Source: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/12-11-45.asp
Timestamp: 2018-11-13 06:39:23
Document Index: 203465269

Matched Legal Cases: ['arts 1', 'art3', 'art 4', 'arts 1', 'arts 1', 'art 3', 'art 3', 'art 4']

The Avalon Project : Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 3 - Seventeenth Day
Tuesday, 11 December 1945
Sixteenth Day Volume 3 Menu Eighteenth Day
COL. STOREY: If the Tribunal please, the United States next offers in evidence some captured moving pictures through Commander Donovan, who had charge of taking them.
COMMANDER JAMES BRITT DONOVAN (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, the United States now offers in evidence Document Number 3054-PS, United States Exhibit Number 167, the motion picture entitled The Nazi Plan. This document contains several affidavits with exhibits, copies of which have been furnished to Defense Counsel. I ask the Tribunal whether it believes it to be necessary that I formally read the affidavits at this time. Since the motion pictures themselves will be presented to the Tribunal and thereafter be in its permanent record, I respectfully submit that the reading be waived.
In the past 3 weeks the Prosecution has presented to this Tribunal a vast amount of evidence concerning the nature of the Nazi conspiracy and what we contend to be its deliberate planning, launching, and waging of wars of aggression. That evidence has consisted of documentary and some oral proof, but the Nazi conspirators did more than leave behind such normal types of evidence. German proficiency in photography has been traditional. Its use as a propaganda instrument was especially wed known to these defendants, and as a result the United States in 1945 captured an almost complete chronicle of the rise and fall of National Socialism as documented in films made by the Nazis themselves. It is from excerpts of this chronicle that we have compiled the motion picture now presented, entitled The Nazi Plan, which in broad outline sums up the case thus far presented under Counts One and Two of the Indictment.
The motion picture has been divided into four parts. This morning we first offer to the Tribunal Parts 1 and 2, respectively entitled "The Rise of the NSDAP, 1921 to 1933," and "Acquiring Totalitarian Control of Germany, 1933 to 1935." These will be concluded by 11:20, at which time we assume the Tribunal will order its customary morning adjournment. At 11:30 we shallpresentPart3, entitled "Preparation for Wars of Aggression, 1935 to 1939." This will be concluded shortly before 1 o'clock. At 2 p. m. we will offer
11 Dec. 45
Part 4, 'Wars of Aggression, 1939 to 1944," and this will be concluded by 3 p.m.
Parts 1 and 2 now to be presented, enable us to re-live those years in which the Nazis fought for and obtained the power to rule all life, in Germany. We see the early days of terrorism and propaganda bearing final fruit in Hitler's accession to the Chancellery in 1933, then the consolidation of power within Germany, climaxed by the Parteitag of 1934, in which the Nazis proclaimed to the nation their plans for totalitarian control. It is in simple and dramatic form the story of how a nation forsook its liberty.
I wish again to emphasize that all film now presented to the Tribunal, including, for example, pictures of early Nazi newspapers, is the original German film, to which we have added only the tine in English. And now, if it please the Tribunal, we shall present Parts 1 and 2 of The Nazi Plan.
THE PRESIDENT: It may be convenient for the United States Prosecutor to know that the Tribunal propose to rise this afternoon at 4 o'clock instead of 5.
[The film, The Nazi Plan, was then shown in the court room until 1125 hours, at which time a recess was taken.] .
COMMANDER DONOVAN: May it please the Tribunal, in the films which have just been shown to the Tribunal we have watched the Nazi rise to power. In Part 3 of our documentary motion picture now to be presented, we see the use they made of that power and how the German nation was led by militaristic regimentation to preparation for aggressive war as an instrument of national policy. Part 3, "Preparation for Wars of Aggression, 1935-1939; 1935-Von Schirach urges Hitler Youth to follow principles of Mein Kampf."
[The showing of the film then continued and at the end a recess was taken until 1400 hours.]
