One Hundred and Ninetieth Day:
Tuesday, 30th July, 1946 [Page 62]
I have already indicated in my opening statement that the action of
deporting civilians-men, women and children-for forced labour into
Germany was one of the most important in the chain of foul crimes
committed by the German Fascist invaders.
The decisive role in this sinister crime was enacted by the defendant
Fritz Sauckel.
During cross-examination in this courtroom, defendant Sauckel could not
help but admit that during the war about ten million enslaved labourers,
originating both from occupied territories and from the ranks of the
prisoners of war, were utilized in German industries and partly for
German agricultural labour.
Whilst admitting the deportation to Germany and the utilization for the
war industries of Hitlerite Germany of millions of workers from the
occupied territories, Sauckel denied the criminal character of this
action, affirming that the recruitment of labour was allegedly carried
out on a voluntary basis.
This assertion is not only a lie but a slander against the millions of
honest patriots of the Soviet Union, of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia,
Poland, France, and Holland, who, devoted to their country, were
forcibly sent for labour into Hitlerite Germany.
The attempts of defendant Sauckel to depict his part of Plenipotentiary
General as consisting merely in the co-ordination and control of other
Government labour organizations, are futile. As the Plenipotentiary
General for employment of labour, Sauckel was invested by Hitler with
supreme and all-encompassing powers, and was, in these activities,
directly and personally subordinated to Goering.
And Sauckel extensively used these full powers in order to deport to
Germany labour from the occupied territories.
There is no need to refer to the extensive documentary evidence
presented to the Tribunal and which irrefutably establishes the criminal
character of the methods of mass deportation into slavery of the
population of occupied territories as well as the role of the defendant
Sauckel in organizing these crimes.
How far these crimes extended is shown in the operation carried out by
the German military and civil authorities, coded under the name "Seno," which provided for the forced deportation of children from the ages of
ten to fourteen into slavery, as well as for the deportation of
Ukrainian girls destined by Hitler for Germanization.
The defendant Sauckel has tried to assure the Tribunal that he had
strictly complied with the demands of the Geneva and Hague Conventions
concerning the utilization of labour of prisoners of war. His own
instructions, however, fully expose his lies.
The defendant Sauckel had planned beforehand the forced utilization of
Soviet war prisoners for the war industry in Germany and never made any
difference between them and the civilian labour forces.
The inhuman conditions under which the foreign workers and prisoners of
war deported for slavery lived are testified to by the numerous
documents submitted as evidence.
[Page 63]
The witness Dr. Willielm Eger, summoned to the Tribunal by counsel for
the defence, was obliged to give an awful picture of the conditions
under which the enslaved workers at Krupp's works existed.
After all this, the deposition of the other witness Fritz Wishofer seems
ridiculous because, in trying to exonerate Sauckel, he manifestly
overdid it by informing the Tribunal that he allegedly saw foreign
workers walking and enjoying themselves in the Prater in Vienna.
The defendant Sauckel showed great activity in committing all these
crimes. In April, 1943, he personally visited the towns of Rowrio, Kiev,
Dniepropetrovsk, Zaporozhie, Simferopol, Minsk, Riga, and in June of the
same year - Prague, Cracow, and again Kiev, Zaporozhic and Melitopol in
order to force the deportation of labour.
And it was as a result of his journey to the Ukraine in 1943 that
Sauckel expressed his gratitude for the successful mobilization of
labour forces, to the Reich Commissar of the Ukraine, Koch, known for
the drastically cruel measures which he applied to the Ukrainian
population.
And it is not mere chance that the criminal activities of Sauckel were
so highly appreciated in Hitlerite Germany.
On 6th August, 1942, the defendant Goering declared at the conference of
the Reich Commissars for the Occupied Territories:
The defendant Artur Seyss-Inquart was appointed by Hitler chief of the
civil administration in Southern Poland at the beginning of September,
1939, and since 12th October of the same year Deputy Governor-General of
Poland. Heoccupied this post till May, 1940.
For seven months Seyss-Inquart personally, under the leadership of Frank
and jointly with him, had been propagating a regime of terror in Poland,
and he took an active part in elaborating and realizing the plans for
the extermination of many thousands of people, for the economic plunder
and enslavement of the people of the Polish State. On 17th November,
1939, Seyss-Inquart addressed the chiefs of the administration and
departments of the Warsaw Government, mentioning, among other things,
that when the German administration acted in the General Government "
its leading principle should be the interests of the German Reich. By
means of a severe and unrelenting administration this region should be
utilized for German economy, and in order not to show any unnecessary
charity one should remember how the Polish race had usurped the German
territory."
Two days later Seyss-Inquart instructed the Lublin Governor
Brigadefuehrer SS Schmidt on the same question in the following way:
[Page 64]
It is also known that Seyss-Inquart, as Frank's deputy, fulfilled
"special tasks" on his behalf.
