dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Yes, if you would like to. I just remind you that the evidence is to the contrary of your testimony on that subject. Page 42, the paragraph which reads: "Unfortunately the assignments for the Organization Todt on the basis of Article 52 of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare have for some time decreased considerably, because the larger part of the manpower allocated does not turn up. Consequently further compulsory measures must be employed. The prefect and the French labor exchanges co-operate quite loyally, it is true, but they have not sufficient authority to carry out these measures."
SPEER: I think that I have perhaps not understood correctly. I do not deny that a large number of the people working for the Organization Todt in the West had been called up and came to their work because they had been called up, but we had no means whatsoever of keeping them there by force. That is what I wanted to say. So if they did not want to work, they could leave again; and then they either joined the resistance movement or went into hiding somewhere else.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Very well. But this calling-up system was a system of compulsion, was it not?
SPEER: It was the calling-up of French workers for service in the Reich or in France. But here again I must add something. This report is dated June 1943. In October 1943 the whole of the Organization Todt was given the status of a "blocked factory" and thereby received the advantages which other blocked factories had. I explained that sufficiently yesterday. Because of this, the Organization Todt had large offers of workers who went there voluntarily, unless, of course, you see direct coercion in the pressure put on them through the danger of their transfer to Germany, and which led them to the Organization Todt or the blocked factories.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Were they kept in labor camps?
SPEER: That is the custom in the case of such building work. The building sites were far away from any villages, and so workers' camps were set up to accommodate the German and foreign workers. But some of them were also accommodated in villages, as far as it was possible to accommodate them there.- I do not think that on principle they were only meant to be accommodated in camps, but I cannot tell you that for certain.
THE PRESIDENT: Has the document been introduced before?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I was just going to give it to you. The document from which I have quoted is United States Exhibit 892. Now, leaving the question of the personal participation in this. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Is it new, Mr. Justice Jackson?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: No, it has been in.
THE PRESIDENT: It has been in before?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I am told that I am wrong about that, and that it is new. 892 is a new number. [Turning to the defendant.] Leaving the part of your personal participation in this program...
THE PRESIDENT: Could you tell us what the document is and where it comes from? I see it is EC-60; so it must be captured. But . . .
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: It is one of the economic documents. It is a very large document.
IN PRESIDENT: Could you tell us what it is or who signed it? It is a very long document, apparently, is it?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: It is a long document, and it is a report of the Oberfeldkommandant-L-i-l-l-e is the name of the signer. Now, coming to the question...
THE PRESIDENT: Let me look at the document, will you? You see, Mr. Justice Jackson, my attention has been drawn to the point that as far as the record is concerned, we have only this extract which you read. We have not got the date, and we do not have the signature, if any, on the document.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I was merely refreshing his recollection to get out the facts, and I was not really offering the document for its own sake. I will go into more detail about it, if Your Honor wishes. There is a great deal of irrelevant material in it.
THE PRESIDENT: If you do not want to offer it, then we need not bother about it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: A great part of it is not relevant.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The quotation is adequately verified.
THE PRESIDENT: In that case you may refer to it without the document being used. Then we need not have the document identified as an exhibit.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: [Turning to the defendant.] Leaving the question of your personal participation in these matters and coming to the questions dealt with in the second part of your examination, I want to ask you about your testimony concerning the proposal to denounce the Geneva Convention. You testified yesterday that it was proposed to withdraw from the Geneva Convention. Will you tell us who made those proposals?
SPEER: This proposal, as I already testified yesterday, came from Dr. Goebbels. It was made after the air attack on Dresden, but before this, from the autumn of 1944 on, Goebbels and Ley had often talked about intensifying the war effort in every possible way, so that I had the impression that Goebbels was using the attack on Dresden and the excitement it created merely as an excuse to renounce the Geneva Convention.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, was the proposal made at that time to resort to poison gas warfare?
SPEER: I was not able to make out from my own direct observations whether gas warfare was to be started, but I knew from various associates of Ley's and Goebbels' that they were discussing the question of using our two new combat gases, Tabun and Sarin. They believed that these gases would be of particular efficacy, and they did in fact produce the most frightful results. We made these observations as early as the autumn of 1944, when the situation had become critical and many people were seriously worried about it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, will you tell us about these two gases and about their production and their effects, their qualities, and the preparations that were made for gas warfare?