COLANDER DONOVAN: This morning we presented photographic evidence of the history of National Socialism from 1921 to September 1939. We saw the dignity of the individual in Germany destroyed by men dedicated to perverted nationalism, men who set forth certain objectives and then preached to a regimented people the accomplishment of those objectives by any necessary means, including aggressive war.
In September 1939 the Nazis launched the first of a series of catastrophic wars, terminated only by the military collapse of Germany. It is this final chapter in the history of National Socialism that the Prosecution now presents.
[The showing of the film, part 4, then continued.]
COMMANDER DONOVAN: The Prosecution has concluded its presentation of the photographic summation entitled The Nazi Plan. We shall deliver for the permanent records of the Tribunal, as soon as possible, the original films projected today.
COL. STOREY: If the Tribunal please, just a brief announcement about the presentation that shall follow. The rest of the week will be consumed in the presentation of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, starting with exploitation of forced labor, concentration camps, persecution of the Jews, and Germanization and spoliation in occupied countries. We should like to call the Tribunal's attention to the fact that many of these chines will be crimes attributed to the criminal organizations which will follow. The program following will be the criminal organizations, beginning with the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the Reich Cabinet, the SA, the SS, and finally, the SD and Gestapo.
Mr. Dodd will now present "Exploitation of Forced Labor."
MR. THOMAS J. DODD (Executive Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, we propose to submit during the next several days, as Colonel Storey has said a moment ago, evidence concerning the conspirators' criminal deportation and enslavement of foreign labor, their illegal use of prisoners of war, their infamous concentration camps, and their relentless persecution of the Jews. We shall present evidence regarding the general aspects of these programs, and our French and Soviet colleagues will present evidence of the specific application of these programs in the West and the East respectively.
These crimes were committed both before and after Nazi Germany had launched her series of aggressions. They were committed within Germany and in foreign countries as well. Although separated in time and space, these crimes had, of course, an inter-relationship which resulted from their having a common source in Nazi ideology; for we shall show that within Germany the conspirators had made hatred and destruction of the Jews an official philosophy and a public duty, that they had preached the concept of the master race with its corollary of slavery for others, that they had denied and destroyed the dignity and the rights of the individual human being. They had organized force, brutality, and terror into instruments of political power and had made them commonplaces of daily existence. We propose to prove that they had placed the concentration camp and a vast apparatus of force behind their racial and political myths, their laws and polices. As every German Cabinet minister or high official knew, behind the laws and decrees in the Reichsgesetzblatt was not the agreement of the people or their representatives but the terror of the concentration camps and the police state. The conspirators had preached that war was a noble activity and that force was the appropriate means of resolving international differences; and having mobilized all aspects of German life for war, they plunged Germany and the world into war.
We say this system of hatred, savagery, and denial of individual rights, which the conspirators erected into a philosophy of government within Germany or into what we may call the Nazi constitution, followed the Nazi armies as they swept over Europe. For the Jews of the occupied countries suffered the same fate as the Jews of Germany, and foreign laborers became the serfs of the "master race," and they were deported and enslaved by the million. Many of the deported and enslaved laborers joined the victims of the concentration camps, where they were literally worked to death in the course of the Nazi program of extermination through work. We propose to show that this Nazi combination of the assembly line, the torture chamber, and the executioner's rack in a single institution has a horrible repugnance to the twentieth century mind.
We say that it is plain that the program of the concentration camp, the anti-Jewish program, and the forced labor program are all parts of a larger pattern, and this will become even more plain as we examine the evidence regarding these programs, and then test their legality-by applying the relevant principles of international law.
The evidence relating to the Nazi slave labor program has been assembled in a document book bearing the letter "A"; and in addition, there is an appendix to the document book consisting of certain photographs contained in a manila folder. Your Honors will observe that on some of the books we have placed some tabs, so
that it would be easier for the Tribunal to locate the documents. Unfortunately, we did not have a sufficient number of tabs to do the work completely, and that would account for tabs which are missing on some of the document books.
