M. FAURE: Mr. President, Your Honors. At yesterday's session I explained to the Tribunal the principles of the provisions made by the Germans to ensure the seizure of raw materials and the control of finance in the occupied countries.
These provisions will be demonstrated by numerous documents which will be presented to the Tribunal in the course of the presentation of the case on economic spoliation and forced labor. I shall not quote these documents at this moment since, as I pointed out yesterday, the purpose of my introduction is limited to the initial concepts of the Germans in these matters. I shall cite only one document, which reveals the true intentions of the Germans in the very first period. This document bears our Document Number RF-3 (bis), and I offer it in evidence to the Tribunal.
It relates particularly to Norway. It consists of a photostatic copy, certified, of a transcript of a conference held in Oslo, 21 November 1940, under the presidency of the Reich Commissioner. I would point out to the Tribunal that we submit this document as being particularly significant, because Norway is a country which was occupied at a very early date by the Germans.
The date of 21 November 1940, which you see, refers to the very earliest period of the German occupation, and moreover, in the text of the conference, allusion is made to the situation of the 7 months preceding.
You will find there the exact psychology of the occupation as it existed in this period of April 1940 to November 1940, that is to say, at the time, or even before, when the Germans, while invading other countries, made the reassuring proclamations which I read to the Tribunal yesterday.
There were 40 personages present at the conference, of whom State Secretary Dr. Landfried represented the Reich Ministry of Economics. This is how the Reich Commissioner expresses himself:
"Today's conference is the continuation of a conference which was held in Berlin. On this occasion I should like, first of all, to stress and establish definitely that the collaboration between the Wehrmacht and the Reich Commissioner is
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exemplary. I must protest against the idea that the Wehrmacht carried out its financial task here in a muddled and irresponsible manner. We must also take into account the particular circumstances which then prevailed in Norway and which still partially prevail.
"Certain tasks were fixed by the Fuehrer which were to be carried out within a given time.
"At the conference in Berlin the following points were settled, which we can take as a basis of today's conference. There is no doubt that the country of Norway was utilized for the execution of the tasks of the Wehrmacht during the last 7 months in such a way that a further drain on the country without some compensation is no longer possible in view of the future tasks of the Wehrmacht.
"I considered it from the beginning my obvious duty in my capacity as Reich Commissioner to devote my activities to mobilizing all the economic and material forces of the country for the purposes of the Wehrmacht and not to call on the resources of the Reich as long as I am in a position to organize such resources in the country."
I will stop quoting the words of the Reich Commissioner at this point, and now I shall cite the terms of the reply of Dr. Landfried, which you will find a little lower down in the document:
"I am very glad to be able to state that we have succeeded here in Norway... in mobilizing the economic forces of Norway for German needs to an extent which it has not been possible to attain in all the other occupied countries. I must thank you especially in the name of the Minister of Economics for having succeeded in inducing the Norwegians to achieve the greatest possible results."
I think the Tribunal will have observed the series of expressions which are used in this document and which are quite characteristic. The Reich Commissioner says that from the very beginning, his duty was to mobilize all the economic and material forces of the country for the purposes of the Wehrmacht, and Dr. Landfried answers that they succeeded in mobilizing the economic forces to an extent which it has not been possible to attain in all the other occupied territories.
Thus we see that Dr. Landfried does not say that the Germans had, in Norway, a particular concept of occupation and that in the other countries they used a different procedure; he says that it was not possible to do as well in the other countries. The only limitation he recognizes is a limit of fact and opportunity, which will soon be overcome, but in no wise a limitation of law. The idea of a legal
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limitation never enters his mind, any more than it comes to the mind of any of the 40 personages present.
It is not here a question of an opinion or initiative of a regional administrative authority, but rather of the official doctrine of the Reich Cabinet and the High Command, since 40 high officials were present at this conference, and especially the representative of the Minister for Economy.
I should like to stress at this point that this German doctrine and these German methods for the mobilization of the resources of the occupied countries necessarily extend to the labor of the inhabitants.
I said yesterday that the Germans ensured for themselves from the very beginning the two keys of production. By that very fact they had within their power the working capital and the manpower. It depended on their decision whether labor worked or did not work, whether there should or should not be unemployment. This explains in a general way why the Germans took such brutal measures as the displacement and the mobilization of workers only after a certain time.
In the first period, that is to say, as long as there existed in the occupied countries stocks and raw materials, it was more in the interests of the Germans to utilize labor locally, at least to a great extent. This labor permitted them to produce for their benefit, with the wealth of these countries, finished products which they seized. Thus, besides the moral advantage of safeguarding appearances, they avoided the initial transportation of raw materials. The consideration of transport difficulties was always very important in the German war economy.
But when after a time, which was more or less long, the occupied countries were impoverished in their raw materials and really ruined, then the Germans no longer had any interest in permitting labor to work on the spot. They would, indeed, have had to furnish the raw materials themselves, and consequently that would involve double transportation-that of raw material in one direction and that of the finished products in the other direction. At that moment it became more advantageous for them to export workmen. This consideration coincided, moreover, with the needs resulting from the economic situation of Germany at that time and with political considerations.
On this question of the use of labor, I shall read to the Tribunal a few sentences of a document which I offer under Document Number RF-4. It is therefore the document following that from which I have just read. The note which you will find in the document book reproduces the sentences from. an article which appeared in the newspaper Pariser Zeitung on 17 July 1942.
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I offer at the same time to the Tribunal a certified photostatic copy of the page of the newspaper, which is from the collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale. This article is signed by Dr. Michel, who was the Chief of the Economic Administration in France. Its title is "Two Years of Controlled Economy in France." It is then an article written for the purpose of German propaganda since it appeared in a German newspaper which published one page in French in Paris. Naturally I wish to point out to the Tribunal that we in no way accept all the ideas which are presented in this article, but we should like to point out several sentences of Dr. Michel's as revealing the same sort of procedure about which I was speaking just now, which consisted of utilizing labor, first on the spot, as long as there was raw material, and then deporting that labor to Germany:
"In order to utilize the productive forces of French industry, the Reich began by transferring to France its orders for industrial articles for the war effort.
"One single figure is sufficient to show the success of this transfer of German orders: The value of the transactions to date is expressed in a figure surpassing hundreds of thousands of millions of francs. New blood Is circulating in the veins of French economy, which. is working to the utmost of its capacity ......
Some sentences in the original are omitted here, as they are of no interest, and I would like to read the following sentence:
"As the stocks of raw materials tended to diminish on account of the length of the war, the recruitment of available French labor began."
Dr. Michel uses here elegant ways of expressing himself, which cover the reality, that is to say, the beginning of the transfer of workmen at the moment when raw materials, which the Germans had appropriated from the beginning, had begun to be exhausted.
The conclusion which I would now like to give to my statement is the following: That the Germans have always considered labor, human labor, as a factor for their use. This attitude existed even before the official institution of compulsory labor, of which we will speak to you presently.
For Germans the work of others has always been compulsory and for their profit, and it was meant to remain so even after the end of the war.
It is this last point that I should like to emphasize, for it shows the extent and the gravity of the German conception and of the German projects. I shall quote in relation to this a document which will bear the Number RF-5 in our document book. Here
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is the document, which I submit to the Tribunal. It is a work published in French in Berlin in 1943, by Dr. Friedrich Didier, entitled Workers for Europe. It was issued by the central publishing house of the National Socialist Party. It begins with a preface by the Defendant Sauckel, whose facsimile signature is printed.
I shall quote to the Tribunal a paragraph from this work, which is the last page in my document book. It is Document Number RF- 5 and this sentence is found on Page 23. 1 quote:
"A great percentage of foreign workers will remain, even after victory, in our territory, in order to complete then having been trained in construction work-what the outbreak of war had prevented, and to carry out those planned projects which up to now had remained unrealized."
Thus, in a work of propaganda, consequently written with great prudence and with intent to seduce, we nevertheless find this main admission by the Germans, that they intended to keep, even after the war, the workers of other countries in order to insure the greatness of Germany without any limitation of aim or time. Hence it is a matter of a policy of perpetual exploitation.
If it please the Tribunal, my introduction having come to an end, M. Herzog will present the brief relating to forced labor in France.
M. JACQUES B. HERZOG (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): Mr. President and Your Honors.
The National Socialist doctrine, by the pre-eminence which it gives to the idea of the State, by the contempt in which it holds individuals and personal rights, contains a conception of work which agrees with the principles of its general philosophy.
For it, work is not one of the forms of the manifestation of individual personalities; it is a duty imposed by the community on its members.
"The relationship of labor, according to National Socialist ideas," a German writer has said, "is not a simple judicial relationship between the worker and his employer; it is a living phenomenon in which the worker becomes a cog in the National Socialist machine for collective production." The conception of compulsory labor is thus, for National Socialism, necessarily complementary to the conception of work itself.
Compulsory labor service was first of all imposed on the German people. German labor service was instituted by a law of 26 June 1935 which bears Hitler's signature and that of the Defendant Frick, Minister of the Interior. This law was published in the
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Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 769. 1 submit it to the Tribunal as, Exhibit Number RF-6 (Document Number 1389-PS).
From 1939 the mobilization of workers was added to the compulsory labor service. Decrees were promulgated to that effect by the Defendant Goering in his capacity as Delegate for the Four Year Plan. I do not stress this point; it arises from the conspiracy entered into by the accused to commit their Crimes against Peace, and which my American colleagues have already brought to the attention of the Tribunal. I merely point out that the mobilization of workers was applicable to foreigners resident in German territory, because I find in this fact the proof that the principle of compulsory recruitment of foreign workers existed prior to the war. Far from being the spontaneous result of the needs of German war industry, the compulsory recruitment of foreign workers is the putting into practice of a concerted policy. I lay before the Tribunal a document which proves this. It is Document C-2 of the French classification, Which I offer as Exhibit Number RF-7. This is a memorandum of the High Command of the German Armed Forces of I October 1938. This memorandum, drawn up in anticipation of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, contains a classification of violations possible under international law. In connection with each violation appears the explanation which the High Command of the Armed Forces thinks it possible to give. The document appears in the form of a list in four columns. In the first is a statement of the violations of international law; the second gives a concrete example; the third contains the point of view of international law on the one hand and, on the other hand, the conclusions which can be drawn from it; the fourth column is reserved for the explanation of the Propaganda Ministry.
I read the passage which deals with the forced labor of civilians and prisoners of war, which is found on Page 6 of the German original, Page 7 of the French translation:
"Use of prisoners of war and civilians for war work, (construction of roads, digging trenches, making munitions, employment in transport, et cetera)."
Second column:
"Captured Czech soldiers or Czech civilians are ordered to construct roads or to load munitions."
The third column:
"Article 31 of an agreement signed 27 July 1939 concerning the treatment of prisoners of war forbids their use in tasks directly related to war measures. Compulsion to do such work is in every case contrary to international law. The use of prisoners of war as well as civilians is allowed for road construction but forbidden for the manufacture of munitions."
