One Hundred and Forty-First Day:
Wednesday, 29th May, 1946
[Page 101]
Q. If you go through that document you will see that
Rosenberg complains about the methods used by your agents
and assistants. What are these agencies for which you are
being made responsible here?
A. There is an error in this letter on the part of
Rosenberg, because it was not I who had offices there, but
the Reich Commissioner.
Q. In other words, you are saying that he addressed himself
to the wrong person?
A. Yes.
Q. Then will you put that document aside.
A. Rosenberg writes on Page 2: "I empowered the Reich
Commissioner for the Ukraine - "
Q. You assume, therefore that the writer of this letter did
not himself know exactly how the authorities in his
territory were divided?
A. Yes, that was quite possible, because I myself had only
been in office a short time.
Q. What did you do as a result of the complaint which
Rosenberg made? Did you do anything at all?
A. After receipt of his letter I had a discussion with
Rosenberg immediately. Since it was shortly before
Christmas, 21st December, 1942, I called, by telegram, a
meeting at Weimar for 6th January, to which representatives
of various offices in the East wore invited. I also invited
Reich Minister Rosenberg to that meeting. And at that
conference, these officials were again clearly and plainly
told that it was their duty to use correct and legal
methods.
DR. SERVATIUS: In that connection I would like to refer to
Document S-82. It is in Sauckel Document Book No. 3, Page
207. I submit the handbook itself, which contains a number
of documents.
I quote one sentence from the speech which Sauckel made
there before 800 people who were employed in the
Arbeitseinsatz programme, about the principles of
recruiting.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say 800?
DR. SERVATIUS: Page 206.
THE PRESIDENT: It is 8,000 in my copy. Isn't it 8,000?
DR. SERVATIUS: The third book, Page 206 Document Number 82.
THE PRESIDENT: I am looking at Document Number 82. I thought
you said 800 men were employed. I am looking at the
beginning of Document 82.
DR. SERVATIUS: It begins on Page 204. He spoke before 800
people, not 8,000. It should be 800. That is a mistake in
the translation of the document.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. SERVATIUS: The following is stated here:
(1) Where the voluntary method fails (and experience
shows that it fails everywhere) compulsory service takes
its place."
DR. SERVATIUS: I did not quite understand.
THE PRESIDENT: You have left out some of the document.
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, I omitted some sentences and I said so.
But I can read all of it.
[Page 102]
DR. SERVATIUS: I have four sentences there. I will read them
again:
DR. SERVATIUS: I read that the first time; I wanted to save
time.
Let us be guided by the realization that in the long run
a high output can be demanded of foreign workers only if
they are satisfied with their lot. I will not tolerate
that human beings are treated badly.
(3) Under no circumstances are you, as the recruiting
commission abroad, permitted to promise things which,
according to the directives and regulations issued, are
not possible and cannot be carried out on account of the
war. It is much better to introduce labour conscription
and say: 'You must take this upon yourselves and in
return you will enjoy the rights of the workers employed
in Germany.' Anyone who works in Germany has a right to
live in Germany, even if he is a Bolshevist. We shall
watch very carefully to ensure that the German name is
not sullied. You can demand of me any protection in your
field of work, but none for any crimes. The name of our
nation is holy. For the first time in German history you
must represent for the Reich the principles of German
labour. Be conscious of that at all times."
Q. Apart from the information which you received from
Rosenberg, did you receive any other reports concerning
recruiting methods?
A. Apart from the information from Rosenberg and his letter
of that time I did not receive any other direct complaints.
But I had issued emphatic orders that any complaints
received by my office were to be immediately forwarded to
the competent Reich authorities for investigation,
punishment, and elimination of the deficiencies. I should
like to state this: My office received many complaints for
which I was competent. But those were complaints about
insufficient workers provided by me. It was my duty to
correct this. For the correction of inadequacies m the
administration, fur eliminating unjust measures in various
fields or various agencies, I was not competent. The Reich
offices themselves were competent in that respect.
Q. But it should have been of great interest to you what
happened there. Did you not hear anything of these
incidents? Was not anything reported to you?
A. That I was interested from a humane and personal point of
view can be seen from the fact that I was concerned about
these things although they were not within my competence.
Q. But you spoke here about one case in which it was
reported to you that a cinema had been surrounded. Perhaps
you remember that case?
A. On the occasion of a visit to Field Marshal Kluge I heard
from him that he had been informed that in the area of his
army or army group, a cinema had been surrounded and the
people attending the cinema had been brought to Germany to
[Page 103]
Q. We will leave this matter of recruitment now and turn to
the question of the transportation of these people to
Germany. Who was responsible for their transportation?
A. For the transportation the German Reichsbahn and the
offices designated in my Directive No. 4, regional offices
and regional labour departments were responsible.
Immediately upon assuming my office, I had a detailed
discussion with Dr. Dorpmuller, Reich Minister of Transport,
his State Secretary, Dr. Ganzenmuller, and before him Dr.
Kleinmuller, and reached an agreement with the Minister that
the transportation of workers to Germany should be carried
out in a smooth manner, that the transport trains should be
supplied with food for the duration of the journey, that if
Russians were included in these transports, the cars should,
under no circumstances, be overcrowded and that, if at all
possible, coaches should be used for these transports. We
agreed on this, though the Reich Minister of Transport said
that he could not be expected to provide the people with
better transport than the German soldiers, but he could at
least guarantee that the cars would not be overcrowded.
Q. You have seen the Molotov report, that is Document
USSR-51. You know its contents, describing the conditions of
these transports, saying that the cars were overcrowded,
that the dying were thrown out, and left lying on the
tracks, and that newly born children died immediately. Were
such conditions reported to you or did you hear of them in
your official position?
A. Such incidents were not reported to me in my official
position and they could not possibly have involved worker
transports of my office.
Q. What kind of transports could they have been, then?
A. As far as I could determine from the proceedings here,
they must have been transports of inmates of concentration
camps who were being evacuated. I do not know it positively
but I cannot explain it otherwise because I would not
tolerate such conditions under any circumstances, nor did I
hear of them. Such conditions were of no advantage to us.
THE PRESIDENT: Where is that document, USSR-51?
DR. SERVATIUS: Document USSR-51, is the official report
which I received in printed form. I have a printed German
copy. I assume that it has been submitted to the Tribunal
already. If not, I shall obtain it and submit it myself.
THE PRESIDENT: If it has got the number USSR-51, it must
have been submitted to the Tribunal. That is the exhibit
number. I wonder whether it has some other number by which
we can identify it.
DR. SERVATIUS: The prosecution handed me Document 054-PS;
that is Exhibit USA 198. That is in the "English Slave
Labour Book" No. 13.
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
There, on Page 4, mention is made of a return transport and
in connection with it very bad conditions are described and
censured.
[Page 104]
THE PRESIDENT: We have not had the question yet, have we?
The question did not come through, I think.
DR. SERVATIUS: I will put the question again.
In this document mention is made of return transports from
Germany to the East and two transports are criticized on
account of the catastrophic conditions which are described.
I quote from the document:
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. You can see the reference to this report, will you
comment on it?
A. Concerning this report, may I say the following: These
terrible conditions had to be investigated at once by the
local authorities concerned. A report about the result of
the investigation did not reach me. This report here was
also not made to me. I may point out that the transportation
to Germany of sick people unfit for work was strictly
prohibited by me, because that would have been a crime and,
economically speaking, an impossible situation. I could not
possibly say who returned these transports. It was also not
established what kind of transports they really were. The
report describes conditions which already existed before I
came into office. I, personally - and I should like to
emphasize this particularly - issued decrees according to
which sick people or pregnant women .... I personally issued
orders that if a return transport of sick people were
necessary, the German Red Cross was to furnish personnel to
accompany these people all the way back to their native
town. These orders can be found among the collection of
laws. Such terrible cases of neglect and crime are,
therefore, in open contradiction to the clear regulations
issued by the German labour authorities.
Q. Did you not install Bad Frankenthal for sick people who
could not return?
A. In my own Gau it was not Bad Frankenthal but Bad
Frankenhausen at the Kyffhaeuser which I made available for
sick Soviet workers, and in addition, I had a large school
set aside in Edendorf near Weimar, with one hundred beds for
[Page 105]
THE PRESIDENT: We had better adjourn now.
(A recess was taken.)
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. When the workers arrived in Germany -
A. (Interposing) May I say something about Document 54 to
supplement my testimony? It is very important.
Q. Yes.
A. On Page 5, near the centre of the page, I should like to
call your attention to the following sentence of the
reporter, this is a report within a military authority:
Furthermore, I should like to call attention in the same
document, 054-PS, I believe on Page 10, to a copy of a
letter of complaint which says:
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(Part 3 of 9)
[DR. SERVATIUS continues his direct examination of Ernst Friedrich Christoph
Sauckel] "Principles of Our Recruiting:
I omit a few sentences:
"It is bitter to tear people from their homeland, from
their children. But we did not want the war. The German
child who loses its father at the front, the German wife
who mourns her husband killed in battle, suffers far
more. Let us abandon every false sentiment now."
THE PRESIDENT: You have left out some of the document, have
you not?
"Where the voluntary method fails, compulsory service
takes its place."
Then I omitted two sentences, which I shall now read:
"This is the iron law for the employment of labour in
1943: In a few weeks from now there must no longer be an
occupied territory in which compulsory service for
Germany is not the most natural thing in the world."
THE PRESIDENT: Did you not also leave out the words
"experience shows that it fails everywhere"?
"We are going to discard the last remnants of our silly
talk about humanitarian ideals. Every additional gun
which we procure brings us a minute closer to victory. It
is bitter to tear people from their homeland, from their
children. But we did not want the war. The German child
who loses its father at the front, the German wife who
mourns her husband killed in battle, suffers far more.
Let us abandon every false sentiment now.
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
"Very depressing effects on the morale of the skilled
workers and the population are caused, above all, by
people returning from Germany in a condition unfit for
work, and those who had already been unfit before they
came to Germany."
A. These can only be incidents which -
"Very depressing effects on the morale of the skilled
workers and the population are caused, above all, by
people returning from Germany in a condition unfit for
work and those who had already been unfit before they
came to Germany. Several times already transports of
skilled workers on their way to Germany have passed
returning transports of such unfit persons and have stood
on the tracks alongside of each other for quite a long
while. On account of the insufficient care given in these
returning transports (sick, injured or weak people, fifty
to sixty to a car, often many days without sufficient
care and food, because usually escorted by only three or
four men), through frequently very unfavourable - even
though surely exaggerated - statements of these
repatriates on their treatment in Germany and en route,
added to what the people could see with their own eyes, a
psychosis of fear developed among the skilled workers and
others on their way to Germany. Several transport heads,
especially those of the 62nd and the 63rd transport,
reported details in this connection. In one case the head
of the transport of skilled workers observed with his own
eyes how a person who had died of hunger was deposited on
the side track from a returning transport. (1st Lt.
Hofmann of the 63rd transport, Station Darnitza.) On
another occasion it was reported that en route three dead
- "
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think you need read all of this to
the defendant. He probably knows it and he can give his
answer upon it.
"These extreme incidents which took place in transports
in the first few months, did not, to our knowledge,
repeat themselves in the summer."
In the first months of the year 1942, I was not even in
office, and my programme did not commence until May. In the
summer of that year, as it is correctly stated here, an end
was put to this state of affairs.
"As I informed you m my letter of 20th April, '42."
It is evident therefore that this letter deals with
complaints about conditions which must have appeared before
I assumed office.