It may illuminate the specific items of evidence which will be offered later if we first describe in rather general terms the elements of the Nazi foreign labor policy. It was a policy of mass deportation and mass enslavement, as I said a minute ago, and it was also carried out by force, by fraud, by terror, by arson, by means unrestrained by the laws of war and laws of humanity, or the considerations of mercy. This labor policy was a policy as well of underfeeding and overworking foreign laborers, of subjecting them to every form of degradation, brutality, and inhumanity. It was a policy which competed foreign workers and prisoners of war to manufacture armaments and to engage in other operations of war directed against their own countries. It was a policy, as we propose to establish, which constituted a flagrant violation of the laws of war and of the laws of humanity.
We shall show that the Defendants Sauckel and Speer are principally responsible for the formulation of the policy and for its execution: that the Defendant Sauckel, the Nazis' Plenipotentiary General for Manpower, directed the recruitment, deportation, and the allocation of foreign civilian labor, that he sanctioned and directed the use of force as the instrument of recruitment, and that he was responsible for the care and the treatment of the enslaved millions; that the Defendant Speer, as Reich Minister for Armament and Munitions, Director of the Organization Todt, and member of the Central Planning Board, bears responsibility for the determination of the numbers of foreign slaves required by the German war machine, was responsible for the decision to recruit by force and for the use under brutal, inhumane, and degrading conditions Of foreign civilians and prisoners of war in the manufacture of armaments and munitions, the construction of fortifications, and in active military operations.
We shall also show in this presentation that the Defendant Goering, as Plenipotentiary General for the Four Year Plan, is responsible for all of the crimes involved in the Nazi slave labor program. Finally, we propose to show that the Defendant Rosenberg, as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, and the Defendant Frank, as Governor of the Government General of Poland, and the Defendant Seyss-lnquart, as Reich Commissar for the occupied Netherlands, and the Defendant Keitel, as Chief of the OKW, share responsibility for the recruitment by force and terror and for the deportation to Germany of the citizens of the areas overrun or subjugated by the Wehrmacht.
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The use of vast numbers of foreign workers was planned before Germany went to war and was an integral part of the conspiracy for waging aggressive war. On May 23, 1939 a meeting was held in Hitler's study at the Reich Chancellery. Present were the Defendants Goering, Raeder, and Keitel.
I now refer to Document L-79, which has already been entered in evidence as Exhibit USA-27. The document presents the minutes of this meeting at which Hitler stated, as Your Honors will recall, that he intended to attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity; but I wish to quote from Page 2 of the English text starting with the 13th paragraph as follows. In the German text, by the way, the passage appears at Page 4, Paragraphs 6 and 7. Quoting directly from the English text:
"The population of non-German areas will perform no military service and win be available as a source of labor."
We say the slave labor program of the Nazi conspirators was designed to achieve two purposes, both of which were criminal. The primary purpose, of course, was to satisfy the labor requirements of the Nazi war machine by compelling these foreign workers, in effect, to make war against their own countries and their allies. The secondary purpose was to destroy or weaken peoples deemed inferior by the Nazi racialists or deemed potentially hostile by the Nazi planners of world supremacy.
These purposes were expressed by the conspirators themselves. I wish to refer at this point and to offer in evidence Document 016-PS, which is Exhibit USA-168. This document was sent by the Defendant Sauckel to the Defendant Rosenberg on the 20th of April 1942, and it describes Sauckel's labor mobilization program. I wish to quote now from Page 2 of the English text, starting with the sixth paragraph; and in the German text, again, it appears at Page 2 of the second paragraph. Quoting from the text directly:
"The aim of this new, gigantic labor mobilization is to use all the rich and tremendous sources, conquered and secured for us by our fighting Armed Forces under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, for the armament of the Armed Forces and also for the nutrition of the homeland. The raw materials as well as the fertility of the conquered territories and their human labor power are to be used completely and conscientiously to the profit of Germany and her allies."
The theory of the master race underlay the conspirators' labor policy in the East as welt.