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Last column:
"The use of these measures may be based on war needs or on the declaration -that the enemy has acted in the same way first."
The compulsory recruitment of foreign workers is thus in accordance with National Socialist doctrine, one of the elements of the policy of German domination. Hitler himself recognized this on several occasions. I quote in this connection his speech of 9 November 1941 which was printed in the Volkischer Beobachter of 10 November 1941, Number 314, Page 4, which I submit to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-8. I read the extract of this discourse, Columns 1 and 2, and the first paragraph below, in the German original:
"The territory which now works for us contains more than 250 million men, but the territory in Europe which works indirectly for this battle includes now more than 350 million. "As far as German territory is concerned, the territory occupied by us and that which we have taken under our administration, there is no doubt that we shall succeed in harnessing every man for this work."
The recruitment of foreign workers thus proceeds in a systematic mariner. It constitutes the putting into practice of the political principles as applied to the territories occupied by Germany, These principles, the concrete development of which in other departments of German criminal activity will be pointed out to you by my colleagues, are essentially of two kinds: employment of all active forces of the occupied or dominated territories; extermination of all their non-productive forces.
These are the two reasons which the-defendants gave in justification for the establishment of the recruitment of foreign workers. There are many, documents to this effect; I confine myself to the most explicit.
The justification for the recruitment of foreign workers, because of the necessity of including the peoples of the enslaved states in the German war effort, is primarily a result of the explanatory statement of the decree of 21 March 1942, appointing the Defendant Sauckel as Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor. The decree was published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1942, Part 1, Page 179. 1 submit it and will read its complete text to the Tribunal, as Document Number RF-9.
"The decree of the Fuehrer concerning the creation of a Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor, dated 21 March 1942.
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"The assurance of the required manpower for the whole war economy, and in particular for the armament industry, necessitates a uniform direction, meeting the needs of the war economy, of all available labor, including hired foreigners and prisoners of war, as well as the mobilization of all unused labor still in the Greater German Reich, including the Protectorate as well as the Government General and the occupied territories.
"This mission will be accomplished by Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel in the capacity of Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor. In this capacity he is directly responsible to the Delegate for the Four Year Plan."
I would like to point out here that the Defendant Sauckel developed the same theme at the Congress of Gauleiter and Reichsleiter held 5 and 6 February 1943 at Posen. He expressed himself in plain terms: He justified compulsory recruitment on the basis of National Socialist philosophy and on the basis of the necessity of drawing all the European peoples into the struggle carried on by Germany. His speech constitutes Document 1739-PS. I submit it under Exhibit Number RF-10, and I request the Court to take judicial notice of it and to accept the following passages in evidence against the Defendant Sauckel. First, Page 5 of the German text, fourth paragraph-this is found on the first page of the French translation:
"The remarkable violence of the war forces me to mobilize, in the name of the Fuehrer, many millions of foreigners for labor for the entire German war economy and to urge them to effect the maximum production. The purpose of this utilization is to assure in the field of labor the war material necessary in the struggle for the preservation of the life and liberty, in the first place, of our own people, and also for the preservation of our Western culture for those peoples who, in contrast to the parasitical Jews and plutocrats, possess the honest will and strength to shape their life by their own work and effort.
../menu.asp"This is the vast difference between the work which was exacted through the Treaty of Versailles and the Dawes and Young Plans at one time-which took the form of slavery and tribute to the might and supremacy of Jewry-and the use of labor which I, as a National Socialist, have the honor to prepare and to carry out as a contribution by Germany in the fight for her liberty and for that of her allies."
The compulsory recruitment of foreign workers did not have as its only object the maintenance of the level of German industrial
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production. There was also the conscious desire to weaken the human potential of the occupied countries.
The idea of extermination by work was familiar to the theorists of National Socialism and to the leaders of Germany. It constituted one of the bases of the policy of domination of the invaded territories. I lay before the Court the proof that the National Socialist conspirators envisaged the destruction by work of whole ethnical groups. A discussion which took place on 14 September 1942 between Goebbels and Thierack is significant. It constitutes Document 682-PS, which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-11, from which I take the following passage:
"Concerning the extermination of asocial elements, Doctor Goebbels is of the opinion that the following groups must be exterminated: All Jews and gypsies; Poles who have to serve 3 or 4 years penal servitude; Czechoslovakians and Germans who have been condemned to death or hard labor for life or placed in protective custody. The idea of extermination by work is best."
The idea of extermination by work was not applied to ethnical groups alone, the disappearance of which was desired by the defendants; it also led to the employment of foreign labor in the German war industry up to the extreme limit of each man's strength. I will revert to this aspect of the policy of forced labor when I lay before the Tribunal the treatment of foreign workers in Germany: The cruelty to which they were submitted sprang from this main conception of National Socialism, that the human forces of the occupied countries must be employed with no, other limitation than that of their extermination, which is the final goal.
The defendants have not only admitted the principle of compulsory recruitment of foreign workers; they have followed a consistent policy of putting their principle into practice, applying it in the same concrete manner in the various occupied territories. To do this they resorted to identical methods of recruitment;
they set up everywhere the same recruitment organizations to which they gave the same orders.
In the first place, it was a question of inducing foreign workers to work in their own countries for the army of occupation and the services connected with it. The German military and civil authorities organized yards and workshops in order to carry out on the spot work useful to their war policy. The yards and workshops of the Todt Organization, which were under the direction of the Defendant Speer after the death of their founder, and those of the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, and the NSKK organization, employed numerous foreign workers in all areas of Western Europe.
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But the essential undertaking of the German labor offices was the deportation of foreign workers to the munition factories of the Reich. The most varied means were used to this end. They were built up into a recruiting policy which can be analyzed as follows:
In the beginning, this policy took on the cloak of legality. The use of labor took the form of requisition as under the terms of Article 52 of the appendix to the fourth Hague Convention; it was also effected by means of the voluntary recruitment of workers, to whom the German recruiting offices offered labor contracts.
I shall provide the Tribunal with proof that the requisitions of labor effected by the National Socialist authorities were a deliberate misinterpretation of the letter and spirit of the international convention by virtue of which they were carried out. I shall show that the voluntary character of the recruitment of certain foreign workers was entirely fictitious; in reality their work contracts were made under the pressure which the occupation authorities brought to bear on their will.
The defendants lost no time in flinging aside their mask of legality. They compelled prisoners of war to do work forbidden by international conventions. I shall show how the work of prisoners of war was incorporated in the general plan for the Allocation of Labor from the occupied areas.
After all, it is through force that the defendants brought their recruitment plans to fruition. They did not hesitate to resort to violent methods. Thus they established compulsory labor service in the areas which they occupied. Sometimes they directly promulgated orders bearing the signature of military commanders or Reich commissioners; this is the case with Belgium and Holland. Sometimes they forced the actual authorities to take legislative measures themselves; this is particularly the case with France and Norway. Sometimes they simply took direct action that is, they transferred foreign workers to factories in Germany without issuing regulations providing for such action; this happened in Denmark. Finally in certain occupied areas where they had carried out Germanization, the defendants incorporated the inhabitants of those territories in the labor service of the Reich. It happened thus in the French provinces of Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, Moselle, and in Luxembourg.
The policy of compulsory labor was asserted and systematized from the day when the Defendant Sauckel was appointed Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor.
Member of the National Socialist Party since its formation, member of the Diet of Thuringia, and member of the Reichstag, Obergruppenfuehrer of the criminal organizations SS and SA, the Defendant Sauckel was Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Thuringia. On 21 March 1942 he was appointed Plenipotentiary General
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for Allocation of Labor by a decree of the Fuehrer This decree is countersigned by Lammers in his capacity as Reichsminister and Chief of the Chancellery and by the Defendant Keitel; the responsibility of these latter is confirmed by this countersigning. The Defendant Keitel has associated himself with the policy of compulsory labor through the appointment of Sauckel, the principles and methods of whom he approved.
I have already read this decree to the Tribunal. I would remind you that it placed Sauckel, in his capacity as Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labour, under the immediate orders of the Delegate for the Four Year Plan, the Defendant Goering The latter bears a direct responsibility in pursuing the plan of recruitment of compulsory labor. I shall produce numerous proofs of this. I ask the Tribunal to authorize me to produce as first proof the decree signed by the Defendant Goering the day after the appointment of the Defendant Sauckel. This decree, dated 27 March 1942, was published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1942, Part I, Page 180. 1 submit it to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-12 (Document Number 1902-PS). Goering by this decree did away with all the administrative offices of the Four Year Plan which had been charged with the recruitment of labor; he transmitted their powers to Sauckel's department, thus confirming his appointment.
The powers of Sauckel between 1942 and 1944 were considerably strengthened by decrees of Hitler and Goering These' decrees gave full significance to the Defendant Sauckel's title of Plenipotentiary. They gave him administrative autonomy and even legislative competency such as he could not have aspired to had he confined himself to executive tasks. The importance of the political part which he played during the last 2 years of the war increases to this extent the weight of the responsibility devolving upon him.
I draw the attention of the Tribunal very especially to the decrees of the Fuehrer of 30 September 1942 and of 4 March 1943 and to the decree of the Defendant Goering of 25 May 1942. 1 will not read these decrees, which have been commented on by my American colleague, Mr. Dodd. I submit them in support of my argument.
I will first refer to the decree of the Defendant Goering of 25 May 1942. It was published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1942, Part I, Page 347. He delegated to Sauckel part of the powers relating to labor held by the Minister of Labor. I submit it to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number EF-13 (Document Number 1905-PS).
Hitler's decree of 30 September 1942 gave Sauckel considerable power over the civil and military authorities of the territories occupied by the German Armed Forces. It made it possible for the defendant to introduce into the staffs of the occupying authorities
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personal representatives to whom he gave his orders direct. The decree is countersigned by Lammers and by the Defendant Keitel and appears in the Collection of the Decrees, Directives, and Notices of 1942, second volume, Page 510. 1 submit it under Exhibit Number RF- 14 (Document 1903-PS).
In the carrying out of this decree representatives of Sauckel's department were in fact introduced into the headquarters staffs of the military commands. The interrogation of General Von Falkenhausen, Military Governor of Belgium and Northern France, gives in this connection a proof which I would ask the Tribunal to be good enough to remember. General Von Falkenhausen was interrogated on 27 November 1945 by the head of the Investigation Section of the French Delegation. I submit his evidence to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-15. I read the following extract-Page 3, the first paragraph, of the French text, and Page 2, the fifth paragraph, of the German translation:
"Q: 'Can the witness tell us what was the line of demarcation between his own powers and the powers of the Arbeitseinsatz?'
"A: 'Up to a certain moment there existed in my department a labor service which was engaged in the hiring of voluntary workers. I no longer remember the exact date perhaps autumn 1942-when this labor service was placed under the order of Sauckel, and the only thing I had to do was to carry out the orders which came through this way. I don't remember, but Reeder, who is also in prison"'Reeder was a civilian official on the staff of General Von Falkenhausen-"'is very well informed about the dates and can undoubtedly give them better than I can.'