On 8th December, 1939, Seyss-Inquart took part in a conference at which
the following subjects were discussed: The appointment of Frank as
authorized plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan and the tasks of the
Governor- General to "obtain from the economy of the Government-General
all that is best and useful for the Reich," the arrival of numerous
trains with Jews and Poles since ist December from the re-annexed
territories, which transportations would continue, according to
Obergruppenfuehrer SS Krueger, till the middle of December, and the
issue of a supplementary order extending labour recruitment to persons
of the age of fourteen to eighteen.
On 21 st April, 1940, the defendant took part in the conference at which
measures for forced deportation of Polish workers to Germany were
elaborated.
On 16th, May, 1940 the defendant took part in the elaboration of the AB
operation, which was nothing but a plan of wilful mass extermination of
the Polish intellectuals.
In connection with the appointment of Seyss-Inquart as Reichskommissar
for Netherlands, Frank and his worthy deputy exchanged farewell
speeches:
"I have learned much here " - answered Seyss-Inquart - " above all
about initiative and firm leadership of the kind I saw in my
friend, Dr. Frank. . . . All my thoughts are connected with the
East. In the East we have a National Socialist mission, in the West
we have functions."
My colleagues have given the details about the criminal part played by
Seyss-Inquart when annexing Austria and realizing other aggressive plans
of the Hitlerite conspiracy; they have clearly shown how Seyss-Inquart
applied in the Netherlands the bloody experiment learned by him whilst
collaborating with Frank in Poland. For this reason I may fully support
the charges against Seyss-Inquart as they are formulated in the
Indictment.
As early as 1932, whilst still Reich Chancellor of the German Republic,
the defendant Franz von Papen had actively contributed to the
development of the Fascist movement in Germany.
Von Papen rescinded the decree of his predecessor Bruening prohibiting
the activities of the SA attacking units. It was he who had overthrown
the Braun-Severing Social-Democratic Government in Prussia. These
measures strengthened greatly the position of the Fascists and
contributed to their accession to power.
[Page 65]
And later on, for many years, until the collapse of Hitlerite Germany,
von Papen remained true to his Fascist friends jand participated to trie
utmost of his abilities the realization of the criminal conspiracy.
The defendant von Papen is attempting now to explain his role in the
development of the Nazi movement and in Hitler's seizure of power by the
political situation of the country which, as he said, made Hitler's
accession to power unavoidable.
The real motives which guided von Papen were his convictions, he himself
being a convinced Fascist devoted to Hitler.
Speaking at Essen on 2nd November 1933, during the election campaign for
th Reichstag, von Papen declared:
'The kind Lord has blessed Germany by giving it in times of deep
distress a leader who will lead it, through all distresses and
weaknesses through all crises and moments of danger, with the sure
instinct of the statesman into a happy future.'"
Long before the Nazi came to power the architect Albert Speer was a
personal friend of the architect's draughtsman, Hitler, and remained so
till the end. Not only common professional interests but political
interests also brought them together. Speer began his career in 1932
with the reconstruction of the " Brown House " - the headquarters of
NSDAP in Berlin, and in ten years' time he was at the head of all the
military construction and war production in Fascist Germany. Starting
with the construction of the building of the Reichs "Parteitag," Speer
ended by setting up the "Atlantic Wall."
Speer held an important post in the Government and military machinery of
Hitler's Germany and played a direct and active part in planning and
realizing the criminal conspiracy.
What is Speer's line of defence" at the trial? Speer presents his case
in the following way: he was pressed upon by Hitler to take on the post
of Minister; he was an intimate friend of Hitler's, but he knew nothing
about his plans; he had been a member of the Nazi Party for fourteen
years, but he was far from politics and had never even read Mein Kampf.
It is true that upon being given the lie Speer confessed that he had
lied during his preliminary interrogation at the inquest.
Speer lied when he denied that he had never belonged to the SA, and then
to the SS. The Tribunal possesses the original file of the SS man Albert
Speer, who belonged to the personal staff of the SS Reichsfuehrer
Himmler.
Speer held also a rather high rank in the Nazi Party. In the Party
Chancellery, he was delegate for all technical questions, he headed the
chief technical administration of the Party, he directed the union of
German National Socialist technicians,
[Page 66]
After all this can Speer's declaration that he was a specialist
indifferent to politics be taken into consideration? In reality, as a
close collaborator of Hitler, Hess, Ley and Goering, he directed the
German technique not only as Reichsminister, but also as a Nazi
political leader.
Upon succeeding to Todt, Speer, as he himself said in his speech before
the Gauleiter, devoted himself completely to the solution of war
problems. By means of the pitiless exploitations of the population in
the occupied territories and of the prisoners of war of the allied
countries, at the expense of the health and lives of hundreds of
thousands of people, Speer increased the prQduction of armament and
ammunition for the German army. By plundering the raw materials and
other resources of the occupied territories, Speer increased the war
potential of Hitler's Germany. His powers grew with every month of the
war. By Hitler's decree of 2nd September 1943, Speer became
plenipotentiary and responsible for the supply of raw materials, for the
direction and production of war industry. He was even commissioned to
regulate the turnover of commodities and, by Hitler's decreeof 24th
August, 1944, Speer was, in effect, made dictator of all German
authorities in Germany as well as in the occupied territories whose
activity was in any way connected with the strengthening of German
military power.