SPEER: I cannot tell you that in detail. I am not enough of an expert. All I know is that these two gases both had a quite extraordinary effect, and that there was no respirator, and no protection against them that we knew of. So the soldiers would have been unable to protect themselves against this gas in any way. For the manufacture of this gas we had about three factories, all of which were undamaged and which until November 1944 were working at full speed. When rumors reached us that gas might be used, I stopped its production in November 1944. I stopped it by the following means. I blocked the so-called preliminary production, that is, the chemical supplies for the making of gas, so that the gas production, as the Allied authorities themselves ascertained, after the end of December or the beginning of January, actually slowed down and finally came to a standstill. Beginning with a letter which is still in existence and which I wrote to Hitler in October 1944, I tried through legal methods to obtain his permission to have these gas factories stop their production. The reason I gave him was that on account of air raids the preliminary products, primarily cyanide, were needed urgently for other purposes. Hitler informed me that the gas production would have to continue whatever happened, but I gave instructions for the preliminary products not to be supplied any more.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Can you identify others of the group that were advocating gas warfare?
SPEER: In military circles there was certainly no one in favor of gas warfare. All sensible Army people turned gas warfare down as being utterly insane since, in view of your superiority in the air, it would not be long before it would bring the most terrible catastrophe upon German cities, which were completely unprotected.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The group that did advocate it, however, consisted of the political group around Hitler, didn't it?
SPEER: A certain circle of political people, certainly very limited. It was mostly Ley, Goebbels and Bormann, always the same three, who by every possible means wanted to increase the war effort; and a man like Fegelein certainly belonged to a group like that too. Of Himmler I would not be too sure, for at that time Himmler was a little out of favor with Hitler because he allowed himself the luxury of directing -an army group without being qualified.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, one of these gases was the gas which you proposed to use on those who were proposing to use it on others, and I suppose your motive was...
SPEER: I must say quite frankly that my reason for these plans was the fear that under certain circumstances gas might be used, and the association of ideas in using it myself led me to make the whole plan.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And your reasons, I take it, were the same as the military's, that is to say, it was certain Germany would get the worst of it if Germany started that kind of warfare. That is what was worrying the military, wasn't it?
SPEER: No, not only that. It was because at that stage of the war it was perfectly clear that under no circumstances should any international crimes be committed which could be held against the German people after they had lost the war. That was what decided the issue.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, what about the bombs, after the war was plainly lost, aimed at England day after day; who favored that?
SPEER: You mean the rockets?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Yes.
SPEER: From the point of view of their technical production the rockets were a very expensive affair for us, and their effect compared to the cost of their output was negligible. In consequence we had no particular interest in developing the affair on a bigger scale. The person who kept urging it was Himmler, in this case. He gave one Obergruppenfuehrer Kammler the task of firing off these rockets over England. In Army circles they were of the same opinion as I, namely, that the rockets were too expensive; and in Air Force circles, the opinion was the same, since for the equivalent of one rocket one could almost build a fighter. It is quite clear that it would have been much better for us if we had not gone in for this nonsense.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Going back to the characteristics of this gas, was one of the characteristics of this gas an exceedingly high temperature? When it was exploded it created exceedingly high temperature, so that there could be no defense against it?
SPEER: No, that is an error. Actually, ordinary gas evaporates at normal atmospheric temperature. This gas would not evaporate until very high temperatures were reached and such very high temperatures could only be produced by an explosion; in other words, when the explosives detonated, a very high temperature set in, as you know, and then the gas evaporated. The solid substance turned into gas, but the effects had nothing to do with the high temperature.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Experiments were carried out with this gas, were they not, to your knowledge?
SPEER: That I can tell you. Experiments must certainly have been carried out with it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Who was in charge of the experimentations with the gases?
SPEER: As far as I know it was the research and development department of the OKH in the Army ordnance office. I cannot tell you for certain.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And certain experiments were also conducted and certain researches conducted in atomic energy, were they not?
SPEER: We had not got as far as that, unfortunately, because the finest experts we had in atomic research had emigrated to America, and this had thrown us back a great deal in our research, so that we still needed another year or two in order to achieve any results in the splitting of the atom.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The policy of driving people out who didn't agree with Germany hadn't produced very good dividends, had it?
