satisfy them. These requirements referred to the total number of workers as a whole, and it was the Defendant Sauckel's task to meet these requirements as far as possible and in accordance with his judgment. He had power to exhaust the entire resources of the home labor potential as well as to recruit foreign labor. The witnesses Schieber, Kehrl, and Schmelter stated, in the course of their interrogations, that the Defendant Speer tried to procure German labor, in the first place, for assignments given to him by the Government. The testimony of the witness Saur affords evidence that the satisfaction of the labor requirements necessary to enable Speer to accomplish his assignment of increasing armament production was of considerable, though not decisive, importance-Document Book 2, Page 146.
DR. FLACHSNER: According to this testimony, the number of workers in the direct armament industry rose from 4,000,000 to 4,900,000-for the whole of the armament industry-during the defendant's activity as Armament Minister, while the manufacture of basic products for armament increased five and a half to seven times in many departments. It must, therefore, be borne in mind that the increase in armament production which the Defendant Speer was required to produce was achieved, in the first place, not so much through an increase in the number of workers employed as by means of technical and organizational measures. It follows from this again that, for the defendant, the procurement of labor was admitted to be an important, though not decisive, element in the fulfillment of the task assigned to him. The defendant made the credible statement that he had applied to Sauckel for workers, but had stressed the fact that he wanted German workers first of all. In the defendant's opinion, an increased number of workers could have been found in the economic sector under his control without having recourse to foreign labor to the extent that it was done. The measures taken by the defendant to prevent the transfer of workers from the West into the Reich have been adequately described by the evidence. In taking those measures-that is, in transferring the production of consumer goods and the manufacture of high priority armament parts, such as, for instance, forged parts, railway equipment, et cetera, to the western countries and in installing protected industries there-Speer was actuated by the belief that the conscription of workers from France, as well as from Belgium and Holland, would be halted. The result of his talks with the French Minister Bichelonne, as the defendant explained during his interrogation, was for all practical purposes to end the deportation of workers to Germany.
DR. FLACHSNER: The results have been accurately described by the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor at the session of the Central Planning Board held on 1 March 1944-see Page 32 of my document book. In spite of all the opposition made to this policy-compare Sauckel's letter to Hitler, dated 17 March 1944, Document 3819-PS Speer persevered in his purpose. The decision adopted at Hitler's conference on 4 January 1944-a report of which was submitted by the Prosecution under Document 556-PS-also reveals that the protected industries, the abolition of which was urged by Sauckel were to remain out of bounds to Sauckel's labor conscription. Speer wanted to employ the French workers in France, in an effort to transfer the production of consumer goods and products which did not represent armament production to the occupied western territories. He wished to utilize for armament production the German workers released as a result of the closing down of German plants- see Document R-124, Pages 33-34 of the Speer document book. In this manner Speer was able to increase production because German workers could more easily be retrained, as there were no language difficulties and no difficulties regarding food-compare Kehrl, Page 110, the Speer document book. The result of this policy was that workers from the western areas were mainly used in the production of civilian goods, but not in armament production. On the question of employment of foreign labor in the protected industries, it must also be said the statute is based on two factual circumstances: Deportation for forced labor and forced labor itself. Forced labor in France was ordered by a decree from the French Government. According to international law there could be no objection to this, unless the view were taken that the French Government was not entitled to take such measures and to issue such decrees. As the Defendant Speer stated, the French economic leadership obtained its independence through the agreement with Bichelonne, naturally with the restrictions imposed by the agreement.
