Chapter M: HERZOG: The Tribunal will draw its own conclusions. Mr. President, I (3)

SAUCKEL: The Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, in carrying out the Allocation of Labor, had to pass on my wishes and demands to the offices under him in that Ministry insofar as they related to my tasks. I cannot, of course, comment on the other departments in the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, which I do not know.

DR. THOMA: Did not Rosenberg tell you repeatedly that he would give Reich Commissioner Koch directions to make use of his authority?

SAUCKEL: That is correct. It was one of Rosenberg’s tasks to give orders to Reich Commissioner Koch, who was under him, in every field of administration there.

DR. THOMA: So that the way you understood it was that he was to give him instructions. In what way?

SAUCKEL: Rosenberg did and should—as we had expressly agreed—give instructions to Koch to put a stop to any wild and objectionable methods which were contrary to my instructions; and that Rosenberg did, as far as I know.

DR. THOMA: Rosenberg, by referring to the authority of the Reich Commissioner, meant that he was to prohibit your recruiting methods and no longer permit your recruiting units to bring away Eastern Workers?

SAUCKEL: Rosenberg never said that to me, rather he denied it; for these commissions, while they were in the Ukraine, were subordinate to and part of the labor allocation department of Reich Commissioner Koch. Koch was the supervising authority and the administrative authority for such matters. Those are the undeniable facts.

DR. THOMA: May I point out to the Tribunal that a Document, Rosenberg-10, shows that Sauckel did not understand this statement of Rosenberg’s.

THE PRESIDENT: Did you refer to some document there, Dr. Thoma?

DR. THOMA: Rosenberg-10.

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, the re-examination of the witness by the defense counsel for the Defendant Rosenberg must limit itself to new matters which have been brought up and are the subject of argument. There was every opportunity, when his client was in the witness stand, to clarify these questions. At the time I wanted to clear up this question on my own initiative, but I was informed that I ought to ask Sauckel. He made a clear statement here, and in my opinion there is no cause once more to come back in this connection to documents which belong to a previous period of the defense. I object to such questioning.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Thoma, I think you had better go on and ask your next question. I have not got the document before me yet that you are putting to the witness, or referring to. What is your next question?

DR. THOMA: Witness, did you not in your program assume full responsibility for the Allocation of Labor?

SAUCKEL: I assumed responsibility, and I acknowledge it, for what came within the limits of my power—I cannot do more than that—and for what I ordered and for what I caused to be done. This collection of decrees, Dr. Thoma, has been submitted and was shown to Herr Rosenberg...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, the defendant has been over this all before. He has been all through this before—about his responsibility.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, may I point out that regarding the question of responsibility, there is a certain paragraph—the decisive paragraph—which has not yet been read. It is Document 016-PS concerning the labor allocation program, and it says on Page 21, Figure 1...

THE PRESIDENT: Just say what the document is again, will you Dr. Thoma?

DR. THOMA: 016-PS, Page 20 of the German document. It says:

“All technical and administrative procedure of labor allocation
is subject exclusively to the jurisdiction and responsibility of
the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor, the
regional labor offices and the labor offices...”

SAUCKEL: Inside Germany, Doctor. Outside Germany I was, of course, subject to the competent chiefs of the areas in question. That is quite obvious.

DR. THOMA: In reply to that answer I draw the attention of the Tribunal to Page 15 of this labor program. This Figure 1, which I have just read, comes under the paragraph, “Prisoners of War and Foreign Workers.”

SAUCKEL: To the extent that they were employed in Germany.

DR. THOMA: May I point out that it states clearly under Figure 1:

“All technical and administrative procedure of labor allocation...”

SAUCKEL: And may I point out that it was not possible for me to interfere with Reich Commissioner Koch’s authority. He had said expressly that he would not permit that.

DR. THOMA: Witness, the Delegate for the Four Year Plan gave you special powers concerning conscription in dealings with all authorities and, in my opinion, it is not right that you should now deny these methods of recruitment and pass responsibility for them on to the Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories.

I have no further questions.

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, the defense counsel for Defendant Rosenberg may engage in cross-questioning, but it does not appear to me to be the right moment for him to make a speech of accusation against my client.

