Chapter XXVII: Book 11: , Page 26 of the German book. You remember this is the report (7)

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And one of his directives was dated 31 October 1941, a letter from the OKW which is in evidence here as Exhibit 214, Document EC-194, which provides that the deputies of the Reich Minister for arms and munitions are to be admitted to prisoner-of-war camps for the purpose of selecting skilled workers. That was among your powers, was it not?

SPEER: No. That was a special action which Dr. Todt introduced on the strength of an agreement with the OKW. It was dropped later, however.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, on 22 April 1943, at the thirty-sixth meeting of this Planning Board, you made this complaint, did you not, Herr Speer? Quoting:

“There is a statement showing in what sectors the Russian PW’s
have been distributed, and this statement is quite interesting.
It shows that the armament industry only received 30 percent. I
always complained about that.”

That is correct, is it not?

SPEER: I believe that has been wrongly translated. It should not say “munitions industry”; it should say, “The armament industry received 30 percent.”

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I said “armament.”

SPEER: Yes. But this is still no proof that these prisoners of war were employed in violation of the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention, because in the sector of the armament industry there was ample room to use these workers for production articles which, in the sense of the Geneva Prisoner of War Agreement, were not armament products. However, I believe that in the case of the Russian prisoners of war, there was not the same value attached to strict observance of the Geneva Convention as in the case of prisoners from western countries.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Is it your contention that the prisoners were not used—I now speak of French prisoners of war—that French prisoners of war were not used in the manufacture of materials which directly contributed to the war, or is it your contention that although they were used it was legal under the Geneva Convention?

SPEER: As far as I know, French prisoners of war were not used contrary to the rules of the Convention. I cannot check that, because my office was not responsible for controlling the conditions of their employment. During my numerous visits to factories, I never noticed that any prisoner of war from the western territories was working directly on armament products.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Just tell exactly what French prisoners of war did do by way of manufacture. What were they working on?

SPEER: That I cannot answer. I already explained yesterday that the allotment of prisoners of war, or foreign workers, or German workers to a factory was not a matter for me to decide, but was carried out by the labor office, together with the Stalag, when it was a question of prisoners of war. I received only a general survey of the total number of workers who had gone to the factories, and so I could get no idea of what types of labor were being employed in each individual factory. So I cannot give a satisfactory answer to your question.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now let us take the 50,000 skilled workers that you said yesterday you removed and put to work in a different location, that Sauckel complained about. What did you put them to work at?

SPEER: Those were not prisoners of war.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Let us take those workers. What were you doing with them?

SPEER: Those workers had been working on the Atlantic Wall. From there they were transferred to the Ruhr to repair the two dams which had been destroyed by an air attack. I must say that the transfer of these 50,000 workers took place without my knowledge, and the consequences of bringing 50,000 workers from the West into Germany amounted to a catastrophe for us on the Atlantic Wall. It meant that more than one-third of all the workers engaged on the Atlantic Wall left because they, too, were afraid they might have to go to Germany. That is why we rescinded the order as quickly as possible, so that the French workers on the Atlantic Wall should have confidence in us. This fact will show you that the French workers we had working for the Organization Todt were not employed on a coercive basis, otherwise they could not have left in such numbers when they realized that under certain circumstances they, too, might be taken to Germany. So these measures taken with the 50,000 workers from the Organization Todt in France were only temporary and were revised later. It was one of those mistakes which can happen if a minister gives a harsh directive and his subordinates begin to carry it out by every means in their disposal.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Are you familiar with Document EC-60, which reports that the labor organization of Todt had to recruit its manpower by force?

SPEER: At the moment I cannot recollect it.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I beg your pardon?

SPEER: At this moment I cannot recollect it. Could I see the document?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Yes, if you would like to. I just remind you that the evidence is to the contrary of your testimony on that subject.

Page 42, the paragraph which reads:

“Unfortunately the assignments for the Organization Todt on the
basis of Article 52 of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare have
for some time decreased considerably, because the larger part of
the manpower allocated does not turn up. Consequently further
compulsory measures must be employed. The prefect and the French
labor exchanges co-operate quite loyally, it is true, but they
have not sufficient authority to carry out these measures.”

SPEER: I think that I have perhaps not understood correctly. I do not deny that a large number of the people working for the Organization Todt in the West had been called up and came to their work because they had been called up, but we had no means whatsoever of keeping them there by force. That is what I wanted to say. So if they did not want to work, they could leave again; and then they either joined the resistance movement or went into hiding somewhere else.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Very well. But this calling-up system was a system of compulsion, was it not?