I now refer to Document Number 1130-PS, which is marked Exhibit USA-169. This document consists of a statement made by one Erich Koch, Reich Commissar for the Ukraine, on the 5th day of March 1943 at a meeting of the National Socialist Party in Kiev. I quote from the first page of the English text, starting with the first paragraph-and in the German text it appears at Page 2, Paragraph 1. Quoting directly again from the English text Koch said:
"1. We are the master race and must govern hard but just ....
"2. I will draw the very last out of this country. I did not come to spread bliss. I have come to help the Fuehrer. The population must work, work, and work again . . . for some people are getting excited that the population may not get enough to eat. The population cannot demand that. One has only to remember what our heroes were deprived of in Stalingrad .... We definitely did not come here to give out manna. We have come here to create the basis for victory.
"3. We are a master race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here."
At this point I should like to offer in evidence Document Number 1919-PS, which is Exhibit USA-170. This is a document which contains a speech delivered by Himmler, the Reichsfuehrer SS, to a group of SS Generals on the 4th day of October 1943 at Posen; and I am referring to the first page of the English text, starting with the third paragraph. For the benefit of the interpreters, in the German text it appears at Page 23 in the first paragraph. Quoting directly again from this document on the first page, starting with the third paragraph:
"What happens to the Russians, to the Czechs, does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary, by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether the other nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch or not interests me only insofar as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished."
MR. DODD: The author of that quotation is the Reichsfuehrer SS, Heinrich Himmler.
The next document to which I make reference is Number 031-PS, which is Exhibit USA-71. This document is a top-secret memorandum prepared for the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories on the 12th of June 1944 and approved by the Defendant Rosenberg;
and from it I wish to quote, from the English text starting with the first paragraph, and in the German text it appears at the first paragraph of Page 2. Quoting directly:
"The Army group center has the intention to apprehend 40,000-50,000 youths at the ages of 10 to 14 who are in the Army territory and to transport them to the Reich."
I wish to pass now to line 21 of Paragraph 1. Quoting directly I read as follows:
"It is intended to allot these juveniles primarily to the German trades as apprentices to be used as skilled workers after 2 years' training. This is to be arranged through the Organization Todt which is especially equipped for such a task by means of its technical and other set-ups. This action is being greatly welcomed by the German trade since it represents a decisive measure for the alleviation of the shortage of apprentices."
Passing a lime further on in that document, I wish to call to the attention of the Tribunal Paragraph 1 on Page 2, and to quote it directly:
"This action is aimed not only at preventing a direct reinforcement of the enemy's military strength but also at a reduction of his biological potentialities as viewed from the perspective of the future. These ideas have been voiced not only by the Reichsfuehrer SS but also by the Fuehrer. Corresponding orders were given during last year's withdrawals in the southern sector...."
I call to Your Honor's attention particularly that the approval of the Defendant Rosenberg is noted on Page 3 of the document. It is a note in ink on the original. I quote it:
"Obergruppenfuehrer Berger has received another memorandum on June 14, according to which the Reich Minister now has approved the action."
MR. DODD: No, Your Honor, I did not, but I did not want to refer to it at this time. I will refer to it a little later on.
THE PRESIDENT: Isn't it really a part of what follows at the top of Page 2, which you did read, "Following are the arguments . . ."
MR. DODD: Yes, I did omit that. I thought you were referring to the sentence above. I'm sorry.
"Following are the arguments against this decision of the Minister."-and then quoting "This action is not only aimed at preventing direct reinforcement of any military..."
THE PRESIDENT: Yes and you were telling us how you showed that the Defendant Rosenberg was implicated.
MR. DODD: Yes. On the last page of that document, the original bears a note in ink, and in the mimeographed copy it is typewritten:
One page back on that same document, from the first paragraph, four sentences down, the sentence begins:
"The Minister has approved the execution of the 'Hay Action' in the Army territories under the conditions and provisions arrived at in talks with Army group center."
