Chapter LIII: Section 2: A III f (18)

“Speer knew when he made his demands on Sauckel that they would
be supplied by foreign laborers serving under compulsion. He
participated in conferences involving the extension of the slave
labor program for the purpose of satisfying his demands. He was
present at a conference held during 10-12 August 1942 with
Hitler and Sauckel at which it was agreed that Sauckel should
bring laborers by force from occupied territories where this was
necessary to satisfy the labor needs of the industries under
Speer’s control. Speer also attended a conference in Hitler’s
headquarters on 4 January 1944, at which the decision was made
that Sauckel should obtain ‘at least 4 million new workers from
occupied territories’ in order to satisfy the demands for labor
made by Speer, although Sauckel indicated that he could do this
only with help from Himmler.

“Sauckel continually informed Speer and his representatives that
foreign laborers were being obtained by force. At a meeting of 1
March 1944, Speer’s deputy questioned Sauckel very closely about
his failure to live up to the obligation to supply four million
workers from occupied territories. In some cases Speer demanded
laborers from specific foreign countries. Thus, at the
conference 10-12 August 1942, Sauckel was instructed to supply
Speer with ‘a further million Russian laborers for the German
armament industry up to and including October 1942.’ At a
meeting of the Central Planning Board on 22 April 1943, Speer
discussed plans to obtain Russian laborers for use in the coal
mines, and flatly vetoed the suggestion that this labor deficit
should be made up by German labor.

“Speer has argued that he advocated the reorganization of the
labor program to place a greater emphasis on utilization of
German labor in war production in Germany and on the use of
labor in occupied countries in local production of consumer
goods formerly produced in Germany. Speer took steps in this
direction by establishing the so-called ‘blocked industries’ in
the occupied territories which were used to produce goods to be
shipped to Germany. Employees of these industries were immune
from deportation to Germany as slave laborers and any worker who
had been ordered to go to Germany could avoid deportation if he
went to work for a blocked industry. This system, although,
somewhat less inhumane than deportation to Germany, was still
illegal. The system of blocked industries played only a small
part in the over-all slave labor program, although Speer urged
its cooperation with the slave labor program, knowing the way in
which it was actually being administered. In an official sense,
he was its principal beneficiary and he constantly urged its
extension.

“Speer was also directly involved in the utilization of forced
labor as Chief of the Organization Todt. The Organization Todt
functioned principally in the occupied areas on such projects as
the Atlantic Wall and the construction of military highways, and
Speer has admitted that he relied on compulsory service to keep
it adequately staffed. He also used concentration camp labor in
the industries under his control. He originally arranged to tap
this source of labor for use in small out-of-the-way factories;
and later, fearful of Himmler’s jurisdictional ambitions,
attempted to use as few concentration camp workers as possible.

“Speer was also involved in the use of prisoners of war in
armament industries but contends that he utilized Soviet
prisoners of war only in industries covered by the Geneva
Convention.

“Speer’s position was such that he was not directly concerned
with the cruelty in the administration of the slave labor
program, although he was aware of its existence. For example, at
meetings of the Central Planning Board he was informed that his
demands for labor were so large as to necessitate violent
methods in recruiting. At a meeting of the Central Planning
Board on 30 October 1942, Speer voiced his opinion that many
slave laborers who claimed to be sick were malingerers and
stated: ‘There is nothing to be said against SS and police
taking drastic steps and putting those known as slackers into
concentration camps.’”

Under the provisions of Article X of Ordinance No. 7, these determinations of fact by the International Military Tribunal are binding upon this Tribunal “in the absence of substantial new evidence to the contrary.” Any new evidence which was presented was in no way contradictory of the findings of the International Military Tribunal, but, on the contrary, ratified and affirmed them.

The next question to be answered is whether or not the defendant Milch in this case knew that foreign slave labor and prisoners of war were being procured by Sauckel and used in the aircraft industry, which the defendant controlled. The defendant’s own words, as gleaned from the minutes of the Central Planning Board and from his own testimony, conclusively answer this question in the affirmative. He testified that he knew that prisoners of war were employed in the airplane factory at Regensburg and that some twenty thousand Russian prisoners of war were used to man antiaircraft guns protecting the various plants. He stated further that he saw this type of war prisoners manning 8.8 and 10.5 [centimeter] antiaircraft guns at airplane factories in Luftgau 7 near Munich. Sauckel, the Plenipotentiary for Labor, sat in on at least fifteen meetings of the Central Planning Board, over which the defendant presided, and discussed at great length and in elaborate detail the problems involved in procuring sufficient foreign laborers for the German war effort. He frankly disclosed the cruel and barbarous methods used in forcing civilians of the eastern countries into the Reich for war work. He related the difficulties and resistance which confronted him and the methods which he used and proposed to use in forcibly rounding up and transporting foreign workers. The advisability of using prisoners of war and inmates of concentration camps in the Luftwaffe was frankly discussed, with the defendant offering advice and suggestions as to the most effective methods to be used. In the face of this overwhelming evidence, disclosing page after page of discussion between Speer, Sauckel, and the defendant in which the defendant urged more severe and coercive methods of procuring foreign labor from the East, it would violate all reason to conclude that he had no knowledge of the source of this labor or of the methods used in procuring it. His voice is constantly heard, pleading for more laborers from this source and clamoring for a larger share in Sauckel’s labor pool. Hildebrand and Sagemeier for the coal mines, Rohland for the foundries, Kehrl for the coal and iron industries, Bruch and Becht for the rubber industry, Speer for the armament industry, and Milch for the aircraft industry—all these and others joined in a pagan chorus, in which the harmony was frequently strained, but all singing the same song, “We need laborers, men and women. We don’t care where you get them, but give us more.”

At the 54th meeting of the Central Planning Board, Sauckel stated in the defendant’s presence:

“* * * Thereupon I even proceeded to employ and train a whole
batch of French male and female agents who for good pay, just as
was done in olden times for ‘shanghaiing’, went hunting for men
and made them drunk by using liquor as well as words, in order
to dispatch them to Germany. Moreover I charged some able men
with founding a special labor supply executive of our own, and
this they did by training and arming, with the help of the
Higher SS and Police Fuehrer, a number of natives, but I still
have to ask the Munitions Ministry for arms for the use of these
men. * * *.

“* * * I and my assistants in fact have sometimes seen things
happen in France that I was forced to ask, is there no respect
any more in France for the German lieutenant with his 10 men? *
* * We Germans must make an example of one case, and, by reason
of this law, if necessary put Prefect or Burgomaster against the
wall, if he does not comply with the rules; otherwise no
Frenchman at all will be dispatched to Germany.”

The defendant contributed to the discussion by saying:

“* * * As soon as you arrive the men run away to protect
themselves from being sent to Germany * * *. The men even then
will be whisked away unless quite another authority and power is
on the watch, and this can only be the army itself. * * * I can
find no remedy but that the army should assert itself
ruthlessly.”

As indicating that the defendant was not indifferent to the problem, at the same meeting, in referring to procuring labor from Italy, he offered the following suggestion:

“We could take under German administration the entire food
supply for the Italians and tell them: only he gets any food who
either works in a protected factory (that is, a factory in Italy
manufacturing German war material) or goes to Germany.”

Later in the same conference, the defendant made another contribution to the solution of the problem of foreign labor, saying:

“Now during the transfer it is necessary to see that the people
really do arrive and do not run away before or during the
transfer. If a transport has left a town and has not arrived,
500 to 600 persons from this place must be arrested and sent to
Germany as prisoners of war. Such a thing is then talked about
everywhere. If actions like this and other similar ones are
carried out often, they would exert a certain pressure. The
whole thing would be made easier, if we had control of food.”

At the 53d meeting of the Central Planning Board (16 February 1944), the defendant stated:

“Our best new engine is made 88 percent by Russian prisoners of
war and the other 12 percent by German men and women.”

Instances could be multiplied in which the defendant not only listened to stories of enforced labor from eastern civilians and other prisoners of war and thereby became aware of the methods used in procuring such labor, but in which he himself urged more stringent and coercive means to supplement the dwindling supply of labor in the Luftwaffe. As Germany’s plight became more desperate, her loss of military personnel presented an alarming dilemma, resulting in the defection of thousands of workmen to the armed forces. This resulted in a shifting of the dilemma to industry, and spurs were put to the labor procurement officers to fill the widening gap in the industrial labor ranks. Every branch of war industry constantly clamored for replacements and each vied with the others for a greater quota from the labor pool. Confronted by the desperate situation, the labor procurement officers, headed by the implacable Sauckel, cast aside all restraint and set out systematically to herd into the Reich any human being who could contribute to Germany’s war effort. Under Sauckel’s whip, no means however harsh were overlooked, and no person however exempt was spared.

The defense on this count is ingenious but unconvincing. As to the use of prisoners of war, the defendant testified that he had been advised by some unidentified person high in the National Socialist Councils that it was not unlawful to employ prisoners of war in war industries. The defendant was an old and experienced soldier, and his testimony revealed that he was well acquainted with the provisions of the Geneva and Hague Treaties on this subject, which are plain and unequivocal. In the face of this knowledge, the advice which he claims to have received should have raised grave suspicions in his mind. Presenting an entirely different aspect to his defense, he testifies that many of the Russian prisoners of war volunteered to serve in the war industries and apparently enjoyed the opportunity of manufacturing munitions to be used against their fellow countrymen and their allies. Other Russian prisoners of war, he states, were discharged as such and immediately enrolled as civilian workers. The photographs introduced in evidence, however, show that they still retained their Russian army uniforms, which makes their status as civilians suspect. Be that as it may, it does not adequately answer the charge that hundreds of thousands of Polish prisoners of war were cast into concentration camps and parceled out to the various war factories, nor the further fact that thousands of French prisoners of war were compelled to labor under the most harrowing conditions for the Luftwaffe.

As to the French civilian workers who were employed at war work in Germany after the conquest of France, it is the contention of the defendant that these workers were supplied by the French Government under a solemn agreement with the Reich. It is claimed with a straight face that the Vichy Government, headed by Laval, entered into an international compact with the German Government to supply French laborers for work in Germany. This contention entirely overlooks the fact that the Vichy Government was a mere puppet set up under German domination, which, in full collaboration with Germany, took its orders from Berlin. The position of the defendant seems to be that, if any force or coercion was used on French citizens, it was exerted by their own government, but this position entirely overlooks the fact that the transports which brought Frenchmen to Germany were manned by German armed guards and that upon their arrival they were kept under military guard provided by the Wehrmacht or the SS.

It was sought to disguise the harsh realities of the German foreign labor policy by the use of specious legal and economic terms, and to make such policy appear as the exercise of conventional labor relations and labor law. The fiction of a “labor contract” was frequently resorted to, especially in the operations of the Todt Organization, which implied that foreign workers were given a free choice to work or not to work for Germany military industry. This, of course, was purely fictitious, as is shown by the fact that thousands of these “contract workers” jumped from the trains transporting them to Germany and fled into the woods. Does anyone believe that the vast hordes of Slavic Jews who labored in Germany’s war industries were accorded the rights of contracting parties? They were slaves, nothing less—kidnapped, regimented, herded under armed guards, and worked until they died from disease, hunger, and exhaustion. The idea of any Jew being a party to a contract with Germans was unthinkable to the National Socialists. Jews were considered as outcasts and were completely at the mercy of their oppressors. Exploitation was merely a convenient and profitable means of extermination, to the end that, “when this war ends, there will be no more Jews in Europe”. As to non-Jewish foreign labor, with few exceptions they were deprived of the basic civil rights of free men; they were deprived of the right to move freely or to choose their place of residence; to live in a household with their families; to rear and educate their children; to marry; to visit public places of their own choosing; to negotiate, either individually or through representatives of their own choice, the conditions of their own employment; to organize in trade unions; to exercise free speech or other free expression of opinion; to gather in peaceful assembly; and they were frequently deprived of the right to worship according to their own conscience. All these are the sign-marks of slavery, not free employment under contract.

The German nation, before the ascendancy of the NSDAP, had repeatedly recognized the rights of civilians in occupied countries. At the Hague Peace Conference of 1907, an amendment was submitted by the German delegate, Major General von Guendell, which read:

“A belligerent is likewise forbidden to compel the nationals of
the adverse party to take part in the operations of war directed
against their country, even when they have been in his service
before the commencement of the war.”

The German manual for war on land (Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege, Edition 1902) stated:

“The inhabitants of an invaded territory are persons endowed
with rights * * * subject to certain restrictions * * * but who
otherwise may live free from vexations and, as in time of peace,
under the protection of the laws.”

During the First World War, an order of the German Supreme Command (3 October 1916) provided for the deportation of Belgian vagrants and idlers to Germany for work, but specified that such labor was not to be used in connection with operations of war. The order resulted in such a storm of protest that it was at once abandoned by the German authorities.

It cannot be contended, of course, that foreign workers were entitled to comforts or luxuries which were not accorded German workers. It is also recognized that, especially during the latter part of the war there was a universal shortage of food and fuel throughout the Reich and in the discomforts arising therefrom foreign workers were bound to share. But it is an undoubted fact that the foreign workers were subjected to cruelties and torture and the deprivation of decent human rights merely because they were aliens. This was not true in isolated instances, but was universal and was the working out of the German attitude toward those whom it considered inferior peoples. If any decent human consideration was shown these workers, it was merely to maintain their productivity and did not stem from any humanitarian considerations.

The Tribunal therefore finds the defendant guilty of the war crimes charged in count one of the indictment, to wit, that he was a principal in, accessory to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in and was connected with, plans and enterprises involving slave labor and deportation to slave labor of the civilian populations of countries and territories occupied by the German armed forces, and in the enslavement, deportation, ill-treatment and terrorization of such persons; and further that the defendant was a principal in, accessory to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and was connected with, plans and enterprises involving the use of prisoners of war in war operations and work having a direct relation to war operations.

COUNT THREE

Count three of the indictment charges the defendant with crimes against humanity committed against “German nationals and nationals of other countries.” Sufficient proof was not adduced as to such offenses against German nationals to justify an adjudication of guilt on that ground. As to such crimes against nationals of other countries, the evidence shows that a large number of Hungarian Jews and other nationals of Hungary and Romania, which countries were occupied by Germany but were not belligerents, were subjected to the same tortures and deportations as were the nationals of Poland and Russia. In count one of the indictment these acts are charged as war crimes and have heretofore been considered by the Tribunal under that count in this judgment. In the judgment of the International Military Tribunal (_Vol. I, Trial of the Major War Criminals, p. 254_), the court stated—

“From the beginning of the war in 1939, war crimes were
committed on a vast scale which were also crimes against
humanity.”

This is a finding of law and an interpretation of Control Council Law No. 10, with which this Tribunal is in full accord.

Our conclusion is that the same unlawful acts of violence which constituted war crimes under count one of the indictment also constitute crimes against humanity as alleged in count three of the indictment. Having determined the defendant to be guilty of war crimes under count one, it follows, of necessity, that he is also guilty of the separate offense of crime against humanity, as alleged in count three, and this Tribunal so determines.

In exculpation, the defendant states that he was a German soldier and that whatever was done by him or with his knowledge or consent was done in pursuance of a national military policy promulgated by Hitler and in obedience to military orders. He protests that, no matter how violently he disagreed with the methods used by the German Reich in the furthering of its policy of aggressive war, he was helpless to extricate himself and had no alternative except to stay with the venture to the bitter end. It is true that withdrawal may involve risks and dangers, but these are incidental to the original affiliation with the unlawful scheme. He who elects to participate in a venture which may result in failure must make his election to abandon the enterprise if it is not to his liking or to stay as a participant, and win or lose according to the outcome.

Much significance must be attached to the meeting of 23 May 1939, at which the defendant was admittedly present and in which Hitler spoke at great length as to his plans for the subjugation of friendly minor nations and the ultimate conquest of Europe. A purported record of the events at this meeting has been introduced in evidence and has been found to be reliable and accurate by the International Military Tribunal. The defendant has throughout insisted that this record is spurious and was made by Schmundt long after the occasion which it records. Of course, it was never anticipated that this record, which was marked “Top Secret, To be Transmitted by Officer Only,” would ever be captured and its contents become known. It is not surprising that those who sat and listened to the astounding program of the Fuehrer now wish that they had been absent. It cannot be denied that there was a meeting of some kind which the defendant attended and at which the Fuehrer spoke, and further that it was held a few short months before the actual invasion of Poland, as forecast in the report of the meeting. The Schmundt paper does not pretend to be a verbatim report of Hitler’s exact words, but certainly all of the diabolical plans which it reveals were not manufactured by Schmundt out of thin air, attributed to Hitler, and then marked “Top Secret”. Even if Hitler said only a small part of what is attributed to him by Schmundt, there was enough said to advise and warn a man of the defendant’s intelligence and experience that mischief was afoot. Every sentence shrieks of war. The record hints at nothing else, and, if all references to conquest and war and world domination are eliminated, Hitler did not speak at all. At this early date, the defendant must be charged with knowledge that a war of aggression, to be ruthlessly pursued, was planned. This, then, was the time for him to have made his decision—the decision which confronts every man daily—to be honorable or dishonorable. Life consists quite generally in making such decisions. As an old soldier, schooled in the code of war and well aware of the principles to which an honorable soldier must adhere, he sat complacently and listened to a proposed program which violated national honor, personal integrity and the moral code of an honest soldier. He made his choice and elected to ride with the tyrant.

When the defendant joined the National Socialist Party in 1933, Germany was in the throes of dire economic and political distress and was burdened by a myriad of political parties, each with its separate program and all functioning at cross-purposes. The defendant elected to affiliate with the NSDAP because, he testified, he believed it offered the most likely agency for bringing order out of chaos. But very soon he must have realized that he had joined a band of villains whose program contemplated every crime in the calendar. The Nazi code was not a secret. It was published and proclaimed by the Party leaders in long harangues to the people; decrees and directives were broadcast; the infamous Streicher was spreading anti-Jewish obscenities throughout the Reich in “Der Stuermer”; Roehm and a large number of the SA were murdered by Hitler’s orders; hundreds of German citizens were cast into concentration camps for “political re-education,” without hearing or opportunity for defense; the iniquitous Gestapo stormed through the land, with power over life and liberty which could not be questioned; in public view Jews were beaten and killed, their synagogues burned and their stores destroyed. The Party proclaimed its objectives from the house-tops and verified them by open public conduct throughout the Reich. The significant fact which must not be overlooked is that all these things happened _before_ the war was launched, at a time when there was no claim upon the loyalty of the defendant as a soldier to protect his homeland at war. He protests that he never subscribed to the master race philosophy, but 18 years before he joined the Party in 1933, its precepts and demands had been proclaimed, among which was Point 4—

“Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the
race can only be one who is of German blood, without
consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of
the race.”

The humblest citizens of Germany knew that the iniquitous doctrines of the Party were being implemented by ruthless acts of persecution and terrorism which occurred in public view. Thousands of obscure German citizens were only too well aware that they were living under the scrutiny of an army of spies and saw their friends and relatives summarily dispatched to concentration camps for the slightest suspicion of dissidence. The defendant did not live in a vacuum. He was not blind nor deaf. Long before 1939, long before his military loyalty was called into play, long before the door of withdrawal was closed, he could have seen the bloody handwriting on the wall, for murder and enslavement of his own countrymen was there written in blazing symbols. But he had taken on the crimson mantle of the Party, with all its ghastly implication, and he wore it with glory and profit to himself to the end. Others with more courage and higher principles and with more loyalty to the ancient German ideals rebelled and withdrew from the brutal crew—von Clausewitz, Yorck von Wartenburg, Schlegelberger, Schmitt, Eltz von Ruebenach, Tesmer. These men in high positions had the character to repudiate great evil, and if in so doing they took risks and made sacrifices, nevertheless, they made their choice to stand with decency and justice and honor. The defendant had his opportunity to join those who refused to do the evil bidding of an evil master, but he cast it aside and his professed repentance now comes too late.

What a sordid picture of a civilized nation—the nation of Goethe and Heine, of Beethoven and Schubert, even of Bismarck and von Hindenburg—fawning and cringing at the feet of a small man with delusions of grandeur. Even when madness crept in to intensify his frenzy and fear of defeat put spurs to his ferocity, they still said, “We are his people. He is our immaculate leader.” Men of large capacities, even of genius, prostituted their talents before a puny renegade who used them impiously and paid off his puppets with medals and pelf. But the strutting menials stayed with him. So long as success was on the horizon, they bowed and scraped and sought to outdo each other in supine adulation. They tell us now, “Hitler was wrong.” But they never told him that. Right or wrong, their only concern was, “Can he win the war? And what will it mean for me?” They heard him proclaim as early as November 1937, “The question for Germany is where the greatest possible conquest could be made at the lowest possible cost,” and they nodded and shouted, “Heil Hitler,” and maneuvered to get closer to him. Before the invasion of Poland, they heard this bloodthirsty tyrant say, “In starting and making a war, not the right is what matters, but victory.” And this defendant, as part of the unholy array, rolled up his sleeves and said, “Let me help. Give me men and more men, no matter where you get them.”

In a civilized state which recognizes the sanctity of human lives and human rights, no man—no group of men—should be endowed with omnipotence. The history of human relations, from Herod to Hitler, has repeatedly demonstrated this to be true. Omnipotence is only for God. Be a man ever so wise, ever so benevolent, ever so trustworthy, there still exists in him the frailty, the fallibility, the susceptibility to temptation that is inherent in every man. If the only protection against the tyranny of an autocrat is his own self-restraint, that is not enough, for power feeds on power, and the temptation to stretch authority to its limit is irresistible.

What, then, of the responsibility of those who bask in the reflected radiance of omnipotence, who get their sustenance from it and who arrogantly carry out its mandates and crush any resistance to it? Are they not the hands and limbs of the monster, carrying out the orders of the head? Surely, they cannot be allowed to detach themselves from the corpus by saying, “These arms and legs are innocent—only the head is guilty?”

In an authoritarian state, the head becomes the supreme authority for woe as well as weal. Those who subscribe to such a state submit to that principle. If they abjectly place all the power in the hands of one man, with no right reserved to check or limit or repudiate, they must accept the bitter with the sweet. This is especially true of those in high places in the state—those who choose to enjoy the honor, the emoluments and the power of such high stations. By accepting such attractive and lucrative posts under a head whose power they know to be unlimited, they ratify in advance his every act, good or bad. They cannot say at the beginning, “The Fuehrer’s decisions are final; we will have no voice in them; it is not for us to reason why; his will is law,” and then, when the Fuehrer decrees aggressive war or barbarous inhumanities or broken covenants, to attempt to exculpate themselves by saying, “Oh, we were never in favor of _those_ things.”

One cannot escape the conviction that, had the war terminated in victory for Germany, all of the acts of Hitler, including those related to the charges in this indictment, would have been hailed as strokes of genius, and that this defendant would now be elbowing his way into the front row of those claiming to have successfully and victoriously carried out Hitler’s orders and policies—in fact, claiming co-authorship in many. But with Germany defeated and Hitler dead, it becomes naively convenient to take refuge in the flimsy claim that no one except Hitler was in favor of the invasion of Poland and Russia and France and the rape of Holland and Belgium and Norway and Denmark.

The defendant insists that he knew nothing of the atrocities and violence which were cumulating day by day throughout Europe. Being a good German, he says, he supinely obeyed the decree which forbade listening to foreign broadcasts or reading foreign periodicals. He surrendered to a political philosophy which outlawed the ordinary means of knowledge and which prevented the formation of rationalized opinion or judgment. No one might read or listen or talk except in predetermined channels. Ignorance was prescribed by law. The first weapon of tyranny is to keep its victims in darkness. The Germans were an intelligent, cultured people; they were not ignorant serfs. What a travesty to say that a people which has produced some of the greatest intellects in human history is not fit to be told the truth.

Desperate and discouraged peoples, distraught with the crushing problems of hunger and insecurity, have always cried out for a miracle worker to lead them out of the wilderness. Then is the golden opportunity for the mountebank with bland promises and soothing phrases to provide a poisonous panacea for their distress. In their desperation they fail to realize that despotism has a way of beginning with benevolence and ends by being merely despotic. Masquerading in the mantle of a messiah, the wily opportunist lulls them into subscribing to some glib Fuehrerprinzip which means, “Ask no questions; leave everything to me.” And when the debacle comes, they realize that they _have_ left everything to him—honor, dignity, self-respect, liberty, even life itself—and they end up degraded, ashamed, impoverished, and hopeless. But have they ended up wiser? The universal fear today is that in their desperation they will repeat the vicious process by saying, “Last time we picked the wrong man. Let us seek a new messiah. He will save us.” The lessons of one generation are quickly forgotten by the next, but the inexorable laws of nature are immutable. The tragic fruits of tyranny and intolerance will always be the moral decay of peoples and the degradation of human dignity.

Over the heavy gates which shut in the hapless victims at Dachau is a legend reading, “Work will set you free.” The toil of slaves cannot set them free; it only serves to further enslave them. Some day an enlightened German people will storm those gates and all others like them and recast them into an image of Truth—an imperishable figure with eyes open and unbandaged. So long as Truth stands free and untarnished, no future Hitler will ever arise to deceive and degrade the German nation. Then there will never be another Dachau.

[Signed] ROBERT M. TOMS
PRESIDING JUDGE
FITZROY D. PHILLIPS
JUDGE
MICHAEL A. MUSMANNO
JUDGE
SENTENCE

This Tribunal takes no pleasures in performing the duty which confronts it, but the deliberate enslavement of millions must not go unexpiated. The barbarous acts which have been revealed here originated in the lust and ambition of comparatively few men, but all Germans are paying and will pay for the degradation of their souls and the debasement of the German honor, caused by following the false prophets who led them to disaster.

It would be a travesty on justice to permit those false leaders, including this defendant, to escape responsibility for the deception and betrayal of their people. It would be even a greater injustice to view with complacence the mass graves of millions of men, women, and children whose only crime was that they stood in Hitler’s way. Retribution for such crimes against humanity must be swift and certain. Future would-be dictators and their subservient satellites must know what follows their defilement of international law and of every type of decency and fair dealing with their fellow men. Civilization will be satisfied with nothing less.

It is the sentence of this Tribunal that the defendant Erhard Milch be confined to the Rebdorf Prison for the remainder of his natural life.

-----

[157] Concurring opinions were filed by Judge Musmanno, see pp. 797-859, and by Judge Phillips, see pp. 860-878.

[158] Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol. I, pp. 243-47, Nuremberg, 1947.

[159] Ibid., pp. 381-83.

B. Concurring Opinion by Judge Michael A. Musmanno

The defendant is Erhard Milch, Field Marshal in the German Luftwaffe, Inspector General of the Luftwaffe, State Secretary in the Air Ministry, Generalluftzeugmeister, representative of the Wehrmacht on the Central Planning Board, Chief of the Jaegerstab and member of the Nazi Party. He stands indicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined in Control Council Law No. 10, enacted by Allied Control Council on 20 December 1945.

The indictment contains three counts which may be briefly summarized as follows:

COUNT ONE

Erhard Milch is charged with having knowingly committed war crimes as principal and accessory in enterprises involving slave labor and having also willingly and knowingly participated in enterprises involving the use of prisoners of war in war operations contrary to international convention and the laws and customs of war.

COUNT TWO

The defendant is accused of having knowingly and willfully participated in enterprises involving fatal medical experiments upon subjects without their consent.

COUNT THREE

In the third count the defendant is charged with responsibility for slave labor and fatal medical experiments, in the same manner as indicated in the first two counts, except that here the alleged victims are declared to be German nationals and nationals of other countries.

The defendant has entered a general denial of Not Guilty to all counts. To the charges of slave labor he has answered in effect—

1. That the term slave labor is a misnomer and that all foreign
workmen in Germany during the war were there of their own free
will.

2. That if they did not come voluntarily they were treated
humanely, considerately, and were not subjected to any
ill-treatment either in transportation or while actively
employed for the Reich.

3. That if ill-treatment, fatal or otherwise, of foreign workmen
occurred, the defendant was in no way responsible for such
ill-treatment.

To the charges of responsibility for fatal medical experiments inflicted on involuntary subjects, the defendant replies substantially—

1. That the high-altitude and freezing experiments were not
painful to the subjects, nor did any illegal deaths result
therefrom.

2. That if fatalities did occur, they were suffered by those
already condemned to death, or were caused by persons over whom
the defendant had no control.

3. That in any event, Milch was in no way officially connected
with the illegal and fatal experiments.

I. SLAVE LABOR
(a) Methods of Recruitment

The defense has affirmatively asserted that there was no slave labor in Germany during the war, or that if it did exist, its scope was negligible. The Tribunal finds that this assertion is not supported by the testimony in the case. It concludes, on the contrary, from the evidence presented at this trial that the German Reich during World War II did actively and plenarily employ slave labor. It further is of the opinion that the Third Reich used and abused slave labor to an extent and in a manner hitherto unknown in either modern or ancient history. The exploitation of human beings by Germany during the years of the war must take its place, in point of cruelty and inhumaneness, with the most iniquitous slave practices of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians. The building of the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and other ancient landmarks under whip and lash have their modern counterpart in the German building of the Western Wall, the Gothic Line, military fortifications, concentration camps, and munitions factories. The guilt of the German Reich is greater than that of the ancient empires because in that area of antiquity the immorality of human bondage was not universally accepted, whereas in 1939 no country in the sisterhood of civilized nations had failed to condemn and outlaw involuntary servitude in its every form.

It is submitted in behalf of the defendant that foreign workers came to Germany of their own will. It is true that in the early stages of the European conflict, Germany offered such inducements in foreign countries as to persuade numbers of their subjects voluntarily to proceed to that country for remunerative employment. In those first days of Blitzkrieg when nation after nation fell helplessly under the invincible Nazi war machine, workers accepted employment in Germany not only because of promises made, but because exterior evidence to their bewildered minds seemed to portend that soon the frontiers of Germany would be coterminous with the boundaries of Europe itself. Thus, but small choice remained to them; whether they worked at home or in Germany the master was destined to be the same.

However, when the subjugated peoples perceived at Stalingrad that the unbeatable German army could be beaten, when they heard the roar of American propellers in the sky and the clank of British tanks returned once more to the battle, a light of hope gleamed that it might not be true, as Hitler had said, that his rule and order were to endure a thousand years, and then these people refused the coin and currency of the German Reich. From then on the feet of foreign workers were not turned willingly toward Germany. And in the face of this defiance, Sauckel, German Plenipotentiary for Labor, declared, “Should we not succeed in obtaining the necessary amount of labor on a voluntary basis, we must immediately institute conscription or forced labor.” (_T-58._)[160]

There is no adding machine tape to which one can turn to determine the exact total number of foreign workers impressed into German industry, but Fritz Sauckel, Plenipotentiary General for Labor, declared, “Out of 5,000,000 workers who arrived in Germany, not even 200,000 came voluntarily.” (_T-149._) Heinrich Himmler placed the number of foreign workers at from 6,000,000 to 7,000,000. (_IMT 243_)[161].

On 9 November 1941, Hitler declared in a speech—

“The territory which now works for us contains more than
250,000,000 men, but the territory which works indirectly for us
includes now more than 350,000,000. In the measure in which it
concerns German territory, the domain which we have taken under
our administration, it is not doubtful that we shall succeed in
harnessing the very last man to this work.”

Hitler was never quite able to achieve the fullness of this ambitious program, but it was not due to any relinquishment of efforts in that direction by himself or his criminal coadjutors. Of course, this program was in direct violation of Article 52 of the Hague Convention which declares—

“Requisition in kind and services shall not be demanded from
municipalities or inhabitants, except for the needs of the army
of occupation. They shall be in proportion to the resources of
the country, and of such a nature as not to involve the
inhabitants in the obligation of taking part in military
operations against their own country.”

In the very initial stages of the German invasions, the officiating agents phrased their demands for labor in language which gave the recruitment an aspect of voluntary action on the part of the workers. Thus, when the German forces entered Lithuania, male and female farm workers were called upon by the military administration to sign up for six months’ employment on large estates, but after the signatures were obtained the promises were not kept. (_T-97._) And it was not long until all pretense at voluntary recruitment was abandoned and then Lithuanians, ordered to official agencies “only for registration”, were held there and taken away under military guards to the local barracks where they had neither the opportunity to bid their families good-by nor to put their most personal affairs in order. (_T-97-98._)

There were other pacific methods to “persuade” foreign workers into employment for the Reich. Thus, Governor General Frank of Poland recommended that one way to force Polish workers into Germany was to withhold their unemployment insurance. (_T-112._)

However, these genteel methods in Poland soon gave way to means more direct. Recruitment now degenerated into a fierce manhunt with unsuspecting victims being seized on the streets, in railroad stations, from their homes, even in churches. (_T-83._)

“Everybody is exposed to the danger of being seized anywhere and
at any time by members of the police, suddenly and unexpectedly,
and being brought into an assembly camp. None of his relatives
knows what has happened to him; only weeks or months later, one
or the other gives news of his fate by a postcard.” (_T-83._)

In Ukrainia skilled workers whose names had been furnished to the police by corrupted village elders were “dragged from their beds at night to be locked up in cellars until shipped.” (_T-67._) As neither the male nor the female workers were given time to gather up their belongings they often arrived at the collecting center without shoes or other adequate clothing for the long and torturing journey ahead. (_T-67._)

A directive applying to recruitment in White Ruthenia declared—

“All permissible means shall be used to obtain manpower from
White Ruthenia. Do not hesitate to apply extraordinary
measures.” (_T-91._)

In the same directive “the recruiters” are told, “Everything you do for Germany is right, everything else is wrong.” (_T-93._) So wide-sweeping was this recruitment drive waged by the SS and police in one area of White Ruthenia that 115,000 hectares of farm land became useless because the whole population had been removed. (_T-93._)

Goering bluntly declared in a speech at the Reich Ministry of Air on 7 November 1941, in connection with the Four Year Plan that Poles, Dutchmen, etc., were to be taken, “if necessary as prisoners of war and employ them as such, if work through free contract cannot be obtained. Strong action.” * * * “Foreigners not to be treated like German workers.” (_T-53._)

One Leyser in making a report to Rosenberg on the situation in his district of Zhitomir gives the answer to the assertion of voluntary labor when he says—

“It is certain that a recruitment of labor, in the sense of the
word, can hardly be spoken of. In most cases, it is nowadays a
matter of actual conscription by force. The population has been
stirred up to a large extent and views the transports to the
Reich as a measure which does in no way differ from the former
exile to Siberia during the Czarist and Bolshevist system.”
(_T-94._)

A report on recruitment measures taken in Holland reveals—

“All Jewish Netherlanders, whom the Germans could lay their
hands on, with the exception of a small group of exempted
persons, were brought together here; hospitals, old age homes,
institutions for the blind and other disabled persons were
emptied in order to concentrate the inmates in Westerbork for
deportation. Even the inmates of lunatic asylums did not escape
deportation.” (_T-125._)

On the subject of workers from the Netherlands, Goering said on 28 October 1943, in the presence of the defendant—

“After that has been done once, one has to modify the system for
the second blow. Then the Dutch people will be no longer out in
the streets on Sunday for pleasure promenades * * *. First, all
the people must be brought together in a pen. Then they will be
asked individually who works where. Then the men will be
selected accordingly.” (_T-2094._)

And on the subject of foreign exchange at that same meeting, Goering contributed this bit of wisdom in finance—

“All we need to do is to fix the rate of exchange * * * today
the German mark equals 20 francs, tomorrow 23, then 27, then 40,
and so forth, up to one million, or one billion. We have had all
that. The same holds true for the guilder. One cigarette now
costs in Holland 1.50 guilders; formerly it cost 10 cents. I
merely have to say, 1.50 guilders equal 10 pfennigs or one mark
equals 15 guilders.” (_T-2095._)

It may be well to note at once that all quotations from the transcript represent excerpts from records and documents located in the official files of the German Reich. The evidence advanced by the prosecution in this case was almost exclusively documentary. Thus, if any observation in this opinion seems overly emphatic and appears to go beyond the restraint usually found in judicial pronouncements, it will still fall short of the force of language employed in some of the original reports made by German officials to their own superiors at the time of the events described. A top secret memorandum on conditions in occupied Russian territory declared—

“It is no longer a secret from friend or foe that hundreds of
thousands of them literally have died of hunger or cold in our
camps * * *. We now experience the grotesque picture of having
to recruit millions of laborers from the occupied eastern
territories, after prisoners of war have died of hunger like
flies, in order to fill the gaps that are formed within Germany.
Now the food question no longer existed. In the prevailing
limitless abuse of the Slavic humanity, _recruiting methods were
used which probably had their origin only in the blackest
periods of the slave trade_.” (_T-121._)

Even Rosenberg acknowledged the severity and harshness of the recruitment program and protested, not, to be sure, on humanitarian grounds, but because “endangered persons prefer to escape their fate” by going over to guerilla bands. (_T-78._)

The fury with which the manhunt for workers was prosecuted reached such extremes that in many instances villages were burned down as “retribution for failure to comply with the demand for the appropriation of labor forces directed to the communities.” (_T-80._)

And it was not only where large numbers were demanded that savage reprisals occurred. In a little village where 25 workers had been ordered but none reported, the German militia set fire to the houses of those who had fled. Then—

“The people who had hurried to the scene were forbidden to
extinguish the flames, beaten and arrested, so that seven
homesteads burned down. The policemen meanwhile ignited other
houses. The people fell on their knees and kissed their hands,
but the policemen beat them with rubber truncheons.”
(_T-80-81._)

All because the mighty Reich needed 25 men to throw into its vast workshop of millions turning out the steel teeth of war.

In the same instance the German militia continued into other villages and where they did not find the workers they seized the parents. “The workers who had not appeared until then were shot.” Then, in the report we are quoting from, appears the damning phrase which shows more than anything else to what a low ebb the dignity of man had been reduced and degraded by the German Reich. “_They are now catching humans like the dog catchers used to catch dogs._” (_T-81._) The report closes on a statement which must needs bring a blush of shame to the cheek of every member of the civilized human race—

“People from many villages went on a certain day to a pilgrimage
to the monastery Potschaew. They were all arrested, locked in,
and will be sent to work. Among them there are lame, blind, and
aged people.” (_T-81._)

It has been asserted that the defendant and others holding high office cannot and should not be held responsible for the acts of subordinate officers in far away places, and of whose activities they could have no knowledge. But these smaller officers were only putting into effect the policies publicly declared over and over by the chieftains. Thus, when a certain Koch spoke in Kiev and declared—

“I will draw the very last out of this country. I did not come
to spread bliss. I have come to help the Fuehrer. The population
must work, work, and work again * * * for some people are
getting excited that the population may not get enough to eat.
The population cannot demand that. One has only to remember what
our heroes were deprived of in Stalingrad * * *. We definitely
did not come here to give out manna; we have come here to create
the basis for Victory.” (_T-86._)

He was only repeating what had been said by Hitler, Himmler, Goering, and Milch, in varying forms. The defendant claims that he did not literally mean the blood and thunder declarations admittedly authored by him, and that phase of the case will be discussed in detail later. But underlings who heard these wild, inflammatory utterances did not know that Milch was only barking, if in fact we are to assume that his ferocious words were only purposeless growlings. The men in the field did not stop at words, because they were in a position to act and did act—directly on the people. Koch was not voicing a concept original with him when he said in that same speech—

“We are a master race which must remember that the lowliest
German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more
valuable than the population here.” (_T-86._)

Unfortunately, however, his utterances were not confined to rhetoric, but being in a position to put them into flesh and blood effect, he did so.

Quotations from documents furnishing further proof of involuntary foreign labor in Germany are too numerous to repeat in the judgment. Reference, however, will be made to but one more before proceeding to the next item for discussion. In the recruitment of 1 million workers demanded in the Ukraine, SS Major Christensen, in charge of operations, declared that whatever harsh treatment was required should be controlled. He thus orders that in arresting communist functionaries it is no longer necessary to arrest all the close relatives of a member of the communist party. He decrees further that in searching for workers “when it becomes necessary to burn down a village, the whole population will be put at the disposal of the commissioner by force.” (_T-129._)

This is regarded as a concession, and then comes what must be classified as the most heart-rending utterance which has come out of this war—

“_As a rule, no more children will be shot._”

Not an out-and-out prohibition against shooting children; not that more care should be exercised in the handling of children; but only a general, vague suggestion that this SS battalion of murderers must not fire at children on sight just as one might mow down sparrows or rabbits. However, if the situation requires, then of course, children will be shot with everybody else, for the order goes on to say, “Slavs will interpret all soft treatment on our part as weakness.” “The most important thing,” the directive concludes, “is the recruitment of workers.” (_T-129-130._)

(b) Treatment of Workers

On 20 April 1942, Fritz Sauckel announced his labor mobilization program which contained the one supremely cruel proposition regarding treatment of foreign workers—

“All the men must be fed, sheltered, and treated in such a way
as to exploit them to the highest possible extent at the lowest
conceivable degree of expenditure.” (_T-58._)

After the announcement of this inhuman decree of maximum work with minimum sustenance, Sauckel followed with—