SPEER: It was the calling-up of French workers for service in the Reich or in France. But here again I must add something. This report is dated June 1943. In October 1943 the whole of the Organization Todt was given the status of a “blocked factory” and thereby received the advantages which other blocked factories had. I explained that sufficiently yesterday. Because of this, the Organization Todt had large offers of workers who went there voluntarily, unless, of course, you see direct coercion in the pressure put on them through the danger of their transfer to Germany, and which led them to the Organization Todt or the blocked factories.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Were they kept in labor camps?

SPEER: That is the custom in the case of such building work. The building sites were far away from any villages, and so workers’ camps were set up to accommodate the German and foreign workers. But some of them were also accommodated in villages, as far as it was possible to accommodate them there. I do not think that on principle they were only meant to be accommodated in camps, but I cannot tell you that for certain.

THE PRESIDENT: Has the document been introduced before?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I was just going to give it to you. The document from which I have quoted is United States Exhibit 892.

Now, leaving the question of the personal participation in this...

THE PRESIDENT: Is it new, Mr. Justice Jackson?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: No, it has been in.

THE PRESIDENT: It has been in before?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I am told that I am wrong about that, and that it is new. 892 is a new number.

[_Turning to the defendant._] Leaving the part of your personal participation in this program...

THE PRESIDENT: Could you tell us what the document is and where it comes from? I see it is EC-60; so it must be captured. But...

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: It is one of the economic documents. It is a very large document.

THE PRESIDENT: Could you tell us what it is or who signed it? It is a very long document, apparently, is it?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: It is a long document, and it is a report of the Oberfeldkommandant—L-i-l-l-e is the name of the signer.

Now, coming to the question...

THE PRESIDENT: Let me look at the document, will you?

You see, Mr. Justice Jackson, my attention has been drawn to the point that as far as the record is concerned, we have only this extract which you read. We have not got the date, and we do not have the signature, if any, on the document.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I was merely refreshing his recollection to get out the facts, and I was not really offering the document for its own sake. I will go into more detail about it, if Your Honor wishes. There is a great deal of irrelevant material in it.

THE PRESIDENT: If you do not want to offer it, then we need not bother about it.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: A great part of it is not relevant.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The quotation is adequately verified.

THE PRESIDENT: In that case you may refer to it without the document being used. Then we need not have the document identified as an exhibit.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: [_Turning to the defendant._] Leaving the question of your personal participation in these matters and coming to the questions dealt with in the second part of your examination, I want to ask you about your testimony concerning the proposal to denounce the Geneva Convention.

You testified yesterday that it was proposed to withdraw from the Geneva Convention. Will you tell us who made those proposals?

SPEER: This proposal, as I already testified yesterday, came from Dr. Goebbels. It was made after the air attack on Dresden, but before this, from the autumn of 1944 on, Goebbels and Ley had often talked about intensifying the war effort in every possible way, so that I had the impression that Goebbels was using the attack on Dresden and the excitement it created merely as an excuse to renounce the Geneva Convention.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, was the proposal made at that time to resort to poison gas warfare?

SPEER: I was not able to make out from my own direct observations whether gas warfare was to be started, but I knew from various associates of Ley’s and Goebbels’ that they were discussing the question of using our two new combat gases, Tabun and Sarin. They believed that these gases would be of particular efficacy, and they did in fact produce the most frightful results. We made these observations as early as the autumn of 1944, when the situation had become critical and many people were seriously worried about it.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, will you tell us about these two gases and about their production and their effects, their qualities, and the preparations that were made for gas warfare?

SPEER: I cannot tell you that in detail. I am not enough of an expert. All I know is that these two gases both had a quite extraordinary effect, and that there was no respirator, and no protection against them that we knew of. So the soldiers would have been unable to protect themselves against this gas in any way. For the manufacture of this gas we had about three factories, all of which were undamaged and which until November 1944 were working at full speed. When rumors reached us that gas might be used, I stopped its production in November 1944. I stopped it by the following means. I blocked the so-called preliminary production, that is, the chemical supplies for the making of gas, so that the gas-production, as the Allied authorities themselves ascertained, after the end of December or the beginning of January, actually slowed down and finally came to a standstill. Beginning with a letter which is still in existence and which I wrote to Hitler in October 1944, I tried through legal methods to obtain his permission to have these gas factories stop their production. The reason I gave him was that on account of air raids the preliminary products, primarily cyanide, were needed urgently for other purposes. Hitler informed me that the gas production would have to continue whatever happened, but I gave instructions for the preliminary products not to be supplied any more.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Can you identify others of the group that were advocating gas warfare?

SPEER: In military circles there was certainly no one in favor of gas warfare. All sensible Army people turned gas warfare down as being utterly insane since, in view of your superiority in the air, it would not be long before it would bring the most terrible catastrophe upon German cities, which were completely unprotected.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The group that did advocate it, however, consisted of the political group around Hitler, didn’t it?