The purposes of the slave labor program which we have just been describing, namely the strengthening of the Nazi war machine and the destruction or the weakening of peoples deemed inferior by the Nazi conspirators, were achieved, we repeat, by the impressment and the deportation of millions of persons into Germany for forced labor. It involved the separation of husbands from their wives, and children from their parents, and the imposition of conditions unfit for human existence, with the result that countless numbers were killed.
Poland was the first victim. The Defendant Frank, as Governor of the Government General of Poland, announced that under his program 1 million workers were to be sent to Germany; and he recommended that police surround Polish villages and seize the inhabitants for deportation.
I wish to refer to Document Number 1376-PS, whim is Exhibit USA-172. This document is a letter from the Defendant Frank to the Defendant Goering and it is dated the 25th day of January 1940; and I wish to quote from the first page of the English text, starting with the first paragraph, and in the German text, again, it appears at Page 1 of the first paragraph. Quoting directly:
"1. In view of the present requirements of the Reich for the defense industry, it is at present fundamentally impossible to carry on a long-term economic policy in the Government General Slather, it is necessary so to steer the economy of the Government General that it will, in the shortest possible time, accomplish results representing the maximum that can be secured out of the economic strength of the Government General for the immediate strengthening of our capacity for defense.
"2. In particular the following performances are expected of the total economy of the Government General...."
I wish to pass on a little bit in this text to the second page and particularly to Paragraph 9 in the English text. In the German text, the same passage appears on Page 3 in Paragraph 9. I am quoting directly again:
. "Supply and transportation of at least 1 million male and female agricultural and industrial workers to the Reich- among them at least 750,000 agricultural workers of which at least 50 percent must be women-in order to guarantee agricultural production in the Reich and as a replacement for industrial workers lacking in the Reich."
The methods by which these workers were to be supplied were considered by the Defendant Frank, as revealed in another document to which we now refer.
It is an entry in the Defendant Frank's own diary, to which we have assigned our Document Number 2233(a)-PS and which we offer as Exhibit USA-173. The portion which I shall read is the entry for Friday, the 10th of May 1940. It appears in the document book as 2233(a)-PS, on the third page in the center of the page. Just above it are the words "Page 23, Paragraph 1" to the left:
"Then the Governor General deals with the problem of the compulsory labor service of the Poles. Upon the pressure from the Reich it has now been decreed that compulsion may be exercised in view of the fact that sufficient manpower was not voluntarily available for service inside the German Reich. This compulsion means the possibility of arrest of male and female Poles. Because of these measures a certain disquietude had developed which, according to individual reports, was spreading very much and might produce difficulties everywhere. General Field Marshal Goering some time ago pointed out, in his long speech, the necessity to deport into the Reich a million workers. me supply so far was 160,000. However, great difficulties had to be overcome here. Therefore it would be advisable to co-operate with the district and town chiefs in the execution of the compulsion, so that one could be sure from the start that this action would be reasonably expedient. The arrest of young Poles when leaving church service or the cinema would bring about an ever increasing nervousness of the Poles. Generally speaking, he had no objections at all to the rubbish, capable of work yet often loitering about, being snatched from the streets. The best method for this, however, would be the organization of a raid; and it would be absolutely justifiable to stop a Pole in the street and to question him as to what he was doing, where he was working, et cetera."
I should like to refer to another entry in the diary of the Defendant Frank, and I offer in evidence an extract from the entry made on the 16th day of March 1940, which appears in the document book as 2233(b)-PS, and it is Exhibit USA-174. I wish particularly to quote from the third page of the English text:
"The Governor General remarks that he had long negotiations in Berlin the representatives of the Reich Ministry for Finance and the Reich Ministry for Food. Urgent demands have been made there that Polish farm workers should be sent to the Reich in greater numbers. He has made the statement in Berlin that he, if it is demanded from him, could of course exercise force in some such manner: he could have the police surround a village and get the men and women in question out by force, and then send them to Germany. But one can also work differently, besides these police measures, by retaining the unemployment compensation of these workers in question."
