Chapter VII: of the Treaty of Versailles discusses criminal (2)

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.

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 Bibliothèque 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 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. I 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 _Reichsgesetzblatt_, Part I, Page 769. I 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 Göring 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 1 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.”

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 _Völkischer 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 manner. 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 I, Page 179. I submit it and will read its complete text to the Tribunal, as Document Number RF-9.

“The decree of the Führer concerning the creation of a
Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor, dated 21 March 1942.

“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 Führer, 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.

“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 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.

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, Obergruppenführer 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 for Allocation of Labor by a decree of the Führer. 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 Göring. 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 Göring the day after the appointment of the Defendant Sauckel. This decree, dated 27 March 1942, was published in the _Reichsgesetzblatt_, 1942,