MR. DODD: Mr. President, I am well aware of the facts that there have been two cross-examinations, and I have no desire to go on with another one. However, we do have one document that we think is of some importance and which was turned over to General Alexandrov, but I think there must have been some language difficulty. The translation of it was not presented. I would like the permission of the Tribunal to ask one or two questions of this defendant about it and to present it. I think it is rather important that it be presented.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, the Tribunal does not think that this ought to create a precedent, but in view of your statement that the document was supplied to General Alexandrov and that, for some reason, he did not deal with it, we will allow you to cross-examine upon it.

MR. DODD: Very well, Sir.

Witness, do you remember an occasion in 1942, just after your appointment, when you met with some officials of the Ministry of Labor and you discussed with them the program which you were about to institute and for which you were about to take responsibility? Do you recall it?

SAUCKEL: I cannot, of course, remember details of that discussion. Various points of the program were discussed, and I might also say in connection with the comments made by the defense counsel for the Defendant Rosenberg since what he has been quoting is...

MR. DODD: Just a minute, just a minute. I simply asked you if you remembered this meeting, and you said you did not, and now there is the document.

SAUCKEL: Details of that conference I do not remember.

MR. DODD: And now take a look at the minutes of the meeting.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the document?

MR. DODD: This is EC-318.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the exhibit number? Has it been offered or not?

MR. DODD: I am now offering it. I was waiting to get the number from the secretary.

I will have to get the number a little later, Mr. President. I had not made preparations to submit this document, so I did not have the number in advance.

[_Turning to the defendant._] Now, I want to call your attention particularly to a few passages. You start out by telling the officials who were gathered there that you want to co-operate closely with them; and then, moving along, you give some idea of the number of workers whom you intend to recruit. You say there is an estimated requirement of 1 million; and you also made perfectly clear that day that you were to get most of your people, most of these workers, from the East and particularly from Soviet Russia.

You told these officials that you had talked for several hours with the Führer and for 8 hours with the Reich Marshal, and that you all agreed that the most important problem was the exploitation of the manpower in the East.

You further stated—do you see that in there?

SAUCKEL: Where does it say exploitation? I cannot find that word.

MR. DODD: Well, do you find where you say you had discussed your task with the Führer in a conversation that had lasted for several hours? Do you find that?

SAUCKEL: I cannot find it.

MR. DODD: You have the German there before you, have you not?

SAUCKEL: Yes, but will you please be kind enough to tell me the page?

MR. DODD: In the middle of Page 2. Have you found it?

SAUCKEL: Mr. Prosecutor, I want particularly to point out to you the difference in German between the words “Ausnutzung” and “Ausbeutung.” “Ausbeutung” (exploitation) is a word which, in the language of the workers, has a rather bad implication, but “Ausnutzung” (use of) is quite an ordinary concept; to use something means making it useful. That is a great difference in meaning in the German language.

MR. DODD: Well, we will stand by ours and you may stand by yours, and the Tribunal will ascertain between the two of us who has the correct translation.

In any event, whether you said “use of” or “exploit,” you did say that the most important solution was either the use of or the exploitation...

SAUCKEL: But that is not the same thing, Mr. Prosecutor. In German there is a fundamental difference in meaning. I must point out that the word exploitation is a word which I did not use and did not want to use.

THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, would you speak a little bit lower. You quite drown the interpreter’s voice.

SAUCKEL: I beg your pardon, My Lord.

MR. DODD: I am not concerned with whether or not you agree with the word “exploit.” That is a very unimportant part of this document, as I think you probably already recognize.

SAUCKEL: I beg to contradict you. That word is most important from the humane point of view.

MR. DODD: I don’t care to have any argument with you at all. We...

THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, the Tribunal is perfectly well able to understand the difference between the use of the words, and you have told us the translation you say is right.

MR. DODD: Now, if you move down a little bit, do you recall having said that 1 million Russians would have to be brought into Germany as rapidly as possible, to become available even prior to the offensive?

It is the next sentence or two there in your text. You won’t see it by looking at me. Do you read the next sentence?

SAUCKEL: Yes, I should like permission to read the next sentence:

“The necessary condition for taking on the task would be the
assurance that Russians would be given approximately the same
rations as have been in force for the German civilian
population.”

MR. DODD: You have skipped the sentence that I want you to read. I know that one comes along, but I want you to read the one where you say you would have to bring 1 million Russians into the Reich as rapidly as possible, and that is the very next or almost the next sentence after the one you have been discussing, about the word “exploit” or “use of.”

SAUCKEL: “...must be brought to the Reich as quickly as possible.”

MR. DODD: That is all I want to know. Do you remember saying that?