SPEER: Especially in this sphere it was a great disadvantage to us.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, I have certain information, which was placed in my hands, of an experiment which was carried out near Auschwitz and I would like to ask you if you heard about it or knew about it. The purpose of the experiment was to find a quick and complete way of destroying people without the delay and trouble of shooting and gassing and burning, as it had been carried out, and this is the experiment, as I am advised. A village, a small village was provisionally erected, with temporary structures, and in it approximately 20,000 Jews were put. By means of this newly invented weapon of destruction, these 20,000 people were eradicated almost instantaneously, and in such a way that there was no trace left of them; that it developed, the explosive developed, temperatures of from 400° to 500° centigrade and destroyed them without leaving any trace at all. Do you know about that experiment?
SPEER: No, and I consider it utterly improbable. If we had had such a weapon under preparation, I should have known about it. But we did not have such a weapon. It is clear that in chemical warfare attempts were made on both sides to carry out research on all the weapons one could think of, because one did not know which party would start chemical warfare first.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The reports, then, of a new and secret weapon were exaggerated for the purpose of keeping the German people in the war?
SPEER: That was the case mostly during the last phase of the war. From August, or rather June or July 1944 on I very often went to the front. I visited about 40 front-line divisions in their sectors and could not help seeing that the troops, just like the German people, were given hopes about a new weapon coming, new weapons and wonder-weapons which, without requiring the use of soldiers, without military forces, would guarantee victory. In this belief lies the secret why so many people in Germany offered their lives, although common sense told them that the war was over. They believed that within the near future this new weapon would arrive. I wrote to Hitler about it and also tried in different speeches, even before Goebbels' propaganda leaders, to work against this belief. Both Hitler and Goebbels told me, however, that this was no propaganda of theirs but that it was a belief which had grown up amongst the people. Only in the dock here in Nuremberg, I was told by Fritzsche that this propaganda was spread systematically among the people through some channels or other, and that SS Standartenfuehrer Berg was responsible for it. Many things have become clear to me since, because this man Berg, as a representative of the Ministry of Propaganda, had often taken part in meetings, in big sessions of my Ministry, as he was writing articles about these sessions. There he heard of our future plans and then used this knowledge to tell the people about them with more imagination than truth.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: When did it become apparent that the war was lost? I take it that your attitude was that you felt some responsibility for getting the German people out of it with as little destruction as possible. Is that a fair statement of your position?
SPEER: Yes, but I did not only have that feeling with regard to the German people. I knew quite well that one should equally avoid destruction taking place in the occupied territories. That was just as important to me from a realistic point of view, for I said to myself that after the war the responsibility for all these destructions would no longer fall on us, but on the next German Government, and the coming German generations.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Where you differed with the people who wanted to continue the war to the bitter end, was that you wanted to see Germany have a chance to restore her life. Is that not a fact? Whereas Hitler took the position that if he couldn't survive, he didn't care whether Germany survived or not?
SPEER: That is true, and I would never have had the courage to make this statement before this Tribunal if I had not been able to prove it with the help of some documents, because such a statement is so monstrous. But the letter which I wrote to Hitler on 29 March, in which I confirmed this, shows that he said so himself.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, if I may comment, it was not a new idea to us that that was his viewpoint. I think it was expressed in most of the other countries that that was his viewpoint. Now, were you present with Hitler at the time he received the telegram from Goering, suggesting that Goering take over power?
SPEER: On 23 April I flew to Berlin in order to take leave of several of my associates, and-I should like to say this quite frankly-after all that had happened, also in order to place myself at Hitler's disposal. Perhaps this will sound strange here, but the conflicting feelings I had about the action I wanted to take against him and about the way he had handled things, still did not give me any clear grounds or any clear inner conviction as to what my relations should be toward him, so I flew over to see him. I did not know whether he knew of my plans, and I did not know whether he would order me to remain in Berlin. Yet I felt that it was my duty not to run away like a coward, but to stand up to him again. It was on that day that Goering's telegram to Hitler arrived. This telegram was not to Hitler, but from Goering to Ribbentrop; it was Bormann who submitted it to him.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Submitted it to Hitler?
SPEER: Yes, to Hitler.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: What did Hitler say on that occasion?