The instruments of force and terror used to carry out this program reached into many phases of Polish life. German labor authorities raided churches and theaters, seized those present, and shipped them back to Germany. And this appears in a memorandum to Himmler, which we offer in evidence as Document Number 2220-PS, and it bears Exhibit Number USA-175. This memorandum is dated the 17th day of April 1943; and it was written by Dr. Lammers, the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, and deals with the situation in the Government General of Poland.
DR. SERVATIUS: I should like to call the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the last three documents, which have just been read, were not made available to me beforehand. They do not appear on the original list of documents, nor have I been able to find them on the later list.
I therefore request that the reading of these documents be held in abeyance until I have had an opportunity to read them and to discuss them with my client.
Perhaps I may, at the same time, lodge an additional complaint. I received some interrogation records in English the day before yesterday. I consulted my client about them and he told me that they are not the actual transcripts of his words in the interrogation, because he was interrogated in German; an interpreter translated his statements into English, and then they were taken down.
These documents cannot have any evidential value since they were not presented to the defendant for certification; he did not sign them, nor were they read to him. They are transcripts in English, a language of which the defendant understands little or nothing.
I also discovered that another interrogation record on the Defendant Speer contains statements which incriminate my client but which are apparently also incorrect, as I established in consultation with the Defendant Speer.
I should like to have an opportunity of discussing the matter with the representative of the Prosecution and of clearing up these differences-to decide to what extent I can agree to the use of these documents. They were to be presented by the Prosecution today or tomorrow at the latest, but for the time being I must object to their use.
THE PRESIDENT: As I understand it, you said to us that the last three documents were not available to you and that they were not in the original list. Is that right?
DR. SERVATIUS: Not up to now. I want to have an opportunity of reading these documents in advance. They are being read here without my having seen them.
THE PRESIDENT: And then you went on to deal with the interrogations which have not been put into evidence.
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, I wanted to take the opportunity of saying that I wished to discuss these documents with the Prosecution before they are submitted to the Tribunal tomorrow, or probably even today. Meanwhile I must object to their being used as evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, do you know what the circumstances are about these three documents white have not been supplied?
MR. DODD: I do not, Your Honor. They have been placed in the defendants' Information Center and they partly have been in the information list. It may be that through some oversight these entries of this diary were neglected.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have these documents before me now; they are not numbered; the document concerning Sauckel begins on Page 10-question and answer on Pages 11 and 12. The record is not continuous; it consists of fragments of a transcript, which I want to trace to its origin.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for the Prosecution will supply you with these documents at the adjournment this afternoon. With reference to the interrogation, if they propose to use any interrogation in the Trial tomorrow, they can also supply you with any documents which are material to that interrogation.
. MR. DODD: I believe I was referring to Document Number 2220-PS.
THE PRESIDENT: That is right. You have not begun to read it yet.
MR. DODD: I propose to read from the fourth page of the English text, Paragraph 2 at the top of the page, particularly the last two sentences of the paragraph; and in the German text the passage is found in Page 10, Paragraph 1. Quoting directly, it is as follows:
"As things were, the recruiting of manpower had to be accomplished by means Of more or less forceful methods, such as the instances when certain groups appointed by the labor offices caught church and movie-goers indiscriminately and transported them into the Reich. That such methods only undermine the people's willingness to work and the people's confidence to such a degree that it cannot be checked even with terror, is just as clear as the consequences brought about by a strengthening of the political resistance movement."
That is the end of the quotation. We say that Polish farmland was confiscated with the aid of the SS and was distributed to German inhabitants or held in trust for the German community, and the farm owners were employed as laborers or transported to Germany against their will. We refer to Document Number 1352-PS, which bears Exhibit Number USA-176. This document is a report of the SS, and it bears the title "Achievement of Confiscations of Polish Agricultural Enterprises with the Purpose of Transferring the Poles to the Old Reich and Employing them as Agricultural Workers."
I wish to read from the first page of the English text beginning with the fifth paragraph; and in the German text it appears on Page 9, Paragraph 1 on that page. Quoting:
"It is possible without difficulty to accomplish the confiscation of small agricultural enterprises in the villages in which larger agricultural enterprises have been already confiscated and are under the management of the East German Corporation for Agricultural Development."