DR. FLACHSNER: As established by Berck-see Document Book 1, Page 38, Document 1289-PSff-worker of the Defendant Sauckel, 20 percent went from the protected industries of France to French economy, whereas more than 40 percent went from the consumer goods industry into French hands. It follows that the French armament industry did not manufacture weapons and actual implements of war, for the German authorities would scarcely have left these to the French agencies. In the session of 20 June 1946 the Tribunal summarized its misgivings as to the manner in which we presented our evidence by stating that questions of suitability were irrelevant. On the other hand the Defense may be said to represent the viewpoint that this speech was only intended to clarify the question of legality. If the French Government were justified in decreeing compulsory labor service, and if plants employing French workers on the basis of this decree or on the basis of voluntary labor contracts were provided with German orders, no legal objection could be raised. The establishment of protected industries, which prevented the withdrawal of workers and their transfer to Germany, and the removal of single branches of production to France, Belgium, and Holland permitted the objective-that is, satisfaction of the requirements of the German economy-to be attained in a manner which was legally unobjectionable. Even though the Defendant Speer did not completely check the transfer of workers, he nevertheless did succeed in decreasing their commitment appreciably. Instead of the policy Pursued by other Reich offices of removing foreign workers to the Reich, the defendant aimed at employing the labor needed for his purpose in the workers' homeland-Exhibit Speer-9, Page 24, and Exhibit Speer-11, Page 27 of the Speer document book. To this extent he counteracted the tendency to deport workers from their native country.
DR. FLACHSNER: In order to prove the assertion that Speer played a decisive part in intensifying deportation for forced labor, the Prosecution refer to Document 556-PS, which is a file memo by Sauckel of a telephone conversation he had with Speer on 5 January 1941. In contrast to this Speer Exhibit-35 has been submitted, the copy of the minutes of the Fuhrer conference of 3 and 5 January 1941, which was the object of the telephone conversation. Even if sharp remarks by Hitler are reproduced here also, the exhibit; nevertheless, does not reveal the tendency which was noted by Sauckel in his file memo. The Defendant Speer was already at that time on bad terms with Sauckel. The order issued to Speer in the minutes of the Fuhrer conference, with reference to the control of the French armament industry, gave him a pretext for the establishment of protected industries. For all practical purposes the termination of labor commitments from France was thereby achieved-just the opposite, therefore, of what the Prosecution would like to prove. Reference must be made in this connection to Document F-515, Exhibit RF-22. There it is asserted that, owing to the Speer-Bichelonne agreement, labor commitments to Germany from October 1943 onward were one-tenth less-compare Page 41 of my document book. In weighing the question as to what extent this exonerates the defendant, it is of no importance whether he acted in such a way for reasons of expediency, or with the conviction that the other procedure was illegal. The only thing that matters in this case is the result, which actually put a practical stop to the transfer of laborers to Germany, as is evident from the document quoted, RF-22.
DR. FLACHSNER: It is certainly clear from the Fuhrer's minutes of 19 to 22 June 194 Exhibit Speer-12, Page 19 of the Speer document book-and from the testimony of Seyss-Inquart, 11 June 1946, that in spite of the loss of industry in the western territories and; the intention of other departments to bring the unemployed workers to Germany, Speer succeeded in maintaining his protected industries, and thus the plan to commit more foreign workers to Germany finally collapsed. In the case of the Defendant Speer, we cannot say that it was his duty to examine how far Sauckel's measures were admissible from the point of view of international law, and this for the following reasons. When he took over his post in the year 1942, the transfer of foreign labor to Reich territory had already been practiced for some time. Speer relied on the assumption that the legal foundations for these measures had been examined before their introduction. It was not his duty, in the eyes of the law, to examine them individually; he could be sure that the offices which handled the allocation of labor commitment had examined the legal basis of their activity. During his years of office, he was repeatedly assured by the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor that the transfer of labor to the Reich was carried out strictly within legal limits. He could depend on it that the authorities who were entrusted by the State with the tasks of labor procurement would examine, from the point of view of their legal admissibility, the measures they took in order to carry out these tasks. The activity of the defendant within the framework of the Government could, if transferred to the sector of civil law, be compared with that of the technical plant manager of a factory, and in this case Sauckel's position would correspond to that of a director of the personnel office. In such a case the technical plant manager's duty is not to examine whether, and to what extent, the employment contracts concluded with the individual workers conform to legal regulations.