SPEER: A certain circle of political people, certainly very limited. It was mostly Ley, Goebbels and Bormann, always the same three, who by every possible means wanted to increase the war effort; and a man like Fegelein certainly belonged to a group like that too. Of Himmler I would not be too sure, for at that time Himmler was a little out of favor with Hitler because he allowed himself the luxury of directing an army group without being qualified.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, one of these gases was the gas which you proposed to use on those who were proposing to use it on others, and I suppose your motive was...

SPEER: I must say quite frankly that my reason for these plans was the fear that under certain circumstances gas might be used, and the association of ideas in using it myself led me to make the whole plan.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And your reasons, I take it, were the same as the military’s, that is to say, it was certain Germany would get the worst of it if Germany started that kind of warfare. That is what was worrying the military, wasn’t it?

SPEER: No, not only that. It was because at that stage of the war it was perfectly clear that under no circumstances should any international crimes be committed which could be held against the German people after they had lost the war. That was what decided the issue.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, what about the bombs, after the war was plainly lost, aimed at England day after day; who favored that?

SPEER: You mean the rockets?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Yes.

SPEER: From the point of view of their technical production the rockets were a very expensive affair for us, and their effect compared to the cost of their output was negligible. In consequence we had no particular interest in developing the affair on a bigger scale. The person who kept urging it was Himmler, in this case. He gave one Obergruppenführer Kammler the task of firing off these rockets over England. In Army circles they were of the same opinion as I, namely, that the rockets were too expensive; and in Air Force circles, the opinion was the same, since for the equivalent of one rocket one could almost build a fighter. It is quite clear that it would have been much better for us if we had not gone in for this nonsense.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Going back to the characteristics of this gas, was one of the characteristics of this gas an exceedingly high temperature? When it was exploded it created exceedingly high temperature, so that there could be no defense against it?

SPEER: No, that is an error. Actually, ordinary gas evaporates at normal atmospheric temperature. This gas would not evaporate until very high temperatures were reached and such very high temperatures could only be produced by an explosion; in other words, when the explosives detonated, a very high temperature set in, as you know, and then the gas evaporated. The solid substance turned into gas, but the effects had nothing to do with the high temperature.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Experiments were carried out with this gas, were they not, to your knowledge?

SPEER: That I can tell you. Experiments must certainly have been carried out with it.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Who was in charge of the experimentations with the gases?

SPEER: As far as I know it was the research and development department of the OKH in the Army ordnance office. I cannot tell you for certain.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And certain experiments were also conducted and certain researches conducted in atomic energy, were they not?

SPEER: We had not got as far as that, unfortunately, because the finest experts we had in atomic research had emigrated to America, and this had thrown us back a great deal in our research, so that we still needed another year or two in order to achieve any results in the splitting of the atom.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The policy of driving people out who didn’t agree with Germany hadn’t produced very good dividends, had it?

SPEER: Especially in this sphere it was a great disadvantage to us.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, I have certain information, which was placed in my hands, of an experiment which was carried out near Auschwitz and I would like to ask you if you heard about it or knew about it. The purpose of the experiment was to find a quick and complete way of destroying people without the delay and trouble of shooting and gassing and burning, as it had been carried out, and this is the experiment, as I am advised. A village, a small village was provisionally erected, with temporary structures, and in it approximately 20,000 Jews were put. By means of this newly invented weapon of destruction, these 20,000 people were eradicated almost instantaneously, and in such a way that there was no trace left of them; that it developed, the explosive developed, temperatures of from 400° to 500° centigrade and destroyed them without leaving any trace at all.

Do you know about that experiment?

SPEER: No, and I consider it utterly improbable. If we had had such a weapon under preparation, I should have known about it. But we did not have such a weapon. It is clear that in chemical warfare attempts were made on both sides to carry out research on all the weapons one could think of, because one did not know which party would start chemical warfare first.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The reports, then, of a new and secret weapon were exaggerated for the purpose of keeping the German people in the war?

SPEER: That was the case mostly during the last phase of the war. From August, or rather June or July 1944 on I very often went to the front. I visited about 40 front-line divisions in their sectors and could not help seeing that the troops, just like the German people, were given hopes about a new weapon coming, new weapons and wonder-weapons which, without requiring the use of soldiers, without military forces, would guarantee victory. In this belief lies the secret why so many people in Germany offered their lives, although common sense told them that the war was over. They believed that within the near future this new weapon would arrive. I wrote to Hitler about it and also tried in different speeches, even before Goebbels’ propaganda leaders, to work against this belief. Both Hitler and Goebbels told me, however, that this was no propaganda of theirs but that it was a belief which had grown up amongst the people. Only in the dock here in Nuremberg, I was told by Fritzsche that this propaganda was spread systematically among the people through some channels or other, and that SS Standartenführer Berg was responsible for it. Many things have become clear to me since, because this man Berg, as a representative of the Ministry of Propaganda, had often taken part in meetings, in big sessions of my Ministry, as he was writing articles about these sessions. There he heard of our future plans and then used this knowledge to tell the people about them with more imagination than truth.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: When did it become apparent that the war was lost? I take it that your attitude was that you felt some responsibility for getting the German people out of it with as little destruction as possible. Is that a fair statement of your position?

