“The 90,000 Russian PW’s employed in the whole of the armaments industry are for the greatest part skilled men.” (R-124)
Sauckel, who was appointed Plenipotentiary General for the utilization of labor for the express purpose, among others, of integrating prisoners of war into the German war industry, made it plain that prisoners of war were to be compelled to serve the German armament industry. His labor mobilization program contains the following statement:
“All prisoners of war, from the territories of the West as well as of the East, actually in Germany, must be completely incorporated into the German armament and nutrition industries. Their production must be brought to the highest possible level.” (016-PS)
7. THE CONCENTRATION CAMP PROGRAM OF EXTERMINATION THROUGH WORK
A special Nazi program combined the brutality and the purposes of the slave labor program with those of the concentration camp. The Nazis placed Allied nationals in concentration camps and forced them, along with the other inmates of the concentration camps, to work in the armaments industry under conditions designed to exterminate them. This was the Nazi program of extermination through work.
The program was initiated in the spring of 1942. It was outlined as follows in a letter to Himmler, dated 30 April 1942, from his subordinate Pohl, SS Obergruppenfuehrer and General of the Waffen SS:
“Today I report about the present situation of the concentration camps and about measures I have taken to carry out your order of the 3rd March 1942.”
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“1. The war has brought about a marked change in the structure of the concentration camps and has changed their duties with regard to the employment of the prisoners. The custody of prisoners for the sole reasons of security, education, or prevention is no longer the main consideration. The mobilization of all prisoners who are fit for work for purposes of the war now, and for purposes of construction in the forthcoming peace, come to the foreground more and more.
“2. From this knowledge some necessary measures result with the aim to transform the concentration camps into organizations more suitable for the economic tasks, whilst they were formerly merely politically interested.