On 21st March, 1949 [sic 1939], Hitler appointed Sauckel Plenipotentiary General for the Utilisation of Labour,
with authority to put under uniform control "the utilisation of
all available manpower, including that of workers recruited abroad and
of prisoners of war." Sauckel was instructed to operate within
the fabric of the Four Year Plan, and on 27th March, 1942, Goering issued a decree
as Commissioner for the Four Year Plan transferring his manpower sections
to Sauckel. On 30th September, 1942, Hitler gave Sauckel authority to
appoint Commissioners in the various occupied territories, and ' to
take all necessary measures for the enforcement" of the decree
of 21st March 1942
Under the authority which he obtained by these decrees,
Sauckel set up a programme for the mobilisation of the labour resources
available to the Reich. One of the important parts of this mobilisation
was the systematic exploitation, by force, of the labour resources of
the occupied territories. Shortly after Sauckel had taken office, he
had the governing authorities in the various occupied territories issue
decrees, establishing compulsory labour service in Germany. Under the
authority of these decrees Sauckel's Commissioners, backed up by the
police authorities of the occupied territories, obtained and sent to
Germany the labourers which were necessary to fill the quotas given
them by Sauckel. He described so-called "voluntary " recruiting
by Janates" a whole batch of male and female agents just as was
done in the olden times for shanghaiing". That real voluntary recruiting
was the exception rather than the rule is shown by Sauckel's statement
on 1st March, 1944, that " out of five million foreign workers
who arrived in Germany not even 200,000 came voluntarily". Although
he now claims that the statement is not true, the circumstances under
which it was made, as well as the evidence presented before the Tribunal,
leave no doubt that it was substantially accurate.
The manner in which the unfortunate slave
labourers were collected and transported to Germany, and what happened
to them after they arrived has already been described. Sauckel argues
that he is not responsible for these excesses in the administration
of the programme. He says that the total number of workers to be obtained
was set by the demands from agriculture and from industry, that obtaining
the workers was the responsibility of the occupation authorities, transporting
them to Germany that of the German railways, and taking care of them
in Germany that of the Ministries of Labour and Agriculture, the German
Labour Front and the various industries involved. He testifies that
insofar as he had any authority he was constantly urging humane treatment.
There is no doubt, however, that Sauckel had over-all
responsibility for the slave labour programme. At the time of the events
in question he did not fail to assert control over the fields which
he now claims were the sole responsibility of others. His regulations
provided that his Commissioners should have authority for obtaining
labour, and he was constantly in the field supervising the steps which
were being taken. He was aware of ruthless methods being taken to obtain
labourers, and vigorously supported them on the ground that they were
necessary to fill the quotas.
Sauckel's regulations also provided that he had responsibility
for transporting the labourers to Germany, allocating them to employers
and taking care of them. and that the other agencies involved in these
processes were subordinate to him. He was informed of the bad conditions
which existed. It does not appear that he advocated brutality for its
own sake, or was an advocate of any programme such as Himmler's plan
for extermination through work His attitude was thus expressed in a
regulation:
" 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."
The evidence shows that Sauckel was in charge of a
programme which involved deportation for slave labour of more than 5,000,000
human beings, many of them under terrible conditions of cruelty and
suffering.