SPEER: Yes, but I did not only have that feeling with regard to the German people. I knew quite well that one should equally avoid destruction taking place in the occupied territories. That was just as important to me from a realistic point of view, for I said to myself that after the war the responsibility for all these destructions would no longer fall on us, but on the next German Government, and the coming German generations.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Where you differed with the people who wanted to continue the war to the bitter end, was that you wanted to see Germany have a chance to restore her life. Is that not a fact? Whereas Hitler took the position that if he couldn’t survive, he didn’t care whether Germany survived or not?

SPEER: That is true, and I would never have had the courage to make this statement before this Tribunal if I had not been able to prove it with the help of some documents, because such a statement is so monstrous. But the letter which I wrote to Hitler on 29 March, in which I confirmed this, shows that he said so himself.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, if I may comment, it was not a new idea to us that that was his viewpoint. I think it was expressed in most of the other countries that that was his viewpoint.

Now, were you present with Hitler at the time he received the telegram from Göring, suggesting that Göring take over power?

SPEER: On 23 April I flew to Berlin in order to take leave of several of my associates, and—I should like to say this quite frankly—after all that had happened, also in order to place myself at Hitler’s disposal. Perhaps this will sound strange here, but the conflicting feelings I had about the action I wanted to take against him and about the way he had handled things, still did not give me any clear grounds or any clear inner conviction as to what my relations should be toward him, so I flew over to see him. I did not know whether he knew of my plans, and I did not know whether he would order me to remain in Berlin. Yet I felt that it was my duty not to run away like a coward, but to stand up to him again. It was on that day that Göring’s telegram to Hitler arrived. This telegram was not to Hitler, but from Göring to Ribbentrop; it was Bormann who submitted it to him.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Submitted it to Hitler?

SPEER: Yes, to Hitler.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: What did Hitler say on that occasion?

SPEER: Hitler was unusually excited about the contents of the telegram, and said quite plainly what he thought about Göring. He said that he had known for some time that Göring had failed, that he was corrupt, and that he was a drug addict. I was extremely shaken, because I felt that if the head of the State had known this for such a long time, then it showed a lack of responsibility on his part to leave such a man in office, when the lives of countless people depended on him. It was typical of Hitler’s attitude towards the entire problem, however, that he followed his statement up by saying: “But let him negotiate the capitulation all the same.”

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did he say why he was willing to let Göring negotiate the capitulation?

SPEER: No. He said in an offhand manner: “It doesn’t matter anyway who does it.” He expressed all his disregard for the German nation in the way he said this.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: That is, his attitude was that there was nothing left worth saving, so let Göring work it out. Is that a fair statement of his position?

SPEER: That was my impression, yes.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, this policy of driving Germany to destruction after the war was lost had come to weigh on you to such a point that you were a party to several plots, were you not, in an attempt to remove the people who were responsible for the destruction, as you saw it, of your country?

SPEER: Yes. But I want to add...

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: There were more plots than you have told us about, weren’t there?

SPEER: During that time it was extremely easy to start a plot. One could accost practically any man in the street and tell him what the situation was, and then he would say: “This is insane”; and if he had any courage he would place himself at your disposal. Unfortunately, I had no organization behind me which I could call upon and give orders to, or designate who should have done this or that. That is why I had to depend on personal conversations to contact all kinds of people. But I do want to say that it was not as dangerous as it looks here because actually the unreasonable people who were still left only amounted perhaps to a few dozen. The other 80 million were perfectly sensible as soon as they knew what it was all about.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Perhaps you had a sense of responsibility for having put the 80 million completely in the hands of the Führer Principle. Did that occur to you, or does it now, as you look back on it?

SPEER: May I have the question repeated, because I did not understand its sense.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You have 80 million sane and sensible people facing destruction; you have a dozen people driving them on to destruction and they are unable to stop it. And I ask if you have a feeling of responsibility for having established the Führer Principle, which Göring has so well described for us, in Germany?