SPEER: Hitler was unusually excited about the contents of the telegram, and said quite plainly what he thought about Goering. He said that he had known for some time that Goering had failed, that he was corrupt, and that he was a drug addict. I was extremely shaken, because I felt that if the head of the State had known this for such a long time, then it showed a lack of responsibility on his part to leave such a man in office, when the lives of countless people depended on him. It was typical of Hitler's attitude towards the entire problem, however, that he followed his statement up by saying: "But let him negotiate the capitulation all the same."
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did he say why he was willing to let Goering negotiate the capitulation?
SPEER: No. He said in an offhand manner: "It doesn't matter anyway who does it." He expressed all his disregard for the German nation in the way he said this.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: That is, his attitude was that there was nothing left worth saving, so let Goering work it out. Is that a fair statement of his position?
SPEER: That was my impression, yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, this policy of driving Germany to destruction after the war was lost had come to weigh on you to such a point that you were a party to several plots, were you not, in an attempt to remove the people who were responsible for the destruction, as you saw it, of your country?
SPEER: Yes. But I want to add...
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: There were more plots than you have told us about, weren't there?
SPEER: During that time it was extremely easy to start a plot. One could accost practically any man in the street and tell him what the situation was, and then he would say: "This is insane"; and if he had any courage he would place himself at your disposal. Unfortunately, I had no organization behind me which I could call upon and give orders to, or designate who should have done this or that. That is why I had to depend on personal conversations to contact all kinds of people. But I do want to say that it was not as dangerous as it looks here because actually the unreasonable people who were still left only amounted perhaps to a few dozen. The other 80 million were perfectly sensible as soon as they knew what it was all about.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Perhaps you had a sense of responsibility for having put the 80 million completely in the hands of the Fuehrer Principle. Did that occur to you, or does it now, as you look back on it?
SPEER: May I have the question repeated, because I did not understand its sense.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You have 80 million sane and sensible people facing destruction; you have a dozen people driving them on to destruction and they are unable to stop it. And I ask if you have a feeling of responsibility for having established the Fuehrer Principle, which Goering has so well described for us, in Germany?
SPEER: I, personally, when I became Minister in February 1942, placed myself at the disposal of this Fuehrer Principle. But I admit that in my organization I soon saw that the Fuehrer Principle was full of tremendous mistakes, and so I tried to weaken its effect. The terrible danger of the authoritarian system, however, became really clear only at the moment when we were approaching the end. It was then that one could see what the principle really meant, namely, that every order should be carried out without criticism. Everything that has become known during this Trial in the way of orders carried out without any consideration, finally proved-for example the carrying-out of the order to destroy the bridges in our own country-to be a mistake or a consequence of this authoritarian system. The authoritarian system-or let me put it like this-upon the collapse of the authoritarian system it became clear what tremendous dangers there are in a system of that kind, quite apart from the personality of Hitler. The combination of Hitler and this system, then, brought about these terrible catastrophes in the world.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, now-Hitler is dead; I assume you accept that-and we ought to give the devil his due. Isn't it a fact that in the circle around Hitler there was almost no one who would stand up and tell him that the war was lost, except yourself?
SPEER: That is correct to a certain extent. Among the military leaders there were many who, each in his own sphere, told Hitler quite clearly what the situation was. Many commanders of army groups, for instance, made it clear to him how catastrophic developments were, and there were often fierce arguments during the discussions on the situation. Men like Guderian and Jodl, for instance, often talked openly about their sectors in my presence, and Hitler could see quite well what the general situation was like. But I never observed that those who were actually responsible in the group around Hitler, ever went to him and said, "The war is lost." Nor did I ever see these people who had responsibility endeavor to unite in undertaking some joint step with Hitler. I did not attempt it for my part either, except once or twice, because it would have been useless, since at this stage, Hitler had so intimidated his closest associates that they no longer had any wills of their own.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well' let us take the Number 2 man, who has told us that he was in favor of fighting to the very finish. Were you present at a conversation between Goering and General Galland, in which Goering, in substance, forbade Galland to report the disaster that was overtaking Germany?
SPEER: No; in that form, that is not correct. That was another conference.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, tell us what there is about General Galland's conversation with Goering, as far as you know it.