SAUCKEL: Yes, I said that. I must say in connection with this that this is a record which I have never seen before or checked. Someone made it, but the record itself I was not familiar with, and it was never submitted to me.

MR. DODD: Well, I suppose it could be truthful even though you didn’t make it.

Let us move on here to the next to the last paragraph, and you will find a sentence which says or suggests:

“They”—referring to the Russians—“will have to be handled so
roughly by the German administration in the East that they will
prefer to go to Germany rather than stay in Russia.”

Do you find that?

SAUCKEL: Will you tell me where that sentence is?

MR. DODD: Well, it is right after the sentence where you talk about your negotiations with Himmler. Maybe that will help you.

Do you find where you say you had negotiations with the Reichsführer SS? You succeeded in getting him to remove the barbed wire. Surely you have read that.

Now you find the sentence, do you?

“They would have to be handled so roughly by the German
administration in the East that they would prefer to go to
Germany rather than stay in Russia.”

Do you remember saying that?

SAUCKEL: I cannot say that I used these specific words in speaking to him, for, as I have already stated, it is a record of statements of a problematical nature which I myself did not check, and I cannot be sure how a third person came to write this record from memory. These are not shorthand minutes; it is merely a record which is not signed by anyone and in which...

MR. DODD: I don’t think you need to give us any long dissertation on the fact that it is somebody else’s minutes. It is not offered to you as being your own.

SAUCKEL: Yes, but I have the right and am obliged to say that.

MR. DODD: I wish you would wait a minute and let me put a question to you once in a while. I have not suggested that these are your minutes. I have merely put it to you for the purpose of determining whether or not on seeing it you remember it. And do you, or do you not remember it?

SAUCKEL: I certainly do not remember that passage. I can merely read here something written by a third person, and I do not know who it was. This person may quite well have misunderstood me; that is possible...

MR. DODD: Well, you also find you did have some conversations with the Reichsführer SS. Do you remember having said that, in the course of this conversation or speech or whatever it was that you were making?

SAUCKEL: The Reichsführer SS put me off on several occasions, and I had to insist to get the Reichsführer SS to remove the barbed wire fences. I did that. From the very beginning of my term of office I moderated the orders of the Reichsführer SS; and that, of course, caused vigorous arguments between us.

MR. DODD: Then that part of the minutes of this meeting is correct, isn’t it? The reporter, or whoever it was that took this down, correctly reported what you said about your negotiations with the Reichsführer SS, did he? You find no fault with that?

SAUCKEL: What he wrote down in detail about what I am supposed to have said I have not yet read.

MR. DODD: Now, listen. You read back and look at that paper at which you have just been looking. You find fault with the sentence that reports that you said they were to be handled roughly in the East, but you do not find any fault with the sentence ahead of it which says you had the barbed wire taken down, isn’t that so?

You seem to be complaining about the fact that this was somebody else’s report and not yours. Have you read it?

SAUCKEL: No.

MR. DODD: Well, it is the sentence just before the one we have just been talking about.

Do you really mean you cannot find it? Do you want help?

SAUCKEL: Two pages appear in duplicate here.

MR. DODD: All I have asked you, Witness, is whether or not the sentence about your meeting with Himmler is a fairly accurate report of what you said. Is it?

SAUCKEL: That I cannot tell you from memory. I very seldom spoke to Himmler and then only cursorily. It may have been negotiations carried out by my office on my order. That I cannot tell you.

MR. DODD: Well, your answer to all of this is, then, that you don’t remember what you said there; this doesn’t help you any to remember.

SAUCKEL: You cannot possibly expect me to remember exactly events which lasted very briefly and took place so long ago.

MR. DODD: I am perfectly willing to let it rest there. There is the written record against your failure of memory, and I will leave that with the Tribunal...

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, I think you should put to him...

SAUCKEL: With which, however, I was not familiar before this.

THE PRESIDENT: I think you should put to him the next paragraph, “Thirdly...” which follows after the sentence about handling them so roughly.

MR. DODD: Yes, Sir.

[_Turning to the defendant._] Now, if you will keep your finger on that place that you have there, you won’t lose it, and you will find the next sentence is—begins:

“Thirdly, he termed intolerable the wage rates previously
decreed by the Reich Marshal, and has persuaded the Reich
Marshal that Russians should have the possibility of earning up
to one half of the wages of German workers.”