SPEER: I, personally, when I became Minister in February 1942, placed myself at the disposal of this Führer Principle. But I admit that in my organization I soon saw that the Führer Principle was full of tremendous mistakes, and so I tried to weaken its effect. The terrible danger of the authoritarian system, however, became really clear only at the moment when we were approaching the end. It was then that one could see what the principle really meant, namely, that every order should be carried out without criticism. Everything that has become known during this Trial in the way of orders carried out without any consideration, finally proved—for example the carrying-out of the order to destroy the bridges in our own country—to be a mistake or a consequence of this authoritarian system. The authoritarian system—or let me put it like this—upon the collapse of the authoritarian system it became clear what tremendous dangers there are in a system of that kind, quite apart from the personality of Hitler. The combination of Hitler and this system, then, brought about these terrible catastrophes in the world.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, now—Hitler is dead; I assume you accept that—and we ought to give the devil his due. Isn’t it a fact that in the circle around Hitler there was almost no one who would stand up and tell him that the war was lost, except yourself?

SPEER: That is correct to a certain extent. Among the military leaders there were many who, each in his own sphere, told Hitler quite clearly what the situation was. Many commanders of army groups, for instance, made it clear to him how catastrophic developments were, and there were often fierce arguments during the discussions on the situation. Men like Guderian and Jodl, for instance, often talked openly about their sectors in my presence, and Hitler could see quite well what the general situation was like. But I never observed that those who were actually responsible in the group around Hitler, ever went to him and said, “The war is lost.” Nor did I ever see these people who had responsibility endeavor to unite in undertaking some joint step with Hitler. I did not attempt it for my part either, except once or twice, because it would have been useless, since at this stage, Hitler had so intimidated his closest associates that they no longer had any wills of their own.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, let us take the Number 2 man, who has told us that he was in favor of fighting to the very finish. Were you present at a conversation between Göring and General Galland, in which Göring, in substance, forbade Galland to report the disaster that was overtaking Germany?

SPEER: No; in that form, that is not correct. That was another conference.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, tell us what there is about General Galland’s conversation with Göring, as far as you know it.

SPEER: It was at the Führer’s headquarters in East Prussia in front of Göring’s train. Galland had reported to Hitler that enemy fighter planes were already escorting bomber squadrons as far as Liége and that it was to be expected that in the future the bomber units would travel still farther from their bases escorted by fighters. After a discussion with Hitler on the military situation Göring upbraided Galland and told him with some excitement that this could not possibly be true, that the fighters could not go as far as Liége. He said that from his experience as an old fighter pilot he knew this perfectly well. Thereupon Galland replied that the fighters were being shot down, and were lying on the ground near Liége. Göring would not believe this was true. Galland was an outspoken man who told Göring his opinion quite clearly and refused to allow Göring’s excitement to influence him. Finally Göring, as Supreme Commander of the Air Force, expressly forbade Galland to make any further reports on this matter. It was impossible, he said, that enemy fighters could penetrate so deeply in the direction of Germany, and so he ordered him to accept that as being true. I continued to discuss the matter afterward with Galland and Galland was actually later relieved by Göring of his duties as Commanding General of Fighters. Up to this time Galland had been in charge of all the fighter units in Germany. He was the general in charge of all the fighters within the High Command of the Air Force.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the date of that?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I was going to ask.

SPEER: It must have been toward the end of 1943.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Justice Jackson, perhaps we had better adjourn now.

[_A recess was taken._]

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: If it please the Tribunal, I wanted to ask you whether it was known in the days when you were struggling for manpower enough to make armaments for Germany, that Göring was using manpower to collect art and transport art for his own purposes. Was that known to you at the time?

SPEER: He did not need many workers for that purpose.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, very few were very valuable, were they not?

SPEER: The art treasures were valuable, not the workers.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: To him?

SPEER: Yes.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON; Well, let me ask you about your efforts in producing, and see how much difficulty you were having. Krupp’s was a big factor in the German armament production, was it not?

SPEER: Yes.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The biggest single unit, wouldn’t you say?

SPEER: Yes, but not—just to the extent I said yesterday. It produced few guns and armaments, but it was a big concern, one of the most respected ones in the armament industry.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But you had prevented, as far as possible, the use of resources and manpower for the production of things that were not useful for the war, is not that true?

SPEER: That is true.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And the things which were being created, being built in Krupp’s, whether they were guns or other objects, were things which were essential to carrying on the economy or to conducting the war? That would be true, would it not?

SPEER: Generally speaking one can say that in the end every article which in wartime is produced in the home country, whether it is a pair of shoes for the workers, or clothing, or coal is, of course—is made to assist in the war effort. That has nothing to do with the old conception, which has long since died out, and which we find in the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, at the moment I am not concerned with the question of the application of the Geneva Convention. I want to ask you some questions about your efforts to produce essential goods, whether they were armament or not armament, and the conditions that this regime was imposing upon labor and adding, as I think, to your problem of production. I think you can give us some information about this. You were frequently at the Krupp plant, were you not?

SPEER: I was at the Krupp plant five or six times.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You had rather close information as to the progress of production in the Krupp plant, as well as others?