And then passing down three sentences, there is this statement which I quote:
"The former owners of Polish farms together with their families will be transferred to the Old Reich by the employment offices for employment as farm workers. In this way many hundreds of Polish agricultural workers can be placed at the disposal of agriculture in the Old Reich in the shortest and simplest manner. ~ this way, to begin with, the most pressing shortage now felt in a very disagreeable manner, especially in the root-crop districts, will be quickly removed."
Pursuant to the directions of the Defendant Sauckel, his agents and the SS men deported Polish men to Germany without their families, thereby accomplishing one of the basic purposes of the program, the supplying of labor for the German war effort, and at the same time, weakening the reproductive potential of the Polish people.
I wish to refer directly to Document L-61, which bears Exhibit Number USA-177. This document is a letter from the Defendant Sauckel to the presidents of the land labor offices. It. is dated the 26th day of November 1942, and I want to read from the first paragraph of that letter which states as follows:
"In agreement with the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, these Jews who are still in employment are also, from now on, to be evacuated from the territory of the Reich and are to be replaced by Poles, who are being evacuated from the Government General."
And passing to the third paragraph of that same letter, we find this statement. Quoting:
"The Poles who are to be evacuated as a result of this measure will be put into concentration camps and put to work, insofar as they are criminal or asocial elements. The remaining Poles, so far as they are suitable for labor, will be transported-without family-into the Reich, particularly to Berlin, where they win be put at the disposal of the labor allocation offices to work in armament factories instead of the Jews who are to be replaced."
THE PRESIDENT: Who is the Chief of the Security Police, mentioned in the second paragraph?
MR. DODD: The Chief of the Security Police was Heinrich Himmler. He was also the Reichsfuehrer of the SS.
DR. SERVATIUS: May I say something with regard to this document. The Defendant Sauckel denies knowledge of it and says that the place of dispatch, not mentioned during the reading of this document, is of importance. The document, according to its letterhead, was written at 96 Saarland Strasse, which was not the office of the Defendant Sauckel. The second point is that this document, contrary to the statement in the document list classifying it as an original letter of Sauckel, was not signed by him. Moreover the certification of the signature, customary on all documents, is missing. May I ask the prosecutor to read this into the record, so that I can come back to it later.
THE PRESIDENT: If the procedure which the Tribunal has laid down has been carried out, either the original document or a photostat copy were in your Information Center; and you can
then compare or show to your client either the photostat or the original.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have done that and only object now to the fact that from the reading of this document parts which I consider important are being omitted. If this letter is being read here it must be read in its entirety, including the parts which I consider important, namely, the letterhead and the type of signature.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat that.
DR. SERVATIUS: I am asking that if it is to be used as evidence, the letter should be read in its entirety, including its complete heading and the signature as it appears, namely, "signed Sauckel." The certification of the signature is missing, a fact from which my client draws certain conclusions in his favor.
THE PRESIDENT: You will have an opportunity after adjournment of seeing this document; and you have been told already that you can refer, when your turn comes to present your defense, to the whole of any document. It is inconvenient to the Tribunal to have many interruptions of this sort; and if you wish to refer to the whole document, you will be able to do so at a later stage.
DR. SERVATIUS: I must assume then, Mr. President, that it is admissible to read parts of a document instead of the whole. Did I understand correctly?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly. You can put in a part or the whole of the document when your turn comes. We will adjourn now; but, Mr. Dodd, you will satisfy this counsel for the Defense as to the reason why he had not got these documents.
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, I understand, Mr. President.
MR. DODD: Yes, I will.
THE PRESIDENT: And you will make them available to him and insure that he has an opportunity of seeing the original of this document so that he can check the signature.
MR. DODD: We will, and I will see that the original is available to him.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, we will adjourn now.
[The Tribunal adjourned until 12 December 1945 at 1000 hours.]