With reference to that statement, what had the Reich Marshal suggested, by the way?

SAUCKEL: Before I took up my office—and I have talked about that at length with my defense counsel—there existed decrees of the Ministerial Council regarding wage regulations, and I continually improved those wages—four times, in fact, as far as I could manage it, during my term in office.

THE PRESIDENT: That is not an answer to the question. The question you were asked was: What had the Reich Marshal suggested as wages for these workers? You can answer that.

SAUCKEL: The Reich Marshal did not make any suggestions to me. When I entered office I found regulations in existence which I considered insufficient.

MR. DODD: Well, tell us a little more about it. What do you mean insufficient? You used here the word intolerable. What was the situation when you came into the office with respect to wages?

SAUCKEL: I already explained that yesterday, during the examination by my defense counsel, and I gave as an example the fact that an Eastern Worker, when I came into office, drew wages of about 60 pfennigs per hour, which, after deductions for food and lodging, would leave him about 4½ marks in cash. I altered that after I came into office and doubled the cash payments. The purpose of the instructions which existed before my service was probably to prevent too great a circulation of money for reasons concerning currency. I do not know the details.

MR. DODD: This exhibit, Mr. President, becomes USA-881.

I have no further questions.

DR. WALTER BALLAS (Counsel for Defendant Raeder): I am replacing Dr. Horn for Defendant Von Ribbentrop.

I have a few questions to put to the witness.

Yesterday in cross-examination you spoke about a French diplomatic organization, formed under the French Ambassador Scapini, for Frenchmen in Germany. Is it true that it was at Defendant Ribbentrop’s wish that this organization was formed?

SAUCKEL: At our mutual wish and agreement. We both had the same interests. That is correct.

DR. BALLAS: Can you tell me the reasons which caused Von Ribbentrop to create this organization?

SAUCKEL: The reason for this was, in my opinion, to bring about an understanding between the French and German populations by giving assurance that particular care would be taken of Frenchmen working in Germany.

DR. BALLAS: This diplomatic organization was also responsible for the treatment of French prisoners of war? Can you tell me for what reasons the German Foreign Office decided on so unusual an arrangement at a time when a state of war still existed between France and Germany?

SAUCKEL: There were conferences between the French Government of Marshal Pétain and the German Government, and both nations tried conscientiously to bring about an understanding.

DR. BALLAS: And because of that came these unusual measures concerning prisoners of war?

SAUCKEL: Not only because of that; I considered it a particular necessity, and I might mention in this connection that this organization was later divided or supplemented. In addition to M. Scapini, who took care of French prisoners of war in particular, a M. Broehne took special charge of French civilian workers.

DR. BALLAS: Is it true that Defendant Von Ribbentrop in the Foreign Office created an organization to bring into Germany from occupied countries artists, lecturers, newspapers, books, _et cetera_, for foreign workers so that these workers would return home well inclined toward an understanding with Germany?

SAUCKEL: It was the purpose of an agreement established by the Reich Foreign Minister in collaboration with the Reich Ministry of Propaganda, the German Labor Front, and my office, to improve the leisure time of the foreign workers by means of foreign artists and lecturers. Many Russian artists were in Germany for this purpose. It also had the purpose of bringing libraries and periodicals to these people from their home countries.

DR. BALLAS: Thank you. I have no further questions.

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, in order to rectify an error in a chart in Document Sauckel-1, I just want to have the witness’ confirmation.

[_The document was handed to the defendant._]

Witness, among the employers of labor you mentioned the departments of Minister Funk, did you not?

SAUCKEL: Yes.

DR. SERVATIUS: And going down you find written in the third square “armament inspectorate,” and under that, “Reichsautobahn.” These two squares have been incorrectly put in. They do not belong there. Is it true that these two squares should be crossed out?

SAUCKEL: Yes, that is correct.

DR. SERVATIUS: I therefore ask that the chart be rectified by having these two squares crossed out. They belong to Speer’s Ministry, but I have not given any close attention to that side, and I do not wish to discuss it here.

Then, from the Buchenwald photograph album there were a number of pictures submitted which show the defendant together with Himmler.

Witness, can you tell from the picture the approximate time of that meeting? There are certain indications which you discussed with me yesterday. Will you briefly describe these?

SAUCKEL: Yes. The left-hand top picture shows that construction is still going on; I can see unfinished roadbeds and the like. This may therefore be during the construction period.

DR. SERVATIUS: And what can you say about the time from the dress of the various people?

SAUCKEL: The dress shows quite clearly that this is at a time before the war, for Himmler is wearing a black uniform which he never wore during the war. Apart from that he is wearing a sword, which was forbidden during the war. It is quite clear that this meeting took place before the war.

DR. SERVATIUS: Are these people wearing decorations?

SAUCKEL: I cannot see whether they are wearing decorations; no.

DR. SERVATIUS: And so I can conclude that this picture was taken sometime before the war?

SAUCKEL: Quite definitely sometime before the war, because I myself did not wear an SS uniform during the war.

DR. SERVATIUS: Document Number F-810 was submitted yesterday. That is a report about the meeting at the Wartburg. Beginning on Page 25 of the German text there is a report by Dr. Sturm, which was shown you and in which it is said among other things that there was collaboration between the Gestapo and the concentration camps and that that was the right road to take. You were asked whether that was your view too, and whether such collaboration was correct.

What did you understand by that? Do you mean that you agreed to the methods used in concentration camps, as practiced by Himmler?

SAUCKEL: Under no circumstances, I wanted to indicate that it was correct, as the document shows, that workers’ discipline should be enforced step by step, as provided for in cases of disobedience: First a reprimand, then small fines imposed by the factory, as laid down, in fact, in my Decree Number 13, which I want to submit as documentary evidence. Only then, after reprimands and small disciplinary penalties at the factory had proved inadequate, should there be further treatment of these cases, as is mentioned in the document, by having them brought to court by the public prosecutor. I called a proper penal procedure correct. By no means did I want thereby to characterize methods in concentration camps as correct. I was not at all familiar with these methods at that time.

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, I have a document, Number 1764-PS, before me. I have not been able to ascertain when and if it has already been submitted. I have just received it in the form of a photostatic copy. It is the so-called Hemmen report, a report which Envoy Hemmen made about a sector of the labor allocation in France. I want to read a short passage to the defendant which deals with the number of Frenchmen employed in Germany, and I want him to confirm it.

[_Turning to the defendant._] Witness, I shall read you a passage and ask you to...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Servatius, it is not usual to allow documents to be put in re-examination. Why was this not used in examination-in-chief?

DR. SERVATIUS: The figures were questioned during the cross-examination, not before. I attach no great importance to finding out in detail how many hundred thousands came or went. I can omit this question and come back to it in the final pleadings.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal was not saying you could not use it now. As it arose out of the cross-examination, I think you may be able to use it.

DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, I should like briefly to read to you the relevant passage; and I want you to tell me whether the views presented there are correct.

Envoy Hemmen reports here, in a letter received at the Foreign Office on 6 February 1944, under Paragraph III as follows:

“Allocation of Labor in Germany:

“It started with the voluntary recruitment of workers which, up
to the end of 1942, produced 400,000 men. During the first half
of 1943 two further voluntary recruitments of 250,000 men each
were effected. The first, by granting the privileges of the
_relève_—which allowed leave for prisoners of war at a ratio of
1 prisoner to 3 recruits—or the granting of worker status,
produced some 200,000; whereas the second could be carried out
only by using the new compulsory service law, that is to say,
coercion, and produced only 122,000 men.”

I skip the end of the page and read from Page 8:

“As the total result of the Sauckel Action 818,000 persons all
told, mostly men, went to Germany; 168,000 of them owing to the
compulsory service law. Of all these there were only 420,000
still there at the end of January 1944.”

As far as you can recollect, are these statements generally correct?

SAUCKEL: May I remark in this connection that the Envoy Hemmen at the Embassy in Paris dealt with these questions there, and they are given correctly. Finally, you meant to say 420,000 and not 420, did you not?

DR. SERVATIUS: Thousand.

SAUCKEL: The decisive point is that because of the short term of the contracts, the French workers were changed every 6 months, thus only one half could be here at a time.

DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, you have already said that.

SAUCKEL: As an explanation I should like permission to tell the Tribunal that while there was a ratio of 1 to 3—meaning that Germany gave back 1 prisoner-of-war in return for 3 workers—both the prisoner-of-war and the French civilian workers who had replaced him for the most part had returned to their own country after 1½ years, as each stayed for only 6 months.

It was very hard to win the Führer over to this regulation.

DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions.

THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.

[_A recess was taken._]

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will hear some supplementary applications for witnesses and documents at 2 o’clock on Monday.