SPEER: Yes, when I went to visit these plants, it was mostly in order to see how we could do away with the consequences of air attacks. It was always shortly after air raids, and so I got an idea of the production. As I worked hard I knew a lot about these problems, right down to the details.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Krupp also had several labor camps, did they not?

SPEER: Of course, Krupp had labor camps.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Krupp was a very large user of both foreign labor and prisoners of war?

SPEER: I cannot give the percentage, but no doubt Krupp did employ foreign workers and prisoners of war.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, I may say to you that we have investigated the Krupp labor camps, and from Krupp’s own charts it appears that in 1943 they had 39,245 foreign workers and 11,234 prisoners of war, and that this steadily increased until in September 1944 Krupp had 54,990 foreign workers and 18,902 prisoners of war.

Now, would that be somewhere near what you would expect from your knowledge of the industry?

SPEER: I do not know the details. I do not know the figures of how many workers Krupp employed in all. I am not familiar with them at the moment. But I believe that the percentage of foreign workers at Krupp was about the same as in other plants and in other armament concerns.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And what would you say that percentage was?

SPEER: That varied a great deal. The old established industries which had their old regular personnel had a much lower percentage of foreign workers than the new industries which had just grown up and which had no old regular personnel. The reason for this was that the young age groups were drafted into the Armed Forces and therefore the concerns which had a personnel of older workers still retained a large percentage of the older workers. Therefore the percentage of foreign workers in Army armaments, if you take it as a whole and as one of the older industries, was lower than the percentage of foreign workers in air armaments, because that was a completely new industry which had no old regular personnel.

But with the best will in the world I cannot give you the percentage.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, the foreign workers who were assigned to Krupp—let us use Krupp as an example—were housed in labor camps and under guard, were they not?

SPEER: I do not believe that they were under guard, but I cannot say. I do not want to dodge giving information here, but I had no time to worry about such things on my visits. The things I was concerned about when I went to a factory were in an entirely different sphere. In all my activities as Armament Minister I never once visited a labor camp, and cannot, therefore, give any information about them.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well now, I am going to give you some information about the labor camp at Krupp’s, and then I am going to ask you some questions about it. And I am not attempting to say that you were personally responsible for these conditions. I merely give you the indications as to what the regime was doing and I am going to ask you certain questions as to the effect of this sort of thing on your work of production.

Are you familiar with Document D-288, which is United States Exhibit 202, the affidavit of Dr. Jäger, who was later brought here as a witness?

SPEER: Yes, but I consider that somewhat exaggerated.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You don’t accept that?

SPEER: No.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, you have no personal knowledge of the conditions. What is the basis of your information that Dr. Jäger’s statement is exaggerated?

SPEER: If such conditions had existed, I should probably have heard of them, since when I visited plants the head of the plant naturally came to me with his biggest troubles. These troubles occurred primarily after air raids when, for example, both the German workers and foreign workers had no longer any proper shelter. This state of affairs was then described to me, so that I know that what is stated in the Jäger affidavit cannot have been a permanent condition. It can only have been a condition caused temporarily by air raids, for a week or a fortnight, and which was improved later on. It is clear that after a severe air raid on a city all the sanitary installations, the water supply, gas supply, electricity, and so on, were out of order and severely damaged, so that temporarily there were very difficult conditions.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I remind you that Dr. Jäger’s affidavit relates to the time of October 1942, and that he was a witness here. And, of course, you are familiar with his testimony.

SPEER: Yes.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well now, I call your attention to a new document, which is D-361, and would become United States Exhibit 893, a document signed by the office chief of the locomotive construction works, describing conditions of his labor supply, foreign labor.

And I am not suggesting—I repeat I am not suggesting that this was your responsibility. I am suggesting it is the responsibility of the regime. I should like to read this despite its considerable length. This is dated at the boilermaking shop, 25 February 1942, addressed to Hupe by way of Winters and Schmidt.

“I received the enclosed letter of the 18th of this month from
the German Labor Front, sent to my private address, inviting me
to the Office of the German Labor Front. I tried to settle the
business, which I did not know about, by telephone. The answer
from the German Labor Front was that the matter was very
important and called for my personal appearance. Thereupon I
asked Herr Jüngerich of the Department for Social Labor Matters
whether I had to go. He answered, ‘You probably do not have to,
but it would be better if you went.’ About 9:50 I went to Room
20 at the place indicated and met Herr Prior.