"Q: 'Before the question of labor was entirely entrusted to Sauckel's organization, did there exist in the General Staff or in its services an officer who was in charge of this question? Afterwards was there a delegate from Sauckel's service in this department?'
"A: 'Until Sauckel came into power there was, in my service, Reeder, who directed the Bureau of Labor in my office. This labor office functioned as an employment office in Germany, that is to say, it concerned itself with demands for labor which would naturally be voluntary.'
"Q: 'What took place when the change happened?,
"A: 'After the change the office continued to exist, but the orders were given directly by Sauckel to the Arbeitseinsatz and passed through my office."'
[A recess was taken.]
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M. HERZOG: I have just reminded the Tribunal of the legislative framework through which the activity of the Defendant Sauckel was exercised. This framework was strengthened by the varied decrees of the defendant. The first document shows that Sauckel deliberately assumed the responsibility of the general policy for the recruitment of foreign workers. It is his decree of the 22d of August 1942, which appeared in the Reichsarbeitsblatt, 1942, Part 1, Page 382. This decree lays down the principle of forced recruitment and makes the necessary provisions for the whole human potential of the occupied territories to be placed at the service of the German war machine.
Sauckel forced the inhabitants of the invaded countries to participate in the war of Germany against their own fatherland. It is not only a violation of international law, it is a crime against the law of nations. I submit the decree to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-17 and I shall read it:
"Decree Number 10 of the Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor, concerning the employment of labor in the occupied territories, under date of 22 August 1942.
"In order to mobilize the labor force of the occupied territories under the new organization for the Allocation of Labor within the European area, this force must be subjected to a rigid and uniform control. The maximum production, as well as the useful and rational distribution of this force, must be assured in order to satisfy the labor requirements of the Reich and the occupied territories. By virtue of the full powers which are conferred upon me, I order:
"I) By virtue of the decree of the Fuehrer, under date of 21 March 1942, concerning the Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor and by virtue of the ordinance of the Delegate for the Four Year Plan, under date of 27 March 1942, concerning the application of this decree, I likewise am competent to employ, as may be necessary, the labor of occupied territories, as well as to take all the measures necessary to augment its efficiency. Those German offices competent for the tasks of the Arbeitseinsatz and for the policy of wages, or my commissioners, will carry out this Allocation of Labor and take all measures necessary to increase efficiency, according to my instructions.
"2) This decree extends to all the territories occupied during the war by the Wehrmacht, as far as they are under German administration.
"3) The labor available in the occupied territories must be utilized in the first place to satisfy the primary war needs of Germany herself.
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"This labor must be utilized in the occupied territories in the following order:
"a) For the needs of the army, the occupation services, and the civilian services; b) for the needs of German armament; c) for the tasks of food supply and agriculture; d) for industrial needs other than those of armament, in which Germany is interested; e) for the industrial needs concerning the population of the territory in question."
A second document demonstrates the willingness of the Defendant Sauckel to take the responsibility for the treatment of foreign workers. It is an agreement concluded on 2 June 1943 with the Chief of the German Labor Front. I shall not read this document to the Tribunal; it has been discussed by Mr. Dodd. I point out that it was published in the Reichsarbeitsblatt, 1943, Part I, Page 588. 1 submit it in support of my statement under Exhibit Number RF-18 (Document Number 1913-PS).
Designated by Hitler and by the Defendants Keitel and Goering in order to pursue, under the control of the latter, the policy of recruitment of compulsory labor, the Defendant Sauckel carried out his task by virtue of the responsibilities which he had assumed. I request that the Tribunal bear this in mind.
I request the Tribunal, likewise, to note that the policy of recruitment of foreign workers involves the responsibility of an German ministers responsible for the economic and social life of the Reich. An inter-ministerial office, or at any rate an interadministrative office, the Central Office for the Four Year Plan, proceeded to formulate the program for the recruitment of foreign workers.
All departments interested in the labor problem were represented at the meetings of the Central Office. General Milch presided at the meetings, in the name of the Defendant Goering The Defendant Sauckel and the Defendant Speer took part, in person, and I shall submit to the Tribunal certain statements made by them. The Defendant Funk also took part; he therefore knew of, and approved, the program for the deportation of workers. He even collaborated in its formulation. As proof thereof 'I produce two documents inculpating Funk.
The first is a letter of 9 February 1944, in which Funk is summoned to a meeting of the Central Office of the Plan. It is Document F-674 which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-19. I read:
"Sir: In the name of the Central Office of the Plan, I invite you to a meeting concerning the question of the Allocation of Labor, to take place on Wednesday, 16 February 1944,
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at 10 o'clock in the committee room of the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Aviation, Leipziger Strasse, in Berlin.
"In the enclosure I transmit to you some statistics on the subject of the development of the Allocation of Labor. These statistics will serve as a basis for discussion at the meeting."
Funk was unable personally to attend the meeting but he arranged to be represented by Undersecretary of State Hayler. He received the minutes of the meeting, and on 7 March 1944 he wrote to General Milch to excuse himself for his frequent absences from the meetings of the Office. I submit this document to the Tribunal. It is Document F-675, which I submit under Exhibit Number RF-20. It is the account of the 53rd meeting of the Central Office of the Plan- The Tribunal may see on Page 2 of the French translation that Minister Funk received an account of this meeting. He is mentioned on the second line of the distribution list Reich Minister Speer first and on the second line Reich Minister Funk.
I now produce under Exhibit Number RF-21 (Document Number F-676) the letter by which Funk excuses himself to Marshal Milch because of his inability to be present at the meetings:
"Very honored and dear Field Marshal:
"Unfortunately the meetings of the Central Office of the Plan are always set for dates when I am already engaged by other important meetings. So it is to my great regret that I shall be unable to be present Saturday at the meeting of the Central Office of the Plan, inasmuch as I have to speak on that day in Vienna in the course of a great demonstration commemorating the anniversary of the day of the Anschluss.
"State Secretary Dr. Hayler will also be in Vienna on Friday and Saturday, where at the same time there will be an important southeast European conference, in which foreign delegates will participate and at which I must likewise speak.
"Under these circumstances I beg you to allow Ministerial Director and General of Police, SS Brigadefuehrer Ohlendorf, who is the permanent deputy of State Secretary Hayler, to participate as my representative...."
THE PRESIDENT: Does this document tell us anything more than that the Defendant Funk was unable to be present?
M. HERZOG: This document, Mr. President, was given to me by my American colleagues, who asked me to use it in the matter of compulsory labor, because they have not had the necessary time to include it in their charge against Funk. It is presented to the Tribunal to prove that Funk followed the meetings of
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the Central Office of the Plan and that he had permanent representatives there. He was represented at all meetings, and by the minutes he received he was kept in touch with the work of the Central Office of the Plan. That is why we present to the Tribunal this document on Defendant Funk.
I shall continue to quote:
"Under these circumstances, I beg you to allow Ministerial Director and General of Police, SS Brigadefuehrer Ohlendorf, who is the permanent deputy of State Secretary Hayler, to participate as my representative. Mr. Ohlendorf will have Ministerial Director Dr. Koelfen as a consultant for questions concerning goods for consumption and Counsellor of State Dr. Janke, for questions concerning foreign trade."
The policy of the Central Office pursued by the Defendant Sauckel is shown by the mass deportation of workers. The principle of this deportation is a criminal one, but the manner of its execution was even more criminal. I shall submit proof of this to the Tribunal and explain in succession, the methods of compulsory recruitment, its results, and the conditions of deportation.
I wish here to thank the members of the French Delegation and of the foreign delegations who have come to my aid in the preparation of my work, in particular, my colleague M. Pierre Portal, attorney at the bar of Lyons.
The statement which I have the honor of presenting to the Tribunal will be limited to the account of the recruiting of foreign labor in the occupied territories of Western Europe, since the deportation of workers coming from Eastern Europe will be dealt with by my Soviet colleagues.
During the whole duration of the occupation the local field commanders imposed conscription of labor on the populations of the occupied territories. Fortification works considered necessary for the furtherance of military operations and guard duties made necessary by the need of maintaining the security of the occupation troops were carried out by the inhabitants of the occupied areas. The labor requisitions affected not only isolated individuals but entire groups.
In France, for instance, they affected, in turn, groups of IndoChinese workers, workers from North Africa, foreign workers, and Chantiers de Jeunesse (youth workyards). I produce in evidence an extract from the report on forced labor and the deportation of workers drawn up by the Institute of Statistics of the French Government. This report bears the Document Number F-515 and I submit it to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-22. This document, because of its importance, has been taken out of the document book. I quote first of all Page 17 of the French
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text and 17, likewise, of the German translation, second paragraph before the end:
"Paragraph 6: The forced labor recruitment of constituted groups:
"Finally, a last procedure employed by the Germans on a number of occasions during the whole course of the occupation, for direct forced labor as well as for indirect forced labor: the 'requisition! of constituted groups already trained and disciplined and consequently an excellent contribution. "(a) Indo-Chinese labor (M.O.I.): This formation of colonial workers had been intended from the beginning of hostilities to satisfy the needs of French industry in unskilled labor. Under the control of officers and noncommissioned officers of the French Army, who became civilian officials after the month of July 1940, Indo-Chinese labor was, from 1945 on, compelled to do partial forced labor, directly as well as indirectly."
I skip the table on Page 18 and I read:
"(b) North African labor: Between 17 August and 6 November 1942 the home country received two contingents of workers from North Africa; one composed of 5,560 Algerians, the other of 1,825 Moroccans. These workers were immediately compelled to do direct forced labor, which brought the number of North African workers enrolled in the Todt Organization to 17,582.
"(c) Foreign labor: The law of 11 July 1938, concerning the organization of the nation in time of war, provided for the cases of foreigners living in France, obliging them to render service. Under French officers and noncommissioned officers who by the law of 9 October 1940 had assumed the status of civil servants, foreign labor was progressively subjected by the Germans to direct forced labor." I skip the table and I read:
"(d) Youth workyards: On 29 January 1943 the labor staff of the German Armistice Commission in-Paris made known that the Commander-in-Chief 'West' was examining whether and in what ways the formations of French labor might be called upon for the accomplishment of tasks important for both countries. There followed partial recruiting and demands for young people from the workyards for direct labor."
Similar requisitions took place in all the other territories of Western Europe. These requisitions were illegal. They were carried out by virtue of Article 52 of the Appendix to the fourth Hague Convention. In reality they systematically violated the letter and the spirit of the text of this international law.
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What does Article 52 of the Appendix to the fourth Hague Convention say? It is worded as follows:
"Requisitions in kind and services shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants except for the needs of the army of occupation. They shall be in proportion to the resources of the country and be of such a nature that they do not imply for the populations the obligation to take part in war operations against their country. Such requisitions and services shall be demanded only on the authority of the commander of the area occupied."
