The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)
Nuremberg, war crimes, crimes against humanity

The Trial of German Major War Criminals

Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany
27th May to 6th June, 1946

One Hundred and Forty-Fifth Day: Monday, 3rd June, 1946
(Part 2 of 9)


THE PRESIDENT: It seems to me sufficient if you give us a group and then tell us what it deals with.

DR. SERVATIUS: Yes. That is from 50 to 59, omitting Document 56. The questions of wages and charts are included here. One will have to look at these more carefully if these questions become important. Therefore, I shall not make any further specific statements about that now.

Document Book 3 is a group of documents containing legal orders; Nos. 60-68 refer to medical care. I believe here also I do not have to go through the documents because they are of interest only if one studies the subject.

THE PRESIDENT: Give us a group and tell us what it is about and then we can look at it.

DR. SERVATIUS: Yes. It deals with medical care and, as I said, the details are of interest only if the question becomes important. There is no point in presenting them now.

The next group are speeches made by Sauckel about labour employment and are contained in the manual. I should like to refer to one in particular, a speech of 6th January, 1943, which was made after the conference between Sauckel and Rosenberg. It says there at the beginning: The Plenipotentiary for Labour Employment on 5th and 6th January.

THE PRESIDENT: Which page?

DR. SERVATIUS: It is 204 in my book and in the English text it should also be 204.

THE PRESIDENT: Probably that 8,000 should be 800.

DR: SERVATIUS: Yes, it should be Boo. I have also mentioned that document already and read the main parts.

Documents 82 and 83 have also been mentioned already in their essential parts.

Document 84 is a manifesto which has already been presented in detail.

Document 85 shows the generally valid and binding principles pursued by Sauckel, all of them well-known principles. The main fact is that after 1943 they showed the same tendency as they had before.

Document 86 is a later speech, a speech of 24th August, 1943, to the presidents of the Gau labour offices. Here again Sauckel stresses in his speech to the Gau labour presidents his basic attitude as he has often stated it here. He adheres to the same attitude on 17th January, 1944. That is Document 88 - when he again speaks to these presidents, and stresses:

[Page 260]

"The foreign workers have to be treated better and better. The reception camps are not to be primitive; they must be our invitation card to the workers."

And at the end:

"The more I do for the foreign labourers working in Germany, the better I treat them, the more I influence them inwardly, the greater the extent to which their production capacity is at my disposal."

And that was shortly - two months - before he succeeded in putting the remaining foreign workers on an equal footing with the German workers.

THE PRESIDENT: We have heard the defendant Sauckel explain ...

DR. SERVATIUS: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: ... that the work was carried on. And will you tell us where the group of speeches -how far does the group go?

DR. SERVATIUS: It is Document 89.

Document 94 I have read already. Documents 95, 96, 97, I have already read as far as it is necessary. And that brings me to the end of the presentation of documents.

Now, I should have to mention an affidavit of the witness Karl Gotz, which is attached to the document book. I submit it as Exhibit 10, an affidavit by Karl Gotz. This is an interrogatory which was submitted very early, and therefore was not very concise, since the details had not become apparent at this time. Therefore, the witness could not say anything specific to a number of questions.

Where he did answer the questions, he refers to an introduction which he wrote, and also in answering the questions raised by the prosecution, he refers to that introduction. Therefore, I believe that I can also read this introduction in so far as necessary. The affidavit is of 20th March, 1946. From the introduction, I should like to emphasize, on the second page, a conference in Paris. This witness Gotz was a bank expert in Weimar. He had known Sauckel before and had worked on his staff of experts. He had been with him in Paris and had taken part in the negotiations with Laval. He says here:

"The negotiations led to an extensive conversation which was carried on properly and politely as far as I could see. Laval took notice of Sauckel's proposals and agreed to accede to his request. But he made counterproposals."

I do not think I have to go into detail, because what was then negotiated is of minor significance. He said on the third page:

"During a later conference in Paris the proceedings were similar. Laval had assumed a stiffer attitude, and he pointed out the great difficulties which would confront the recruitment of additional workers. He emphasized in particular that the French labour market should not be stripped of its best forces."

I believe I can turn on to Page 4. The witness says there under 5:

"My last mission for Sauckel was to determine whether it was possible, by means of using all our banking connections, to purchase an additional amount of grain in Roumania and Hungary (about 50,000 to 100,000 tons was the figure given). This grain was to be used as additional food for foreign labourers in the form of an afternoon snack."

Then he says that that project failed due to circumstances. He gives a general impression of Sauckel and says briefly:

"Sauckel approached that task with the energy and vigour peculiar to him. He pointed out repeatedly what conditions were necessary for the success of the task; that it was the major duty of the various offices to see to the correct treatment of workers at their place of employment."
Then he described the details:

[Page 261]

"Above all, he demanded that foreign workers should not have the feeling of being imprisoned in their camps. He ordered the removal of all barbed wire fences." He continues by saying: "Sauckel said that the workers would have to return to their native countries as propaganda agents."

Then the witness gives an important statement about knowledge of atrocities and bad conditions. I should like to read from page 6 in order to show what kind of person this Gotz is. He says:

THE PRESIDENT: What page is your excerpt from?

DR. SERVATIUS: Page 6, or Page 266 of the Document Book, at the top of the page.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Go on.

DR. SERVATIUS: It says:

"I feel also that I should mention that following my arrest by the Gestapo after the affair of 20th July, 1944, Sauckel spoke on my behalf with RSHA (Kaltenbrunner?). I cannot say to what extent my release from the concentration camp Ravensbruck was brought about by this.

I wish to state further that I did not receive from Sauckel any material remuneration, awards or decorations.

I found it expedient to conceal from him my own inner political convictions and my connections with Goerdeler and Popitz. In his blind obedience to Hitler, and in spite of our old friendship, he would no doubt have handed me over to that Gestapo, from which he endeavoured to free me in November, 1944."

I have read this in advance and I return now to Page 265, because the witness, who was then active on Sauckel's staff, states his position on a question which is of great interest to all of us. He says:

"Now that the extent of atrocities in concentration camps has become known to me from publications, I try to figure out how, from the picture drawn above, conditions can be made to tally with the events now brought to light. Although I have pondered for weeks I can find no explanation for this."

THE PRESIDENT: What page is this? Page 265?

DR. SERVATIUS: Page 265. It is near the top of the page. Where it is in the English text, I cannot say; but it should be Page 265.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

DR. SERVATIUS:

"On one side I see the foreign workers, men and women, who move freely about in great numbers and associate with the German people. (Frenchmen and Belgians, with whom I had a personal interest in speaking, were usually happy to hear their native tongue and spoke freely, hoped the war would soon end and criticized their work, but rarely with bitterness.) On the other side appears the wholly unbearable picture of the recently revealed mass atrocities. One heard that foreign workers were tried and sentenced (they were certainly subject to the same lawlessness and the same methods of punishment as were the natives) but not that mass sentences were imposed. But that really had nothing to do with the employment of labour. I find it impossible to reconcile what I heard and what I saw in those days with the present revelations. Either this was a development which took place in the last year and a half, when I was not able to observe the situation because of my arrest and my retirement to the country or else there existed, besides the regular pool of foreign workers, a vast concentration camp pool. It is also possible that Sauckel was not able to view the whole system clearly and was not informed or that he deceived himself with his over-all orders and oral statements, which I cannot understand."

[Page 262]

I considered these statements of particular importance, because the witness supported the men of 20th July, 1944, and certainly observed carefully, and great importance has to be attached to his judgement.

As to the questions themselves, Question 1 and Answer 1 I consider irrelevant; also 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. All of these are answers which are of minor importance. To question 10 Page 276:

"Who was responsible for billeting, treatment and messing of foreign workers after they had arrived at the place of work?", the answer was: " I heard merely that, from the moment work was started, the responsibility rested with the factory managers (and in most cases with special employees under them)."

Question 11 is:

"What kind of orders did Sauckel issue for the treatment of these workers in the factories?"

The witness in his answer refers to the introduction which I have read. The next questions, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 are irrelevant.

Question 18 is:

"Did Sauckel receive reports about irregular conditions? What measures did he take? Do you know of any individual cases?"

Answer:

"I remember only one case. Sauckel was informed that the workers of a certain factory were still housed in a camp surrounded by barbed wire. I cannot recollect the name of the place or the factory concerned. I heard that he ordered the immediate removal of the fence."

Then we come to the questions which are put by the prosecution. I believe that Question I is not relevant, because it deals with personal, not official relations to Sauckel, and how he became acquainted with him as a prisoner of war.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Servatius, the Tribunal thinks that the prosecution ought to be asked to read anything it wishes to out of those interrogatories.

M. HERZOG: The prosecution, Mr. President, does not wish to read any excerpts from this interrogatory.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Servatius, you know that the witness Jager is present, do you not?

DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, he is present.

THE PRESIDENT: You know he is present.

DR. SERVATIUS: Then, with the permission of the Tribunal, I will call the witness Jager.

DR. WILHELM JAGER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:

BY THE PRESIDENT:

Q. Will you state your full name, please?

A. Dr. Wilhelm Jager.

Q. Will you repeat this oath after me:

I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.

(The witness repeated the oath.)

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

EXAMINATION BY DR. SERVATIUS:

Q. Witness, during the war you worked with the firm of Krupp in Essen in charge of the health of the camps of foreign workers as a doctor? Is that true?

A. Yes.

Q. Who put you in charge?

[Page 263]

A. I was appointed by the firm of Krupp which employed me, when a change in the care of foreign workers was brought about by the fact that the National Health Insurance Service had to take it over.

Q. Were you not also appointed by the German Labour Front?

A. No. The contract which the firm of Krupp made with me was made through the German Labour Front.

Q. If I understand you correctly, you did not conclude the contract directly with the Labour Front, but you were under obligations to the German Labour Front, were you not?

A. I have never felt that I had anything to do with the Labour Front in that respect.

Q. Witness, did you not continuously send reports to the German Labour Front about the conditions in the camps?

A. That happened only in a few cases as far as I can remember. I generally sent these reports to the National Health Insurance Service and to the firm of Krupp.

Q. Did you not also report to the State Industrial Inspection office?

A. Not always. I reported just a few cases to the health office of the city of Essen, but only when it appeared important to me to have the health office informed.

Q. Do you know of the office "Health and National Protection"?

A. Yes.

Q. With what office was that connected?

A. That was in Essen ....

Q. Not as far as the locality is concerned, but with what office was it connected? Was it not with the German Labour Front?

A. I cannot say that precisely. I know only that it was a sub-department of the National Health Insurance Service in Essen.


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