“The following provided the subject of this conversation, which
Herr Prior carried on in a very excited manner, and which lasted
about half an hour:

“On the 16th, 23 Russian prisoners of war were assigned to
Number 23 Boiler Shop. The people came in the morning without
bread and tools. During both breaks the prisoners of war crept
up to the German workers and begged for bread, pitifully
pointing out their hunger. (For lunch on the first day the
factory was able to distribute among the Russians rations which
remained over from French PW’s.) In order to alleviate these
conditions, I went to the Weidkamp kitchen on the 17th, on
instructions from Herr Theile, and talked to the head of the
kitchen, Fräulein Block, about the provision of the midday meal.
Fräulein Block promised me the food immediately, and also lent
me the 22 sets of eating utensils which I asked for. At the same
time I asked Fräulein Block to give any food left over by the
800 Dutchmen messing there to our Russian PW’s at noon until
further notice. Fräulein Block promised to do this too, and the
following noon she sent down a container of milk soup as an
extra. The following noon the ration was short in quantity.
Since a few Russians had collapsed already, I telephoned
Fräulein Block and asked for an increase in the food, as the
special ration had ceased from the second day onwards. As my
telephone conversation was unsuccessful, I again visited
Fräulein Block personally. Fräulein Block refused in a very
abrupt manner to give any further special ration.

“Now, regarding the discussion in detail, Herr Prior, two other
gentlemen of the DAF and Fräulein Block, head of the Weidkamp
kitchen, were present in the room. Herr Prior commenced and
accused me, gesticulating, and in a very insulting manner, of
having taken the part of the Bolsheviks in a marked way. He
referred to the law paragraphs of the Reich Government which
spoke against it. I was unfortunately not clear about the legal
position, otherwise I would have left the conference room
immediately. I then tried to make it clear to Herr Prior, with
special emphasis, that the Russian PW’s were assigned to us as
workers and not as Bolsheviks; the people were starved and not
in a position to perform the heavy work with us in the boiler
shop which they were supposed to do; sick people are a dead
weight to us and not a help to production. To this remark Herr
Prior stated that if one was no good, then another was; that the
Bolsheviks were a soulless people; and if 100,000 of them died,
another 100,000 would replace them. On my remarking that with
such a coming and going we would not attain our goal, namely the
delivery of locomotives to the Reichsbahn, who were continually
cutting down the time limit, Herr Prior said, ‘Deliveries are
only of secondary importance here.’

“My attempts to get Herr Prior to understand our economic needs
were not successful. In closing, I can only say that as a German
I know our relations to the Russian prisoners of war exactly,
and in this case I acted only on behalf of my superiors and with
the view to the increase in production which is demanded from
us.”

It is signed, “Söhling, Office Chief, Locomotive Construction Works.”

And there is added this letter as a part of the communication, signed by Theile:

“I have to add the following to the above letter:

“After the Russian PW’s had been assigned to us on the 16th of
this month by labor supply, I got into touch with Dr. Lehmann
immediately about their food. I learned from him that the
prisoners received 300 gr. of bread each between 0400 and 0500
hours. I pointed out that it was impossible to last until 1800
hours on this ration of bread, whereupon Dr. Lehmann said that
the Russians must not be allowed to get used to western European
feeding. I replied that the PW’s could not do the work required
of them in the boiler shop on that food, and that it was not
practical for us to have these people in the works any longer
under such conditions. At the same time I demanded that if the
Russians continued to be employed, they should be given a hot
midday meal, and that if possible the bread ration should be
split so that one-half was distributed early in the morning and
the second half during our breakfast break. My suggestion has
already been carried out by us with the French PW’s and has
proved to be very practicable and good.

“Unfortunately, however, Dr. Lehmann took no notice of my
suggestion, and on this account I naturally had to take matters
into my own hands and therefore told Herr Söhling to get the
feeding of the Russian PW’s organized on exactly the same lines
as for the French PW’s, so that the Russians could as soon as
possible carry out the work they were supposed to do. For the
whole thing concerns an increase in production such as is
demanded from us by the Minister of munitions and armaments and
by the DAF.”

Now, I ask you, in the first place, if the position of the chief of the locomotive construction works was not entirely a necessary position in the interests of production?

SPEER: It is clear that a worker who has not enough food cannot achieve a good work output. I already said yesterday that every head of a plant, and I too at the top, was naturally interested in having well-fed and satisfied workers, because badly fed, dissatisfied workers make more mistakes and produce poor results.

I should like to comment on this document. The document is dated 25 February 1942. At that time there were official instructions that the Russian workers who came to the Reich should be treated worse than the western prisoners of war and the western workers. I learned of this through complaints from the heads of concerns. In my document book, there is a Führer protocol which dates from the middle of March 1942—that is, 3 or 4 weeks after this document—in which I called Hitler’s attention to the fact that the feeding both of Russian prisoners of war and of Russian workers was absolutely insufficient and that they would have to be given an adequate diet, and that moreover the Russian workers were being kept behind barbed wire like prisoners of war and that that would have to be stopped also. The protocol shows that in both cases I succeeded in getting Hitler to agree that conditions should be changed and they were changed.