DR. FLACHSNER: He has only to see that the manpower he is given to carry out his tasks is employed in the right place and in the right manner. This cannot be met with the argument that the Defendant Sauckel merely considered himself as the deputy of the Defendant Speer. This would not present a fair picture of the way in which the different tasks had been distributed between the two codefendants by the state leaders. The fact cannot be overlooked that of all the sectors of the economy which sent in their requests to the Defendant Sauckel, those presented by the Defendant Speer were the most important for the conduct of the war and, therefore, had priority over the others. This does not mean, however, that it was Sauckel's duty to satisfy all the demands of the department represented by Speer before all the others. He did not do so, as can be seen from the evidence-in particular from the testimonies of the witnesses Schieber, Document Book 2, Page 114, and Kehrl, Document Book 1, Page 106-and moreover he could not do so since the demands of the other branches of economy, which were all known as "Bedaristrager," were very often equally urgent, and the labor potential at hand was not sufficient to fulfill all the demands to the same extent. Had Sauckel not been more than a deputy of Speer, a mere tool who had only to carry out the instructions of Speer, the profound differences between the two could never have come into existence. It has been emphasized by the Prosecution that the appointment of the Defendant Sauckel as Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor was only made possible through the intervention of the Defendant Speer, and that this gave reason to believe that Sauckel had been more or less a tool of the Defendant Speer, or depended on him to a large extent. This assumption does not correspond with the actual facts. When he took over his office as Armament Minister, the Defendant Speer soon discovered that the supply of labor to plants, which had been carried out until then by the Ministry of Labor, could not equal the demands made on it.
DR. FLACHSNER: Within the field of work of the Ministry of Labor, this activity represented only a small fraction of its over-all functions. The Defendant Speer declared in the course of his interrogation that the Ministry of Labor was constantly coping with the temperaments of the different Gauleiter in their districts, because it was the ambition of every Gauleiter to do everything within his power to prevent the transfer of workers from his Gau to another. The Ministry of Labor, which was organized on purely bureaucratic lines, did not seem to the Defendant Speer to be equal to its task, and the suggestion was made to the state leadership that a Gauleiter be entrusted with this task. When Speer's suggestion was followed up by the request that a Gauleiter, charged with the procurement of labor, be put under him, it was not granted by the state leadership because of other existing competencies. The person proposed by Speer was also turned down, and the Defendant Sauckel was appointed instead. So that in Speer's endeavors to create a Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor, the reasons involved were merely of an organizational nature with the purpose of overcoming the afore-mentioned opposition, which was directed against the activity of the labor procurement office in the Ministry of Labor. But to draw from these facts the conclusion that the Defendant Speer was responsible for all the measures ordered by the Defendant Sauckel would be erroneous. The fact that the defendant, as a member of the Central Planning Board, participated in sessions at which the problem of the procurement of labor was discussed, cannot be used to support the claim of the Prosecution. The Prosecution attempt to prove from the sessions of the Central Planning Board that the Defendant Speer played a leading part in the procurement of labor from foreign countries. In reply to this the following must be stated. The Prosecution have only submitted the text of the minutes of a session, but not the decisions which were made on the basis of this session.
DR. FLACHSNER: And yet, it is exactly these which are decisive. Since all the Defendant Speer's records, including also the notes on the decisions of the Central Planning Board, were placed by him at the disposal of the Allied authorities, it would have been easy for the Prosecution to present such decisions which would have shown the exact participation of the defendant in the procurement of labor. But such conclusions do not exist and, therefore, the fact that at the conferences of the Central Planning Board questions of labor mobilizations were mentioned should not lead to the conclusion that the Central Planning Board had taken this point over in its sphere of activity. The decree regarding the establishment of the Central Planning Board is given under Number 42 in Exhibit Speer-7. The scope of the Central Planning Board in labor questions is clearly outlined, and it is stated that the procurement and distribution of labor need not be included in the sphere of competence of the Central Planning Board, as the new office of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor has been specially created for it. It is clear also from the testimony that when the Codefendant Sauckel discussed questions concerning the policy of labor commitment before the Central Planning Board, he underlined sharply his independence of the Central Planning Board, and stressed the fact that when he made his decisions he was responsible only to the Fuhrer in the last instance and was independent of the Central Planning Board. For this I refer to the testimonies of the witness Kehrl and the witness Schieber, Exhibits Speer-36 and 37. This does not mead that no attempts were made in the Central Planning Board to exert an influence in the sphere of the Plenipotentiary General for the A]location of Labor. These attempts, however, did not have any results.