And when the Fascist flyers bombed peaceful towns and villages, killing
women, old men and children, when the German artillery bombarded
Leningrad, when the Hitlerite pirates sank hospital ships, when the "V" bombs destroyed towns in England, all this came as a result of Speer's
activity. Under his leadership, the production of gas and of other means
of chemical warfare had been widely increased. The defendant himself,
when interrogated by Mr. Justice Jackson at the trial, confessed that
three factories had been turning out products for chemical warfare and
that they were working at full speed till November, 1944.
Speer not only knew of methods used by Sauckel for deporting the
population from the occupied territories for slave labour, but he
himself took part, together with Sauckel, in conferences with Hitler and
in the administration of "Central Planning" where decisions were taken
to deport millions of people to Germany from the occupied territories.
Speer kept up a close contact with Himmler; he received from Himmler
prisoners for work in war factories; branches of concentration camps
were organized in many factories subordinated to Speer; in recognition
of Himmler's services Speer supplied the SS with experienced specialists
and with supplementary war equipment.
Speer has said a lot here about his having sharply criticized the Hitler
environment, that he allegedly had very serious dissensions with Hitler
and that, in his letters to Hitler, he had written about the uselessness
of continuing the war. When the representative of the Soviet prosecution
asked Speer which of the persons close to Hitler he had criticized and
in what connection, the defendant answered: "I shall not tell you."
It is quite evident that Speer not only did not want to, but could not
tell, for the simple reason that he had never criticized anyone who was
close to Hitler; moreover, he could not criticize as he was a convinced
Nazi himself, and belonged to this close environment. As to the
so-called "serious dissensions ", they began - as Speer admitted -
when it became clear to him that Germany had lost the war. Speer's
letters to Hitler are dated March, 1945. At that time Speer could,
without great risk, depict Germany's hopeless condition. It was apparent
to everyone and was no longer a subject of discussion. And it was not by
accident that after these letters Speer still remained Hitler's
favourite. It was precisely Speer whom Hitler appointed on 30th March,
1945, to direct measures for the total destruction of the industrial
enterprises, by obliging all Party, State and military offices to render
him extensive help.
[Page 67] [
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(Part 1 of 11)
"I do not wish to praise Gaulciter Sauckel. He does not need it.
But what he has done in this short time in order to gather workers
and to have them brought to our enterprises is a unique
achievement. I must tell everybody, gentlemen, that if each of you
applied but one tenth of the energy applied by Gauletier Sauckel,
it would be easy indeed to fulfil the tasks imposed upon you ... "
In the articles published in the Reichsarbeitsblatt for 1944, and
dedicated to Sauckel's fiftieth anniversary, it was said:
"True to his political task, he pursues his responsible course with
unyielding consistency and tenacity and with a fanatical belief. As
one of the most faithful adherents of Hitler, he gathers his
creative and spiritual strength from the Fuehrer's trust in him."
When estimating Sauckel's criminal activity, your Honours will surely
consider the tears shed by the millions of people who languished in
German slavery, of the thousands of people tortured in inhuman
conditions in the workers' camps - you will consider this and will
judge accordingly.
"The resources and the inhabitants of this country should serve
Germany, and they may prosper only within these limits. The
development of independent political thinking cannot be permitted.
Perhaps the Vistula will have an even greater significance for the
fate of Germany than the Rhine."
From the report on the official journey of Seyss-Inquart we learn that
the Governor of Warsaw, Fischer, informed the defendant that all
valuables of the Warsaw bank in gold, precious metals and bills of
exchange were transferred to the Reichsbank, whilst the Polish
inhabitants were obliged to leave their deposits in the banks; that the
German administration was employing forced labour; that the Lublin
Governor Schmidt declared in the presence of Seyss-Inquart:
"This territory with its strongly marked swampy nature could serve
as a region for the Jews, where conditions could be created to
shoot every tenth of them."
1 draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that it was exactly at
Maidanek near Lublin that the Hitlerite henchmen created an enormous
death machine in which they exterminated about one million and a half of
human beings.
"I am exceedingly glad," said Frank, "to assure you that the memory
of your work in the Government-General will live for ever when the
future world Reich of the German nation has been created. . . ."
The function of Seyss-Inquart in the West, as well as the function of
the other Reich Ministers and Kommissars in all territories occupied by
the Germans, is well known: it was the function of henchman and
plunderer.
"Ever since Providence called upon me to become the pioneer of
nation resurrection and the rebirth of our homeland, I have tried
to support with a my strength the work of the National Socialist
movement and its leader; an just as I, at the time of taking over
the Chancellorship, have advocated paving the way to power for the
young fighting liberation movement, just as I, on 30th January, was
selected by a gracious fate to put the hands of our Chancellor and
Fuehrer into the hand of our beloved Field-Marshal, so do I today
again feel the obligation to say to the German people and all those
who have kep confidence in me:
The International Military Tribunal will fully estimate the criminal
activities of the defendant von Papen, who played a decisive part in the
seizure of power by Hitler and, in doing so, contributed to the creation
of the dark powers of Nazism which brought on bloody wars in the world
and caused innumerable calamities.