I must say furthermore that it was really to Sauckel’s credit that he fought against a mountain of stupidity and did everything so that foreign workers and prisoners of war should be treated better and receive decent food.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, we will go on with the conditions later. Because I am going to ask you, if you are not responsible and Sauckel is not responsible, who is responsible for these conditions, and you can keep it in mind that is the question that we are coming up to here.

I will show you a new document, which is a statement, D-398, which would be Exhibit USA 894-A, taken by the British-American team in the investigation of this work camp at Krupp’s.

Well, D-321. I can use that just as well. We will use Document D-321, which becomes 893.

THE PRESIDENT: 894 was the last number you gave us. What number is this document that you are now offering?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: 398 was 894. 321 will be 895.

Now, this relates to the—this is an employee of the Reich Railways. None of our investigation, I may say, is based upon the statements of the prisoners themselves.

“I, the undersigned, Adam Schmidt, employed as Betriebswart on
the Essen-West Railway Station and residing ... state
voluntarily and on oath:

“I have been employed by the Reich Railways since 1918 and have
been at Essen-West Station since 1935. In the middle of 1941 the
first workers arrived from Poland, Galicia, and the Polish
Ukraine. They came to Essen in trucks in which potatoes,
building materials and also cattle had been transported, and
were brought to perform work at Krupp’s. The trucks were jammed
full with people. My personal view was that it was inhuman to
transport people in such a manner. The people were packed
closely together and they had no room for free movement. The
Krupp overseers laid special value on the speed with which the
slave workers got in and out of the trucks. It was enraging for
every decent German who had to watch this to see how the people
were beaten and kicked and generally maltreated in a brutal
manner. In the very beginning when the first transport arrived
we could see how inhumanly these people were treated. Every
truck was so overfilled that it was incredible that such a
number of people could be jammed into one. I could see with my
own eyes that sick people who could scarcely walk (they were
mostly people with foot trouble, or with injuries, and people
with internal trouble) were nevertheless taken to work. One
could see that it was sometimes difficult for them to move. The
same can be said of the Eastern Workers and PW’s who came to
Essen in the middle of 1942.”

He then describes their clothing and their food. In the interest of time, I will not attempt to read the entire thing.

Do you consider that that, too, is an exaggerated statement?

SPEER: When the workers came to Germany from the East, their clothing was no doubt bad, but I know from Sauckel that while he was in office a lot was done to get them better clothes, and in Germany many of the Russian workers were brought to a considerably better condition than they had previously been in in Russia. The Russian workers were quite satisfied in Germany. If they arrived here in rags, that does not mean that that was our fault. We could not use ragged workers with poor shoes in our industry, so conditions were improved.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, now, I would like to call your attention to D-398.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, before you pass from that, what do you say about the conditions of the transports? The question you were asked was whether this was an exaggerated account. You have not answered that except in reference to clothing.

SPEER: Mr. President, I cannot give any information about this transport matter. I received no reports about it.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, I will ask you about Exhibit 398, which becomes USA-894. I mean Document 398, which becomes Exhibit 894, a statement by Höfer, living in Essen:

“From April 1943 I worked with Löwenkamp every day in Panzer
Shop 4. Löwenkamp was brutal to the foreigners. He confiscated
food which belonged to the PW’s and took it home. Every day he
maltreated Eastern Workers, Russian PW’s, French, Italian, and
other foreign civilians. He had a steel cabinet built which was
so small that one could hardly stand in it. He locked up
foreigners in the box, women too, for 48 hours at a time without
giving the people food.

“They were not released even to relieve nature. It was forbidden
for other people, too, to give any help to the persons locked
in, or to release them. While clearing a concealed store he
fired on escaping Russian civilians without hitting any of them.

“One day, while distributing food, I saw how he hit a French
civilian in the face with a ladle and made his face bleed.
Further, he delivered Russian girls without bothering about the
children afterwards. There was never any milk for them so the
Russians had to nourish the children with sugar water. When
Löwenkamp was arrested he wrote two letters and sent them to me
through his wife. He tried to make out that he never beat
people.”

There is a good deal more of this, but I will not bother to put it into the record.

Is it your view that that is exaggerated?

SPEER: I consider this affidavit a lie. I would say that among German people such things do not exist, and if such individual cases occurred they were punished. It is not possible to drag the German people in the dirt in such a way. The heads of concerns were decent people too, and took an interest in their workers. If the head of the Krupp plant heard about such things, he certainly took steps immediately.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, what about the steel boxes? The steel box couldn’t have been built? Or don’t you believe the steel-box story?

SPEER: No, I do not believe it; I mean I do not believe it is true. After the collapse in 1945 a lot of affidavits were certainly drawn up which do not fully correspond to the truth. That is not your fault. It is the fault of—after a defeat, it is quite possible that people lend themselves to things like that.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, I would like to have you examine Document 258, and I attach importance to this as establishing the SS as being the guards: