Sixty-Fifth Day:
Friday, 22nd February, 1946
[Page 231]
1. Russian labour has demonstrated its capacity for
production in building up the gigantic industry of
Russia. It must now be successfully utilised in the
Reich. In the face of such an order of the Fuehrer,
scruples are of secondary importance. The disadvantages
that result from the employment of Russian labour must be
reduced to the minimum, and this is primarily the concern
of the intelligence agency (Abwehr) and the Security
Police (Sicherheitspolizei).
2. Russians in the Operational Zone: The Russians are to
be used primarily in the construction of roads and
railroads, for clearing work, clearing out minefields,
and in the construction of airfields. The German
construction battalions are largely to be dissolved (for
example in the air force). German skilled workmen belong
in war industry. Digging and stone breaking is not their
work. The Russian is there for that.
3. Russians in the territories of the Reich Commissars
and of the Government General: Here the same principle
applies as in the second paragraph. In addition,
increased use in agriculture. Lack of machines must be
made up by means of manpower which the Reich is to
requisition in the agrarian
[Page 232]
4. The Russians in the territory of the Reich including
the Protectorate. The number to be employed is to be
determined by the need. Need is to be decided from the
standpoint that the foreign workers who eat much and
produce little are to be deported from the Reich, and
that in the future the German woman is not to be used as
extensively in the field of labour as hitherto. Along
with Russian prisoners of war, Russian civilian manpower
is also to be utilised."
My colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, already mentioned the fact
that the Hitlerites considered the civilian population in
the category of prisoners of war. This gave them the
opportunity to falsify for propaganda purposes the number of
the captured Red Army soldiers in their reports on military
operations, on the one hand, and to draw on them for
manpower, on the other hand.
The section to which I have just referred begins as follows:-
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
(A recess was taken.)
THE PRESIDENT: General Zorya, can you tell the Tribunal
whether you think you will be able to finish the
presentation of your documents this afternoon?
GENERAL ZORYA: My intention is to finish my presentation to-
day.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.
GENERAL ZORYA: I would like to read into the record
statements by Goering which concern the conditions of work
of the Russian workers, and particularly their wages, from
the document I have just presented:
1. The worker may receive a little pocket money. . . .
3. Since his labour is available to the employer at
slight expense, financial compensation from the employer
is to be given special attention."
Infractions are subject to the severest penalties."
Having expressed himself so categorically against the
"violation of the wage principle in the Eastern
territories", Goering stated at the same conference as
follows (Page 98 of the document book):
[Page 233]
The measures that will be necessary in this field in the
future promise success only under unified leadership, and
I shall use every means to attain this.
For that reason I have now granted my Manpower Commission
- which had already been dealing with all the manpower
questions of the Four Year Plan - the unlimited power to
direct the entire manpower programme."
I shall not dwell any longer on these historical facts as
they have already been covered by our American, English and
French colleagues.
The vital bond between Nazism and the system of forced
labour is especially apparent when we consider the part
played in this field not only by the Nazi Government machine
but by the Nazi Party itself.
I should like to submit to the Tribunal a few documents
which illustrate this fact.
I present to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR 365 a printed
edition entitled "Report on the Four Year Plan by the
General Plenipotentiary for the Utilisation of Manpower".
This document is on Page 101 of the document book. The copy
of the Report, which I present, contains the Order No. 1 and
it is dated 1 May, 1942.
The first page of the report contains Hitler's decree of 21
March, 1942, appointing Sauckel to this post. On the second
page there is an order of the defendant Goering, dated 27
March of the same year, explaining the duties of the General
Plenipotentiary for the Utilisation of Manpower within the
framework of the Four Year Plan organisational structure.
And on the third page of this report there is a programme
prepared by Sauckel for "Fuehrer's birthday" in 1942
Your Honours, the above-mentioned documents have already
been submitted to the Tribunal by the American Prosecution.
But I wish to draw your attention to Page 17 of the Russian
translation of this document, which contains an order of the
defendant Sauckel, dated 6 April, 1942, Order No. 1. This
order is presented for the first time and is entitled
"Concerning Appointment of Gauleiter as Plenipotentiaries
for the Utilisation of Labour in the Gaue". This order
begins as follows. I quote Page 118 of the Document Book:
A. Their tasks are:
(1) The achievement of smooth co-operation between all
establishments set up by the State, the Party, the
Wehrmacht and the economic authorities to deal with
questions of manpower; and by means of this, the
regulation
[Page 234]
(5) Investigation of the feeding, housing and treatment,
according to regulations, of all foreign workers and
prisoners of war engaged in work."
V. The General Plenipotentiary for Utilisation of Labour
has therefore, with consent of the Fuehrer and in
agreement with the Reich Marshal of Greater Germany and
the Director of the Party Chancellery, appointed all the
Gauleiter of Greater Germany as his Plenipotentiaries in
the Gaue of the National Socialist Labour Party
(N.S.D.A.P.).
VI. The Plenipotentiaries for Utilisation of Labour will
use the appropriate offices of the Party in their Gaue.
The Chiefs of the highest appropriate State and economic
offices in their Gaue will advise and instruct the
Gauleiter in all important questions relative to Labour
Utilisation.
Especially important for that purpose are the following:
The President of the State (Land) Labour Office;
The Trustee for Labour (Treuhander der Arbeit);
The State (Land) Peasant Leader;
The Gau Economic Counsel;
The Gau Superintendent of the German Labour Front;
The Gau Women's Leader;
The District Hitler Youth Leader;
The highest representative of the interior and general
administration, especially of the Office for Agriculture,
falls within his jurisdiction.
VII. The most elevated and most essential tasks of the
Gauleiter of the N.S.D.A.P. in their function of
plenipotentiaries in their Gaue is the establishment on a
sound basis of the maximum co-operation between all
official establishments dealing with questions of
manpower in their Gaue."
Apparently in order to explain the advantage of this
measure, Sauckel wrote:
This document is a letter of the defendant Sauckel dated 8
September, 1942, and is entitled "Special Action of the
General Plenipotentiary, for the Employment of Labour for
the Purpose of procuring Female Labour from the East for
Household Workers in Town and Country Households with Many
Children".
[Page 235]
THE PRESIDENT: Does it matter whether these women were
brought into a house where they ought not to have been
brought, and whether a particular German housewife was
entitled to a woman worker or not? The whole point, it would
seem, is whether they were deported - and forcibly deported.
GENERAL ZORYA: Mr. President, I had intended to summarise
this part of my statement which you just mentioned. I am
talking now about something else. I would like to show the
part which the Nazi Party played in organising slave labour
inside Germany, and in particular in the distribution of
those Soviet women who were transported for this purpose to
Germany. All this is contained in two short documents which
I consider necessary to submit to the Tribunal. As for the
rest, which concerns the regime which has already been
described sufficiently by the American and British
Prosecutions, I do not intend to dwell upon, and
contemplated cutting down this part to the minimum.
I wish to dwell on this part of the document which says that
applications for obtaining Eastern woman workers for
household duties were to be examined by the Labour
Department which would decide whether there is a real need
for the worker and are then to be forwarded for final
approval to the corresponding leader of N.S.D.A.P. (district
leader).
I request the Tribunal to pay attention to the appendix to
the Exhibit USSR 383 This appendix is entitled, "Memo for
Housewives, Regarding Employment of Eastern Women Workers in
Urban and Rural Households". This memo has already been
mentioned by Mr. Dodd. I will not dwell upon it in detail,
but will only draw the attention of the Tribunal to the sub-
title which is on page 133.
I beg your Honours to pay attention to the sub-title of this
slave-owner's memo which is on page 130.
The statement between brackets announces that this memo is
published by the General Plenipotentiary for the Utilisation
of Manpower, in agreement with the leader of the Party
Chancellery and other corresponding authorities. It is
difficult to state it more precisely. Millions of foreign
slaves were languishing in Germany. Any German could become
a slave-owner with the sanction and under the supervision of
the Nazi Party. Apparently this also constituted one of the
elements of the "New Order" in Europe.
I deem it indispensable to refer also to the order of the
defendant Goering, dated 27 March, 1942- I do not submit
this document, as it is already at the disposal of the
Tribunal, having been presented by the American Prosecution.
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(Part 6 of 8)
[MAJOR GENERAL ZORYA continues] "Conference of 7 November, 1941, on the Utilisation of
Russian Manpower. The Reichsmarschall gave the following
directions on the utilisation of Russian manpower:
I shall now omit one page of this document and refer to Page
7. In the middle of the page there is section "B", entitled
"Free Russian Workers".
"Employment and treatment is not actually to be other
than that given to Russian prisoners of war."
It should here be noted that the minutes of the conference
end with the following statement by Goering - you will find
this excerpt on Page 98 of the document book:-
"Mobilisation of workers and the utilisation of prisoners
of war are to be carried on in a unified manner, and they
must be integrated in organisation."
Coming back to Page 7 of the same minutes we come across the
following eloquent statement by Goering on the subject of
labour conditions for Russian workers and particularly their
wages. . . .
"In connection with the working conditions of the free
Russians it is to be kept in mind that:
To clarify the above statement the defendant Goering makes
the following further suggestion: I quote on Page 8 of the
Russian text of the document, paragraph "c", sub-paragraph
6:
"Every financial measure in this sphere must proceed from
the standpoint that current wage scales in the East-
according to a specific Fuehrer decree - are a
prerequisite for the balancing of war costs and the
elimination of war debts by the Reich at the end of the
war.
This is followed by two lines which are of interest, not
only because they incriminate the defendant Goering for
introducing the system of forced labour.
"The same applies in substance to every encouragement of
'social aspirations' in the Russian colonial territory."
"In the coming months the employment of manpower will
acquire still greater importance. On the one hand, the
recruiting situation of the armed forces necessitates the
release of all members of the younger age groups for its
task. On the other hand, urgent armament production and
other phases of the war economy, and also of agriculture,
must be provided with the manpower sorely needed by them.
For this, the utilisation of prisoners of war, especially
from Soviet Russia, plays an important role.
Later on, your Honours, the criminal activity of the fascist
conspirators in organising and extending the system of
forced labour acquired such magnitude that on 21 March,
1942, Hitler issued a decree creating a special department
under the defendant Sauckel, who developed these activities
on a large scale.
"I hereby appoint the Gauleiter of the N.S.D.A.P. my
plenipotentiaries for manpower in the Gaue administered
by them.
I omit some points:
"(4) Investigation of the results obtained by utilising
the labour of all foreign male and female workers.
Special regulations will be issued with regard to these.
In his programme for the utilisation of labour, presented -
as I have already pointed out - for "Hitler's birthday " in
1942, the defendant Sauckel wrote, and this part of the
programme was not read into the record by the American
Prosecution, it is on Page 105 of the document book:
"IV. The General Plenipotentiary for Labour Utilisation
will therefore, with a very small personal staff, make
use exclusively of existing institutions set up by the
Party, State and Industry, and the goodwill and co-
operation of all will assure the quickest success for his
measures.
In this document Sauckel addressed himself to the Gauleiter
begging them repeatedly to give him all possible assistance.
I would like to draw your Honours' attention to one of
Sauckel's assertions as mentioned in this document. He
mentions the decision of Hitler to send to the Reich "in
order to help the German peasant women, four or five hundred
thousand selected, healthy and strong girls from the Eastern
territories", to relieve German women and girls of labour
duty.
"Please believe me as an old and fanatical National
Socialist and a Gauleiter, when I say that eventually no
other decision in any case could be made."
The importance of the part played by the Nazi Party in the
organisation of compulsory slave labour, and the extent of
the thoroughness with which it went into the matter, is
shown by the following document which I am submitting to the
Tribunal in evidence as Exhibit USSR 383.
"Should the district leader object to granting a woman
worker to the household, the Labour Department declines
to send an Eastern woman worker to the applicant and
accordingly declines the permission for the employment of
such. The refusal need not be motivated and the decision
is final."
You may find this on Page 129 of the document book. It is
followed by the application form. You will find this in the
appendix to the Exhibit USSR 383. This application form
contains a brief questionnaire about the family which would
like to employ a domestic worker in their household. This
application form also contains the reply form of the
corresponding Nazi Party organisation, whether or not it
recommends the use of an Eastern slave in this household.
"The General Plenipotentiary for Labour Utilisation, in
order to carry out his tasks, herewith receives the power
which the Fuehrer has given him to issue directives to
the superior Reich courts and their subordinate officers,
to Party authorities and to Party units and branch
offices and branch organisations."