The terms in which Article 52 authorizes the requisition of services by an army of occupation are expressly formulated. These terms are four in number:
1. The rendering of services can be demanded only for the needs of the army of occupation. All requisitions made for the general economic needs of the occupying power are thus forbidden.
2. Services demanded by way of requisition must not entail an obligation to take part in military operations against the country of those rendering them. The rendering of any service exacted in the interests of the war economy of the occupying power, all guard duties, or exercise of military control are for bidden.
3. Services rendered in a given area must be in proportion to its economic resources, the development of which must not be hampered. It follows that any requisitioning of labor is contrary to international law if it results in the impeding or prevention of the normal utilization of the riches of the occupied country.
4. Finally, labor requisitions must, under the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 52, be carried out in the area of the locality under the administration of the occupation authority who has signed the requisition order. The transfer of conscripted workers from one part of the occupied area to another and, even more, their deportation to the country of the occupied power, are prohibited.
Labor requisitions exacted by German civilian and military authorities in the occupied areas did not honor the spirit of Article 52. They were carried out to satisfy either the needs of German economy or even the needs of the military strategy of the enemy forces. They deliberately refused to acknowledge the need of ensuring facilities for a reasonable utilization of local resources. They finally took the form of migration of workers. The case of those workers who were conscripted from all countries of Western Europe and formed an integral part of the Todt Organization, to help in building the system of fortifications known under the name of the "Atlantic Wall," may be taken as a typical example.
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This violation of international agreements is a flagrant one; it called forth repeated protests from General Doyen, Delegate of the French authorities at the German Armistice Commission. I ask the Tribunal to accept as evidence the letter of General Doyen, dated 25 May 1941. This letter constitutes Document F-283 and it is placed before the Tribunal as Exhibit Number RF-23, I read:
"Wiesbaden, 25 May 1941. General de Corps d'Armee Doyen, President of the French Delegation at the German Armistice Commission, to General of Artillery Vogl, President of the German Armistice Commission.
"On several occasions, and notably in my letters Numbers 14,263/AE and 14,887/AE of 26 February and 8 March, I protested to you against the use made of French labor within the Todt Organization in the execution of military work on the coast of Brittany.
"I have today the duty of calling your attention to other cases in which the occupation authorities have had recourse to recruiting French civilians to carry out services of a strictly military character, cases which are even more grave than those which I have already called to your attention.
"If, indeed, as concerns the workers engaged by the Todt Organization, it may be argued that certain ones among them accepted voluntarily an employment for which they are being remunerated (although in practice most often they were not given the possibility of refusing this employment), this argument can by no means be invoked when the prefects themselves are obliged at the expense of the departments and the communities, to set up guard services at important points, such as bridges, tunnels, works of art, telephone lines, munitions depots, and areas surrounding aviation fields.
"The accompanying note furnishes some examples of the guard services which have thus been imposed upon Frenchmen, services which before this were assumed by the German Army and which normally fall to the latter, since it is a question of participating in watches or of preserving the German Army from risks arising from the state of war existing between Germany and Great Britain."
The occupying authorities, in the face of the resistance which they encountered, were anxious that their orders regarding the requisition of labor should be obeyed. The measures which they took to this end are just as illegal as the measures taken for the requisition itself. The National Socialist authorities in occupied France proceeded by way of legislation. They promulgated ordinances by which sentence of death could be pronounced against persons disobeying requisition orders.
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I submit two of these ordinances to the Tribunal as evidence. The first was given in the early months of the occupation, 10 October 1940. It was published in the Verordnungsblatt for the occupied territory of France on 17 October 1940, Page 108. 1 submit it to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-24, and I read it:
"Ordinance concerning protection against acts of sabotage, 10 October 1940.
"By virtue of the powers which have been conferred upon me by the Fuehrer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, I decree the following:
"I. Whoever intentionally does not fulfill or fulfills inadequately the tasks of surveillance which are imposed upon him by the Chief of the Military Administration in France, or by an authority designated by the latter, shall be condemned to death."
I skip Paragraph 2 and read Paragraph 3:
"In less serious cases concerning infractions of Paragraphs 1 and 2 of the present ordinance, and in case of negligence, punishment by solitary confinement with hard labor or imprisonment may be imposed."
The second ordinance of the Military Commander in France to which I refer is dated 31 January 1942. It was published in the Verordnungsblatt of France of 3 February 1942, Page 338. 1 submit it to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-25 and I read:
"Ordinance of 31 January 1942 concerning the requisition of service and goods.
"By virtue of the plenary powers which have been conferred on me by the Fuehrer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, I decree the following:
"1. Whoever fails to comply with these requisitions of service or goods which are imposed upon him by the Military Commander in France, or an authority designated by him, or who performs them in such a manner as to imperil or make fail the purpose of the services or requisitions, shall be punished by penal servitude, imprisonment, or fine. A fine may be imposed in addition to penal servitude or imprisonment.
"2. In serious cases the penalty of death may be inflicted."
These ordinances were protested against by the French authorities. General Doyen protested on several occasions against the first of these without his protest having any effect.
I refer again to his letter of 25 May 1941, which I have just submitted to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-23 (Document
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Number F-283), and I read on Page 3 of the French text, Page 4 of the German translation:
"I am instructed to lodge a formal protest with you against such practices and to beg you to intervene so that an immediate end may be put to this.
"On 16 November, in letter Number 7,843/A.E, I already protested against the ordinance that was decreed on 10 October 1940, by the Chief of the Military Administration in France, which provided the death penalty for any person failing to carry out or carrying out inadequately the tasks of surveillance imposed by the occupation authorities. I protested then that this demand, as well as the penalty, was contrary to the spirit of the Armistice Convention, the object of which was to relieve the French population from any participation in the hostilities.
"I had limited myself to this protest in principle because at the time no concrete case in which such a task of surveillance might have been imposed had been called to my attention. But it was not possible to accept as justification of the ordinance in question the arguments which you gave me in your letter Number 1361 of 6 March.
"You did indeed point out there that Article 43 of the Hague Convention gave the occupying power the authority to legislate, but the power to which you refer in the said article is subject to two qualifications: There can be legislation only to establish and secure public order and life as far as it is possible. On the other hand, the ordinances decreed must..."
THE PRESIDENT: Isn't it enough to show that General Doyen protested? It is not necessary to read all the argument which was put forward on the one side or the other.
M. HERZOG: I shall then stop this quotation, Mr. President.
The German ordinances which I have just read to the Tribunal thus contained formal violations of the general principles of international criminal legislation; they were decreed in contradiction to Article 52 of the Annex to the fourth convention of The Hague and also in contradiction to Article 43, on which they were supposed to be based. They were, therefore, illegal and they were criminal, since they provided death sentences which no international law or domestic law justifies.
The system of the requisition of service furnishes the first example of the criminal character of the methods pursued by the defendants in the execution of their plan of recruitment of foreign labor.
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The National Socialist authorities then had recourse to a second procedure to give an appearance of legality to the recruiting of foreign workers. They called upon workers who were so-called volunteers. From 1940 on, the occupation authorities opened recruiting offices in all the large cities of the occupied territories. These offices were placed under the control of a special service instituted for this purpose within the general staff of the commanders-in-chief of occupation zones.
The Tribunal knows that these services from 1940 to 1942 functioned under the control of the generals. From 1942 on, and more precisely, from the day when the Defendant Sauckel became the Plenipotentiary for Allocation. of Labor, they received their orders directly from the latter. General Von Falkenhausen, Commander-in-Chief in Belgium and in the north of France, declared in the testimony which I have just read to the Tribunal that from the summer of 1942 he had become the simple intermediary charged with transmitting the instructions given by Sauckel to the Arbeitseinsatz.
Thus, the policy of the German employment offices set up in the occupied areas was carried out from 1942 under the sole responsibility of the Defendant Sauckel and his direct chief, the Delegate for the Four Year Plan, the Defendant Goering I ask the Tribunal to take note of this.
The task of the employment offices was to organize the recruiting of workers for the factories and workshops set up in Europe by the Todt Organization and by the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe and other German organizations. It was also their task to procure for the German munition factories the amount of foreign labor needed. Workers recruited in this way signed a labor contract; thus they had, theoretically, the status of free workers and were apparently volunteers.
The occupation authorities always made a point of the voluntary nature of the recruiting carried out by the employment offices, but the line followed by their propaganda systematically ignored what they were actually doing. In fact, the voluntary character of this recruiting was entirely fictitious; the workers of the occupied areas who agreed to sign German labor contracts were subject to physical and moral pressure. This pressure took several forms. It was sometimes collective and sometimes individual. In an its forms it was heavy enough to deprive the workers, who were its victims, of their freedom of choice.
The nullity of contracts entered into under the sway of violence is a fundamental principle of law common to all civilized nations. It is found just as expressly stated in German law as in the laws of the powers represented in the Court, or the states occupied by
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Germany. The German employment offices forced on the foreign workers labor contracts which had no legal significance because they were obtained with violence. I assert this and I will try to provide the Court with proof of my assertion.
First of all, I will show proof of premeditation by the Germans. The pressure under which the foreign workers suffered was not the result of sporadic action on the part of subordinate authorities. It came from the deliberate intent which the National Socialist leaders of Germany formulated into precise instructions.
I submit to the Tribunal Document 1183-PS, which is Exhibit Number RF-26. This is a circular dated 29 January 1942, dealing with the recruitment of foreign workers. This directive comes from a section of the Arbeitseinsatz; of the Delegate for the Four Year Plan. It bears the signature of the section chief, Dr. Mansfeld, but it places the executive responsibility directly on the Defendant Goering Delegate for the Four Year Plan. I read this circular:
"Berlin (SW 11), 29 January 1942, Saarlandstrasse 96.
"Subject: Increased mobilization of labor for the German Reich from the occupied territories and preparations for mobilization by force.
"The labor shortage, aggravated on the one hand by drafts for the Wehrmacht and on the other hand by the increased amount of work for armaments in the Reich, renders it necessary for labor for service in the Reich to be recruited from the occupied territories to a much greater extent than heretofore, in order to relieve the shortage.
"Therefore, any and all methods must be adopted which make it possible to transport, without exception and at once, for employment in the Reich, manpower in the occupied territories which is unemployed or which can be released... for use in Germany after most careful screening."
I read further on Page 2 of the German text:
"In the first place, this mobilization shall be carried out on a voluntary basis as hitherto. For this reason recruitment for employment in the German Reich must be intensified considerably. If, however, satisfactory results are to be obtained, the German authorities who are operating in the occupied territories must be able to exert any pressure necessary to support the voluntary recruitment of labor for employment in Germany.
"Accordingly, as far as may be necessary, the regulations in force in the occupied territories with regard to changing the place of employment or... those refusing work, must be tightened. Supplementary regulations concerning distribution of labor must, above all, insure that older persons who are
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exempt will be used to replace younger persons so that the latter may be made available for the Reich. A far-reaching reduction in the amount of relief granted by public welfare must also be effected in order to induce laborers to accept employment in the Reich. Unemployment relief must be set so low that the amount, in comparison with the average wages in the Reich and the possibilities there for sending remittances home, may serve as an inducement to the workers to accept employment in Germany. When refusal to accept work in the Reich is not justified, relief must be reduced to an amount barely sufficient for subsistence or even cancelled. In this case partial withdrawal of ration cards and an assignment to particularly heavy compulsory work may be considered."
I here end the quotation and I call to the Tribunal's attention that this circular is addressed to all the services responsible for labor in the occupied areas. Its distribution in Western Europe was: The Reich Commissioner for the occupied Norwegian territories, the Reich Commissioner for the occupied Dutch territories, the Chief of the Military Administration of Belgium and Northern France, the Chief of the Military Administration of France, the Chief of the Civil Administration of Luxembourg, the Chief of the Civil Administration at Metz, and the Chief of the Civil Administration at Strasbourg.
It is thus proved that a general common plan existed with a view to compelling the workers of the occupied territories to work for Germany.
I have now to show how this plan was put into practice in the different occupation zones. The machinery of pressure which the National Socialist authorities exerted on the foreign workers can be analyzed in the following manner: German labor offices organized intense propaganda in favor of the recruitment of foreign workers. This propaganda was intended to deceive the workers of the occupied areas with regard to the material advantages offered them by the German employment offices. It was carried out by the press, the radio, and by every possible means of publicity. This propaganda was also carried on as a side-line to official administrative duties by secret organizations which had been given the task of enticing foreign workers and subjecting them to a veritable impressment.
These measures proved to be insufficient. The occupation authorities then intervened in the social life of the occupied countries. They strove to produce artificial unemployment there and at the same time they devoted their energies to making living conditions worse for the workers and the unemployed.
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In spite of unemployment and the poverty with which they were threatened, the foreign workers showed themselves unmoved by German propaganda. This is why the German authorities finally resorted to direct methods of pressure. They exercised pressure on the political authorities of the occupied countries to make them give support to the recruiting campaign. They compelled employers, especially the organizational committees in France, to induce their workers to accept the labor contracts of the German employment offices. Finally, they took action by way of direct pressure on the workers and gradually passed from so-called voluntary recruitment to conscription by force.
The fiction of voluntary enrollment was dispelled by the sight of the individual arrests and collective raids of which the workers of the occupied areas rapidly became the victims. There are innumerable documents providing proof of the facts which I relate. I shall submit the most important of these to the Tribunal.
The documents which show proof of the publicity campaigns made in France by the German administration will be submitted to the Tribunal by M. Edgar Faure in the course of his brief concerning Germanization and Nazification. By way of example I wish to make use of a document which in the French classification bears the Document Number F-516, which I submit under Exhibit Number RF-27.
This is a report of the Prefect of the Department of the North to the Delegate of the Minister of the Interior in the General Delegation of the French Government in the Occupied Territories. This report points out that a German publicity car circulated through the community of Lille in order to induce French workers to go to Germany. I quote the report:
"Lille, 25 March 1942. Prefect of the Region of the North, Prefect of the Lille Region, to the Prefect, Delegate of the Minister of the Interior with the General Delegation of the French Government in the Occupied Territories.
"Subject: German publicity car.
"I have the honor to inform you that for some days a publicity car covered with posters inviting French workers to enroll for work in Germany has been circulating in the vicinity of Lille, while a loud-speaker plays a whole repertoire of records of French music, among which are featured the 'Marche Lorraine and the hymn Marechal Here We Are.'
THE PRESIDENT: I think we will adjourn until 2 o'clock.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]
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Afternoon Session
M. HERZOG: Mr. President, Your Honors. I showed you this morning what the official propaganda was which was conducted by the German offices in France to persuade workers to enroll for work in Germany. The effect of this official propaganda was reinforced by the clandestine recruitment bureaus. Real dens for clandestine recruiting were organized by the occupation authorities apart from the administrative services whose activities they completed. These recruitment bureaus were directed by German agents who often succeeded in securing local accomplices. In France these bureaus extended their ramifications to the non-occupied zone as well as the occupied zone. Several documents prove their existence. The first among them is a report transmitted on 7 March 1942 by the Vice President of the Council of Ministers of the de facto Government of Vichy, to the Delegate General for Franco-German Economic Relations. It is Document F-654 of the French archives.
This report is drawn up under the seal of Vice President of the Council, Darlan. It bears the signature of an officer of the latter's General Staff, Commander Fontaine. I submit this report under Exhibit Number RF-28 (Document F-654) and I read it:
"Vichy, 7 March 1942. Your Honor, the Delegate General, I have the honor of transmitting to you in this letter, for your. information, a report on the organization of recruitment in France of workers for German industry."
I now go to Page 2.
"26 of February 1942. Secret. Note on the organization of the recruitment in France of workers for German industry. Source: excellent.
"I. Organization of the recruitment of workers in France.
"One of the main organizations for the recruitment of workers in France for Germany is to be Societe de Mecanique de la Seine, whose head office is in Puteaux, Seine, at 8 Quai National, and which is also known as A. M. S.
"This society is to operate under the secret control of the Kommandantur, and of three engineers, one of which is to have the rank of chief engineer and the other two are to be M. Meyer and M. Schronner.
"In addition to the work which it has to carry out, this society is particularly entrusted with the re-education of workers recruited in France and sent to Germany at the request of German industrial firms on payment of premiums.
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"The A. M. S. is assisted in these operations in the Occupied Zone by three centers of recruiting which operate in Paris and are the Porte de Vincennes Center, the Courbevoie Center (200 Boulevard St. Denis), and the Avenue des Tournelles Center. These centers are also charged with co-ordinating the operations of recruitment in the non-occupied zone. For this zone, the two principal centers are in Marseilles and Toulouse. A third center is to be at Tarbes.
"a) The center at Marseilles is in charge of the recruitment in the Mediterranean zone, under the direction of Mr. Meyer who is mentioned above. The address of this engineer is not known, but one can obtain information about him at 24 Avenue Kleber, Paris, at the Military Commander's.
"In Marseilles the A.M. S. office is situated at 83 Rue de Sylvabelle. In his task Mr. Meyer is assisted by M. Ringo, who lives in Madrague-Ville, 5 bis Boulevard Bernabo, near the slaughter house."
I stop this quotation here to submit to the Tribunal the correspondence exchanged between the months of December 1941 and January 1942, between the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes and the authorities of the Vichy Government. This is Document F-518 which I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number RF-29. This correspondence emphasizes the activity of the German agents in clandestine recruiting, and particularly that of Mr. Meyer, to whom the report of Commander Fontaine, which I have just read, applies. I quote first the letter of 10 December 1941, in which the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes confirmed the reports which he had previously made on this question. It is the letter which is on the sixth page of the French text and the seventh page of the German text:
"Nice, 10 December 1941. The State Counsellor, Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, to His Honor, the State Secretary of the Interior, Secretariat General of the Police, Directorate for Home and Foreign Police.
"Subject: The activity of foreign agents, aimed at enticing away skilled workers.
"Reference: Your telegrams 12,402 and 12,426 of 28 November 1941; my reports 955 and 986 of 24 November 1941 and 6 December 1941.
"In my reports referred to I pointed out to you the activity of recruiting agents who attempted to entice skilled workers on behalf of Germany.
"I have the honor of giving you below some additional information gathered on this subject.
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"The German engineer Meyer and the French subject Bentz stopped on I December 1941 at the Hotel Splendid in Nice, coming from Marseilles."
Now, I go on to the third paragraph before the end:
"I permit myself to draw your attention particularly to the fact that in Paris they enrolled French workers for Germany."
Here I end the quotation.
These documents attest to the activity which the clandestine recruiting offices developed. But I am not satisfied merely to point out their existence; I wish to show that these offices operated under the initiative of official administrations and of the German office for labor.
The proof is furnished by a statement which the Defendant Sauckel made on 1 March 1944, during the 54th conference of the Central Office for the Four Year Plan. The stenographic report of these conferences has been found. It forms Document R-124, to which my American colleagues have already referred. I submit it again to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-30 and I shall read- from an extract of the minutes of the session of 1 March 1944. This is in Exhibit Number RF-30, in the French text, Page 2, second paragraph; in the German text, Pages 1770 and 1771. 1 quote the page numbers which are at the bottom and on the right of the German original. I read the declaration made by the Defendant Sauckel:
"The most abominable point against which I have to fight is the claim that there is no organization in these districts properly to recruit Frenchmen, Belgians, and Italians and to dispatch them to work. So I have even proceeded to employ and train a whole staff of French and Italian agents of both sexes who for good pay, just as was done in olden times for 'shanghaiing,' go hunting for men and dupe them, using liquor as well as persuasion..."
The propaganda of the official services and that of the clandestine recruiting offices proved to be inefficacious. The National Socialist authorities then had to resort to methods of economic pressure. They tried to give to the workers who were to go to Germany the hope of material advantages. I cite in respect to this an ordinance of the Military Commander in Belgium and the North of France, which I submit to the Tribunal. It is an ordinance of 20 July 1942 which appeared in the Verordnungsblatt of Belgium. It exempts from tax Belgian workers who work in German factories. I submit it to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-31.
On the other hand, the occupation authorities sought to lower the living standard of workers who remained in the occupied
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territories. I said that they had made poverty a factor in their recruiting policy. I am going to prove it by showing how they went about creating artificial unemployment in the occupied zones and aggravating the material situation of the unemployed.
I remark as a reminder that the German authorities also practiced for this purpose a policy of freezing salaries. This measure aided the recruiting campaign for labor for Germany and had also an economic bearing, and I would like to refer the Tribunal to the explanations which will be given on this point by M. Gerthoffer.
Unemployment was produced by two complementary measures: The first is the regulating of the legal working hours; the second, the concentration and, if need be, the closing of industrial enterprises.
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
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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. 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. 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
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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... 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.
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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). 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
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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. 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
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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.
"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. 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."
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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.
"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.
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"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.
"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
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guaranteed recruitment and apparent submission-the prisoners of war. From 1940 on, the German military authorities organized labor task forces in prison camps. 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. 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
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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 .....
THE PRESIDENT: We consider these documents as official and sufficiently authentic.
M. HERZOG: These rules of international law determine positively the legal powers of the nation having prisoners of war in its custody. It is legitimate to force prisoners of war to work during their captivity, but this includes three legal limitations:
1. It is forbidden to compel noncommissioned officers who are prisoners to work, unless they have expressly requested to do so.
2. War prisoners must not be used for dangerous work.
3. Prisoners must not be associated with the enemy war effort.
The National Socialist authorities systematically neglected these imperative provisions. They exercised violent constraint on noncommissioned officers held in captivity, to force them to join labor crews. They included war prisoners as workers in their factories and in the workyards, without considering the nature of the work imposed upon them. The utilization of war prisoners by National Socialist Germany took place under illegal and criminal conditions.' This I affirm and I will prove it to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take a recess for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
M. HERZOG: Mr. President, Your Honors. From 1941, the Germans exercised direct pressure on noncommissioned officers to force
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them to engage in productive work for the Reich war economy. This pressure, after the failure of propaganda methods, took the form of reprisals. Insubordinate noncommissioned officers were subjected to ill-treatment; they were sent to special camps, such as Coberczyn, where they were put under a disciplinary regime. Some incurred penal sentences because of their refusal to work. I submit, as proof, the report of the Ministry of Prisoners, Deportees, and Refugees of the French Government, Document UK-78(2), which is, in my document book, Exhibit Number RF-46. The document is in a white file. I shall read from the bottom of Page 19 in the French original, Page 10 of the German translation:
"Work of noncommissioned officers.
"On this subject the Geneva Convention was explicit: Noncommissioned officers who are war prisoners can be subjected to work only as supervisors, unless they make an express request for a remunerative occupation.
"In conformity with this article a certain number of noncommissioned officers refused to work from the beginning of their captivity. The number of imprisoned noncommissioned officers was, at the end of 1940, about 130,000 and represented later a very important source of labor for the Reich. Therefore, the German authorities strove by every means to induce the greatest possible number of objectors to work. To this effect, during the last months of 1941, the noncommissioned officers who did not volunteer for the work were, in most camps, subjected to an alternating regime. For a few days they had to undergo punishments such as the reduction of food rations, doing without beds, compulsory physical exercises for a number of hours, and particularly the pelote (punishment drill). During another period they were promised work according to their liking, and other material advantages, for example, special regulations for insurance, an extra number of letters, and higher wages. These methods led a certain number of noncommissioned officers to accept work. The noncommissioned officers who persisted in their refusal to work were subjected to a very severe disciplinary regime and to arduous physical exercises."
The National Socialist military authorities utilized the prisoners of war for dangerous work. 'The French, British, Belgian, and Dutch prisoners were used to transport munitions, to load bombs on planes, to repair aviation camps, and to construct fortifications. The proof of the use of prisoners of war for the transport of munitions and for the loading of bombs on, planes is furnished by the affidavits of repatriated French prisoners of war. These affidavits
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have been assembled in the report of the Ministry of Prisoners, which I have just quoted and which I shall quote again.
I now quote Page 27 of the French document, Page 14 of the German translation. It is the same document from which I have just quoted, Exhibit Number RF-46, Page 27:
"(b) The requisition of prisoners for the construction of fortifications and for the transport of munitions, very often in the close vicinity of the firing line.
"The war prisoners, Kommando 274 of Stalag II B, complain, December 1944, of being employed on Sundays in the construction of antitank trenches.
"On 2 February 1945 the prisoners of Stalag 11 D, evacuated on account of the advance of the Russian Army, worked, as soon as they arrived at Sassnitz, at fortification works and antitank works, in particular around the city.
"After falling back from Stalag III B, the war prisoners were engaged until the end of April in earthworks, digging trenches, and in transporting aviation bombs.
"Kommando 553 at Lebus was obliged to carry out work in the front lines under the fire of Russian artillery. Numerous comrades, drawn back to Furstenwalde, were employed in loading bombs on German bombers., In spite of their protests to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and to the colonel commanding Stalag III B, about billeting in barns, very bad hygiene, and insufficient food, the latter answered that he was obeying superior orders of the OKW, ordering the prisoners to dig trenches."
The National Socialist leaders, for that matter, admitted that they used French and British prisoners of war for military work' on airdromes exposed to Allied bombardment.
I offer in proof two notes, the first addressed by the OKH to the War Prisoners Section of the Wehrmacht, and the second by "Wilhelmstrasse" to the German representative of the Reich Foreign Office at the Wiesbaden Armistice Commission.
The memorandum of the OKH, dated 7 October 1940, constitutes Document F-549; I submit it to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-47, and I read it in full:
"The demand of the French Delegation shall be considered unfounded. The lodging of war prisoners in camps situated in the vicinity of aviation fields is not in contradiction to the rules of the rights of nations.
"According to Article 9, Paragraph 4, of the Convention on the Treatment of War Prisoners, of 27 July 1929, no prisoners of war shall be exposed to the fire of the combat zone.
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Combat zone in this sense is to be understood as the space in which normally a battle between two armies is carried on, thus extending to a depth of about 20 kilometers from the advance line. Places exposed to possible aerial attacks, however, do not belong to the combat zone. In this age of air warfare there no longer exists any sure shelter. The fact of using war prisoners for the construction of a camp and for the repairing of destroyed runways does not seem to lend itself to any controversy.
"According to Article 31 of the Convention quoted above, war prisoners must not be used in works directly related to war activity. The construction of shelters, houses, and camps is not directly a war act. It is recognized that war prisoners may be employed in the construction of roads. Accordingly their utilization for the reconstruction of aviation camps that have been destroyed is permissible. On the roads, trucks, tanks, ammunition cars, et cetera, are driven, and on the aviation fields there are planes. It is all the same.
"On the other hand, it would be illegal to use war prisoners for loading bombs, munitions, et cetera on bombers. This would be work directly related to war activity.
"By reason of the legal position explained 'above, the OKH has rejected the idea of withdrawing French prisoners of war employed on work in the aviation camps."
I draw the attention of the Tribunal to this document. It emphasized the bad faith of the leaders, of National Socialist Germany, which was two-fold: In the first place, the note of 7 October 1940, which I have read, acknowledges that it is forbidden by international law to use prisoners of war for the loading of bombs and ammunitions on bombers. But I have just brought proof to the Tribunal that the French prisoners of war were used for this purpose. In the second place, the note of the OKH disputes the dangerous character of the work carried out on the aviation fields.
But the note of "Wilhelmstrasse," to which I shall now refer, and which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-48 (Document Number F-550), recognizes, on the contrary, that prisoners forced to work on an aviation field incur grave danger because of the military purpose of this work.
I will read to the Tribunal a note of the German Foreign Office dated 14 February 1941, Exhibit Number EF-48 (Document Number F-550):
"Article 87 of the Agreement of 1929 on Prisoners of War provides that, in case of difference of opinion on the subject
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of the interpretation of the Agreement, the protecting powers shall offer their services to settle the dispute. To accomplish this, any protecting power may propose a meeting of representatives of the belligerent powers.... France herself assumes the responsibilities of a protecting power in questions on prisoners of war."
I shall pass on from this quotation to Paragraph 2 of the same document:
"As to the point in dispute, it is well to call attention to the following:
"The French conception, according to which prisoners of war may not be quartered near airfields and may not be employed in repairing runways, cannot be based on the exact content of Articles 9 and 31; but, on the other hand, it is certain that French prisoners of war quartered and employed under these conditions are in a particularly dangerous situation, because the airfields in occupied territories are used exclusively for German military purposes and thus constitute a special objective for enemy air attacks.
"The American Embassy in Berlin has likewise made a protest against a similar use of British prisoners of war in Germany. So far no answer has been made, because a rejection of this protest might result in German prisoners being employed in similar work in England."
The utilization of war prisoners for the construction of fortifications is substantiated by Document 828-PS, which I file with the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-49. It is a letter of 29 September 1944, addressed by the Chief of the German 1st Army Corps to the OKW, to give an account of work on fortifications accomplished by 80 Belgian prisoners of war. I quote:
"According to the teletype referred to, it is reported that in the territory of Stalag IA, Stablack Einsatzbereich 2-213, Tilsit-Loten near Ragnit, there are 40 Belgian prisoners of war and in Lindbach, near Neusiedel 40 Belgian prisoners of war, who are employed on fortification work."
There remains the task of proving that Allied prisoners, forced to work in Reich armament factories, were associated with the enemy war effort. To this end I first offer Document 1206-PS. This document is a memorandum, dated 11 November 1941, concerning a report made 7 November 1941 by the Reich Marshal. The document, consequently, establishes the direct responsibility of the Defendant Goering The use of Russian war prisoners is treated in a general way in this document, but it deals also with the use of war prisoners
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of Western European countries. I submit this document to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number RF-50, and I read:
"Berlin, 11 November 1941.
"Notes on report made by the Reich Marshal at a meeting of 7 November 1941 in the Reich Ministry for Air.
"Subject: Employment of Russian labor in the war economy."
THE PRESIDENT: Has that already been put in by the United States?
M. HERZOG: I think, Mr. President, that it was presented by the United States Prosecution. I shall, therefore, simply quote an extract, the fifth and sixth paragraphs of the first page, concerning the employment of French and Belgian war prisoners on individual employment in the economy of armament. This use of war prisoners in the Reich munitions factories corresponded to a common plan. It is the result of a systematic policy. The administrative offices for labor deliberately assigned to armament factories all war prisoners who seemed capable of carrying out skilled work. I quote, in this connection, Document 3005-PS, Exhibit RF-51. It is a circular addressed, in 1941, by the Ministry of Labor to the heads of employment offices concerning the use of French and Russian prisoners of war. This document has been submitted and commented upon by my American colleague, Mr. Dodd. I shall, therefore, not read it. I simply point out that this circular deals with the employment of all French war prisoners in the armament factories of the Reich.
After the capitulation of Italy, Italian soldiers who had fallen into the hands of the Germans-they were not called prisoners of war, But rather "military internees"-were forced to work. I offer in this connection, a directive of the Defendant Bormann, of 28 September 1943, Document 657-PS, which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-52.
The Italian military internees were in' three categories; some asked to continue the struggle on the side of the German army; others desired to keep a neutral attitude; others turned their arms against their former allies. The military internees of the second and third categories were, in the terms of the circular, to be forced to work. I read:
"Circular Number 55/43 G.R.S., top secret. Concerning the treatment and employment of Italian military internees.
"The OKW, in connection with the Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor, has regulated the treatment and the employment of Italian military internees. The most important directions of the ordinances of the OKW are the following...."
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I shall skip the rest of the first page and proceed to Page 2 of the French translation:
"The Italian internees who, when investigated, do not declare themselves ready to continue the struggle under German command, are put at the disposal of the Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor, who has already given the necessary instructions for their employment to the heads of the regional labor offices.
"It is to be noted that Italian military internees must not be employed together with the British and American prisoners of war ......
The prisoners of war offered passive resistance to German force. The National Socialist authorities intervened again and again to attempt to increase their output. I refer to Document 233-PS, which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-53. It is a directive of the OKW of 17 August 1944. The purpose is to indicate to the war prisoner bureaus measures capable of increasing the production of the prisoners. I read from the document:
"Subject: Treatment of War Prisoners-Increase in Production.
"The measures taken until now with regard to the treatment of war prisoners and the increasing of their production have not given. the hoped-for results. The offices of the Party and those of economy continually complain of the poor labor output of all the war prisoners. The object of this circular is to make known the directives for prisoners of war made in agreement with all interested offices of the Party and State. Accordingly all guard companies and their auxiliaries are to be given detailed instructions.
"I. Collaboration with the Hoheitstrager of the NSDAP.
"The co-operation of all officers in charge of war prisoners with the Hoheitstrager of the Party must be intensified to an even greater extent. To this end the commanders of the
prisoners-of-war camps shall immediately detail, for all the Kreise in their command, an energetic officer acquainted with all questions concerning prisoners of war, to act as liaison officer to the Kreisleiter. This officer shall have the duty of settling in closest collaboration with the Kreisleiter, according to the instructions of the camp commander, all questions concerning prisoners of war which. might be of public interest.
"The aim of this collaboration must be: (a) To increase the labor output of war prisoners; (b) to solve all arising difficulties quickly and on the spot; to organize the employment of war prisoners in the Kreise in such a way that it meets with the political, military, and economic requirements.
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"The Chancellery of the Party will give the necessary orders to the Gauleiter and the Kreisleiter.
"2. Treatment of prisoners of war. The treatment of prisoners of war shall be dictated, within limits compatible with security, by the sole purpose of increasing the labor output to the utmost extent. In addition to just treatment, providing the prisoners with the food due them according to stipulations, and with proper billets, supervision of the labor output is necessary to achieve this highest possible production.
"Available means must be employed with extreme rigor as regards lazy and rebellious prisoners."
The resistance of war prisoners caused the German labor bureaus to use a subterfuge to force them to work. I refer to the operation called the transformation of war prisoners into free workers. It consisted in transforming prisoners of war into so-called free workers, to whom a labor contract was offered. The operation was perfected by the Defendant Sauckel in the course of one of his trips to Paris on 9 April 1943. To Germany it offered the advantage of permitting the use of transformed prisoners in armament factories without directly violating the Geneva Convention. For the prisoners it presented only an illusory advantage, the decrease of the surveillance to which they were subjected. In reality the length and the nature of the work imposed upon them was in no way changed; their housing conditions and the quality of their rations remained unchanged. Moreover, this operation, presented by German propaganda as a special measure to war prisoners, brought about a deterioration of their legal status.
The prisoners of war were not fooled; in most cases they refused to co-operate with this German maneuver. Some agreed to do it, but a number of these took advantage of the first leave granted them because of their change in status, and Red. The report of the Statistical Institute on Forced Labor, which I submitted to the Tribunal this morning under Exhibit Number RF-22, (Document Number F-515) gives in this connection the following information. I quote it, Page 70 of the French text, Page 70 of the German translation. I shall read the second paragraph:
"The transformation of prisoners into 'free' workers, which was realized or carried out as the second Sauckel act and which because of this fact must be counted in the present list as dating from 25 April 1943, was decided by him, Sauckel, in the course of a trip to Paris on 9 April 1943. -It was to afford, after the prisoner had signed his contract, leave to go to France which was dependent on the return of the men who had gone on leave before. Two attempts were made to carry
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out this plan. As of 24 April 1943, out of 1,000 on leave, 43 did not return. In the month of August following, out of 8,000 on leave, 2,000 did not return. A last appeal directed to them was published in the press of 17 August without result. There is no third experiment, and the transformation in practice limited itself to the removal of sentinels and of camp guards, but did not change either the nature or the duration of the work or the housing conditions or the rations. On the other hand, it entailed loss of rights to receive packages from the International Red Cross and loss of the diplomatic protection of prisoners of war."
The forced utilization of war prisoners did not permit the German authorities to solve the labor problem of the war economy. That is why they applied their policy of force to the civilian populations of the occupied territories.
The National Socialist authorities systemized their policy of force, from 1942 on, by instituting compulsory labor in the different occupied territories. From the end of 1941 it has been confirmed that neither the recruiting of voluntary workers nor the utilization of prisoners led to a solution of the problem of the labor required for the war economy. The Germans then decided to proceed to the forced enrollment of civilian workers. They decreed a veritable civilian mobilization, the execution of which characterizes their criminal activity.
I refer to a circular of 29 January 1942, issued by Dr. Mansfeld on the responsibility of the Defendant Goering I remind the Tribunal that I have submitted this Document Number 1183-PS already under Exhibit Number RF-26. I read the passage from the document where I stopped this morning, Page 2, last paragraph of the French translation, Page 2; last paragraph also of the German original:
"In order to avoid effects detrimental to the armament industry, all considerations must yield to the necessity of filling in every case the gaps in the labor supply caused by extensive drafting into the Wehrmacht. To this end the forced mobilization of workers from the occupied territories must not be overlooked if voluntary recruitment should not succeed. The mere possibility of compulsory mobilization will, in many cases, facilitate recruiting.
"Therefore I ask you to take immediate steps in your district to promote the employment of workers in the German Reich on a voluntary basis. I herewith request you to prepare for publication, regulations to render possible forced mobilization of labor in your territory for Germany, so that they may be decreed at once in case recruiting on a voluntary basis remains without the success necessary to relieve labor in the Reich."
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The appointment of the Defendant Sauckel may be considered as preparatory measure for the establishment of compulsory labor. It was necessary that a central authority be set up in order to coordinate the activity of the different labor departments to proceed to the mobilization of civilian workers. The terms explaining the motives of the decree of appointment are explicit: The mission of the Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor consists in satisfying the labor needs of the German economy through the recruiting of foreign workers and the utilization of war prisoners. The decree of Sauckel dated 22 August 1942, which I have submitted to the Tribunal under Document Number EF-17, expresses, moreover, the -will of the defendant to set about recruiting by means of coercion.
The institution of compulsory labor represents deliberate violation of international conventions. The deportation of workers is forbidden by several stipulated regulations which have the value of actual law. I shall quote, first of all, Article 52 of the Annex to the Fourth Convention of the Hague. I have already given a commentary on it to the Tribunal to demonstrate that the requisitioning of, labor effected by the occupation authorities was illegal. Much more, the institution of compulsory labor was prohibited by Article 52. Compulsory labor was imposed upon foreign workers in the interest of the German war economy. It was carried out in armament factories of National Socialist Germany. It deprived the occupied territories of labor necessary for the rational exploitation of their wealth. It therefore is not within the framework of that labor requisition which Article 52 of the Hague Convention authorizes.
The prohibition of forced labor is, moreover, affirmed by another international convention. It is a question of the Convention of 25 September 1926 on slavery, of which Germany is a signatory. This treaty makes forced labor equivalent to slavery in its Article 5. 1 ask the Tribunal to refer to it.
Deportation of workers is the subject of a formal prohibition. Forced labor in German war factories was, therefore, instituted in flagrant violation of international law and of all pledges subscribed to by Germany. The National Socialist authorities transgressed positive international law; they likewise violated the law of nations. The latter guarantees individual liberty, on which the principle of forced recruitment is a characteristic attack.
The violation of treaties and the contempt of the rights of individuals are the tenets of National Socialist doctrine. Therefore, the defendants proceeded not merely to the mobilization of foreign workers; they proclaimed the necessity and the legitimacy of forced labor. I shall, first of all, indicate to the Tribunal certain declarations made by the defendants which amount to admissions. I shall thereupon indicate how the occupation authorities introduced the
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service of compulsory work in the different occupied territories. I shall demonstrate, finally, that the Germans took measures of violent coercion in an attempt to assure the execution of the civilian mobilization which had been decreed.
The legitimacy of forced enrollment has been upheld by Hitler. The proof of this can be found in the report of the Fuehrer conferences held on 10, 11, and 12 August 1942. It is contained in Document R-124 which I presented this morning under Exhibit Number RF-30. I shall not read it to the Tribunal, because my American colleague, Mr. Dodd, has done so during his presentation on forced labor. I point out that the document to which I refer indicates that the Fuehrer was in agreement with the exercise of all the necessary compulsion in the East as well as in the West, if the question of recruiting foreign workers could not be regulated on a voluntary basis.
The necessity of making use of compulsory labor was expressed in identical terms by certain defendants.
I shall not stress the numerous statements of the Defendant Sauckel to which I have already drawn the attention of the Tribunal. The explanatory statement of his decree of 22 August 1942, the program included in his letter of 24 April 1942, and the policy advocated in his speech at Posen in February 1943, reproduce faithfully the determination of the defendant to justify the principle of forced recruiting. I shall not revert to this.
I present to the Tribunal the declaration of the Defendant Jodl. This declaration is an extract from a long speech made by General Jodl, 7 November 1943 at Munich before an audience of Gauleiter. This speech is Document L-172. I offer it in evidence to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-54. I shall read Page 2 of the French translation, Pages $8 and 39 of the German original:
"The dilemma of manpower shortage has led to the idea of making more thorough use of the manpower reserves in the territories occupied by us. Here right and wrong conceptions are mixed together. I believe that as far as labor is concerned, -the utmost has been done, but where this is not yet the case, it would appear preferable from the political point of view to abstain from compulsory measures and instead to aim at order and economic effort. In my opinion, however, the time has now come to take steps with remorseless vigor and resolution in Denmark, Holland, France, and Belgium to compel thousands of idle persons to carry out fortification work, which takes precedence over all other tasks. The necessary orders for this have already been given."
The German Labor Service had not waited for the appeal of General Jodl to decree the mobilization of civilian foreign workers.
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I am going to show the Tribunal how compulsory labor was instituted and organized in France, Norway, Belgium, and Holland.
I should like to remind the Tribunal that in Denmark there was never any legal regulation for forced labor and that forced labor was carried out as a simple de facto measure.
I also wish to remind the Tribunal that compulsory labor was introduced in a special form in Luxembourg and in the French departments of Alsace and Lorraine. The occupation authorities incorporated the citizens of Luxembourg and the French citizens residing in the departments of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin, and Moselle, in the labor service of the Reich. This incorporation was carried out by ordinances of Gauleiter Simon and Gauleiter Wagner. The ordinances constitute an integral part of the Germanization plan for territories of Luxembourg, Alsace, and Lorraine. Their scope exceeds that of the measures of forced enrollment which were taken in other occupied territories. That is why I refer the Tribunal, on this point, to the explanation which will be given in the trial brief of M. Edgar Faure.
Two German texts of a general nature serve as a foundation for the legislation on forced labor in the occupied territories of Western Europe.
The first is the decree of Sauckel of 22 August 1942, to which I have drawn the attention of the Tribunal on several occasions. This decree prescribes the mobilization of all civilian, workers in the service of the war economy. Article 2 prescribes that this decree is applicable to occupied territories. This decree of 22 August 1942 thus constitutes the legal charter of the civilian mobilization of foreign workers. This mobilization was confirmed by an order of the Fuehrer of 8 September 1942. It is Document 556(2)-PS, Exhibit Number RF-55, which I submit to the Tribunal and from which I shall read:
"The Fuehrer and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht; General Headquarters of the Fuehrer 8 September 1942.
"The extensive coastal fortifications which I have ordered to be erected in the area of Army Group West necessitate in the occupied territory the utilization of all available workers to the fullest extent and to their utmost capacity. The assignment of indigenous workers, made up to now, is insufficient. In order to increase it, I order the introduction of compulsory labor and the prohibition of changing the place of employment without permission of the authorities in the occupied territories.
"Furthermore, in future, the distribution of food and clothing ration cards to those subject to compulsory labor shall depend on the possession of a certificate of employment.
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Refusal to accept an assigned job, as well as leaving the place of work without the consent of the authorities in charge, will result in the withdrawal of the food and clothing ration cards. "The GBA"-that is, the office of the Defendant Sauckel-"in agreement with the military commanders or the Reich Commissioners, will issue the appropriate directives."
The forced enrollment of foreign workers was preceded by preliminary measures to which the order of 8 September 1942 refers- which I have just read. I am speaking of the freezing of labor. To carry out the mobilization of workers it was necessary for the public services to exercise strict control over their use in the industrial enterprises of occupied territories. This control had a double purpose: It was to facilitate the census of workers suitable for work in Germany and to prevent workers from avoiding the German requisition by alleging a real or fictitious employment. The National Socialist authorities exercised this control by restricting the liberty of hiring and discharging, which they had given to the authorities of the labor bureaus.
In France, the freezing of labor was brought about by the law of 4 September 1942. 1 shall shortly explain to the Tribunal the conditions under which this law was formulated. I shall, for the moment, simply submit it to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-56 and ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of it.
In Belgium, the freezing of labor was carried out by the ordinance of the military commanding officer of 6 October 1942. I submit Document Number RF-57, of which I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice.
Finally, in Holland, where compulsory labor was instituted as early as 1941, an ordinance of the Reich Commissioner, dated 28 February 1941, which I offer to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-58, organized the freezing of labor.
The immobilization of labor was brought about under an economic pretext in all countries. In reality it constituted a preliminary measure for the mobilization of workers, which the National Socialists immediately proceeded to carry out.
In France compulsory labor was established by the legislation of the pseudo-government of Vichy, but this legislation was imposed upon the de facto French authorities by the defendants, and especially by Sauckel. The action which Sauckel brought against the Government of Vichy, to force it to favor the deportation of workers into Germany, was exercised in four phases: I shall briefly review for the Tribunal the history of these four Sauckel actions.
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The first Sauckel action was initiated in the spring of 1942, soon after the appointment of the defendant as Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor. The German armament industry had an urgent need of workers. The service of the Arbeitseinsatz had decided to recruit 150,000 skilled workers in France. Sauckel came to Paris in the month of June 1942. He had several conversations with French ministers. Otto Abetz, German ambassador in Paris, presided over these meetings. They brought about the following results:
In view of the reluctance of French authorities to establish compulsory labor, it was decided that the recruiting of 150,000 skilled workers should be carried out by a pseudo-voluntary enrollment. This was the beginning of the so-called exchange operation, to which I have already drawn the attention of the Tribunal.
But the Tribunal knows that the exchange operation was a failure and that, despite an intensification of German propaganda, the number of voluntary enrollments remained at a minimum. The German authorities then put the Vichy Government under the necessity of proceeding to forced enrollment. I offer in evidence the denunciatory letter of 26 August 1942, addressed by the German, Dr. Michel, Chief of the Administrative Staff, to the Delegate General for Franco-German economic relations. This is French Document F-530, which I shall submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number RF-59:
"Paris, 26 August 1942.
"Military Commander in France, economic section; to M. Barnaud, Delegate General for Franco-German Economic Relations; Paris.
"President Laval promised Gauleiter Sauckel, Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor, to make every effort to send to Germany, to help German armament economy, 350,000 workers, of which 150,000 should be metal workers.
"The French Government intended at first to solve this problem by recruitment, especially of the affectes speciaux. This method has been abandoned and that of voluntary enrollment has been attempted with a view to the liberation of prisoners. The past months have shown that the end in view cannot be achieved by means of voluntary recruitment.
"In France, German armament orders have increased in volume and urgency. Moreover, special tasks have been set, the accomplishment of which depends upon the supply of a very considerable number of workers.
"In order to assure the realization of the tasks for which France is responsible in the sphere of the Arbeitseinsatz,
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the French Government must now be asked to put into execution the following measures:
"1) The publication of a decree, concerning change of place of work. By virtue of this decree, leaving the place of employment and engaging labor depends on the approval of certain specified authorities.
"2) The institution of compulsory registration of all persons out of work, as well as of those who do not work full time or are not permanently employed. This compulsory registration is to ensure the fullest recruitment possible of all the reserves still available.
"3) The publication of a decree for the mobilization of workers for tasks important to the policy of state. This decree is to ensure: (a) The necessary labor for Germany; (b) the workers necessary in France for the carrying out of orders which have been transferred there and the workers needed for special tasks.
"4) Publication of a decree ensuring an adequate supply of apprentices. This decree is to impose upon French enterprise the duty of turning out, by means of apprenticeship and systematic training, young workers possessing adequate qualifications.
"For the Military Commander, the Chief of the Administrative Staff."-signed----"Dr. Michel."
Dr. Michel's letter forms the basis for the law relative to the utilization and the allocation of labor. It is the law of 4 September 1942, which I have submitted to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-56.
In application of the law, all Frenchmen between 18 and 50 who did not have employment for more than 30 hours a week, were forced to state this at their local town hall. A decree of 19 September 1942 and a directive of 22 September provided regulations as to how this declaration had to be made.
Sauckel's first action was achieved through a legislative plan; the defendant had merely to dip into the labor resources which were established by it. But the resistance of the French workers caused his recruiting plan to fail. This is why Sauckel undertook his second action, beginning in January 1943.
The second Sauckel action is marked by the introduction of compulsory labor, properly speaking. Until then workers had been the only victims of the policy of force of the defendants. The latter understood' the demagogic argument which they could derive from this de facto situation. They explained that it was inadmissible that the working classes of the occupied territory should be the only
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ones to participate in the German war effort. They demanded that the basis of forced labor be enlarged by the introduction of compulsory labor.
This was established by two measures. A directive of 2 February 1943 prescribed a general census of all French males born between 1 January 1912 and I January 1921. The census took place between 15 and 23 February. It had just been put in force when the law and decree of 16 February 1943 appeared. These regulations introduced compulsory labor for all young men born between 1 January 1920 and 31 December 1922. 1 submit them to the Tribunal under Documents Numbers RF-60 and 61, of which I ask the Court to take judicial notice.
The action carried out by the defendants to impose this exceptional legislation is substantiated by numerous documents. I particularly draw the attention of the Tribunal to four of these, which permit us to retrace the activities of the Defendant Sauckel during the months of January and February 1943. On 5 January 1943 Sauckel transmitted to the different departments of his administration an order of the Fuehrer which the Defendant Speer had communicated to him. This is Document 556(13)-PS, which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-62. I shall read its first paragraph:
"On 4 January 1943, at 8 o'clock in the evening, Minister Speer telephoned from the general headquarters of the Fuehrer giving the information that, by virtue of a decision of the Fuehrer it was no longer necessary, when recruiting skilled and unskilled labor in France, to have any particular regard for the French. Recruitment could be carried on there with pressure and more severe measures."
On 11 January 1943 the Defendant Sauckel was in Paris. He attended a meeting which brought together at the Military Commander's all responsible officials of the labor service. He announced to them that new measures of compulsion were to be taken in France. I refer you to the minutes of the meeting which constitute Document 1342-PS, which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-63. I shall read from Page 2 of the French translation; Page 1, fourth line, of the second paragraph of the German original:
"Gauleiter Sauckel likewise thanks the various services for the successful carrying out of the first action. Immediately after the beginning of the new year, he is obliged to announce further severe measures. There is a great new need of labor for the front as well as for the Reich armament industry."
I skip to the end of the paragraph. I shall read from the next paragraph:
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"The situation at the front calls for 700,000 soldiers fit for front-line service. The armament industry would have to lose 200,000 key workers by the middle of March. I have received an order from the Fuehrer to find 200,000 foreign skilled workers as replacements and I shall need for this purpose 150,000 French skilled workmen, while the other 50,000 can be drawn from Holland, Belgium, and other occupied countries. In addition, 100,000 unskilled French workers are necessary for the Reich. The second action of recruitment in France makes it necessary that by the middle of March 150,000 skilled workers and 100,000 unskilled workmen and women be transferred to Germany."
The Defendant Sauckel went back to Germany a few days later. On 16 February he was in Berlin at the meeting of the Central Planning Board. He gave a commentary on the law which was to appear that very day and revealed that he was the instigator of it. I refer once more to the minutes of the conferences of the Four Year Plan, included under Document Number R-124, which I submitted this morning to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-30. I shall read an extract from this document, which my American colleagues have not mentioned. It is Page 7 of the French translation of the document, Page 2284 of the German original; this is the situation in France:
"My collaborators and I having succeeded, after difficult discussions, in persuading Laval to introduce the law of compulsory labor in France, this law has now been so successfully extended, thanks to our pressure, that by yesterday three French age-groups had already been called up. So we are now legally qualified to recruit in France, with the assistance of the French Government, workers of three age groups whom we shall be able to employ henceforth in French factories, but among whom we shall also be able to choose some for our own needs in the Reich and send them to Germany."
The Defendant Sauckel returned to France on 24 February. I offer in evidence to the Tribunal the letter which he addressed to Hitler before his departure, to inform him of his journey. It proves the continuity of the action of Sauckel. The letter constitutes Document 556(25)-PS, which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-64, and I shall read it:
"Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor, to the Fuehrer general headquarters of the Fuehrer
"My Fuehrer
"I beg herewith to take leave of you before my intended journey to France. The purpose of my journey is:
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"1) To put at the disposal of the Reich, within the given time, skilled labor to replace German key workers being drafted into the Wehrmacht. May I add that Field Marshal Keitel and General Von Unruh received a communication from me yesterday to the effect that half of these replacements for key men, that is 125,000 French qualified skilled men, have already arrived in the Reich on I January 1943 and that a corresponding number of soldiers can be called to the colors. I shall now make sure in France that the second half shall arrive in the Reich by the end of March, or earlier if possible. The first French program was executed by the end of December.
"2) To assure the necessary labor for the French dockyards for the carrying out of the programs drawn up by Grand Admiral Doenitz and Gauleiter Kaufmann.
"3) To assure the necessary labor for the programs of the Luftwaffe.
"4) To assure the necessary labor for the other German armament programs which are in progress in France.
"5) To make available supplementary labor in agreement with State Secretary Backe, with a view to intensifying French agricultural production.
"6) To have discussions, if necessary, with the French Government on the subject of the carrying out of the labor service, the calling up of age-groups, and so forth, with a view to activating the recruitment of labor for the benefit of the German war economy. "
THE PRESIDENT: I think that is a good time to break off.
[The Tribunal adjourned until 19 January 1946 at 1000 hours.]
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