Speer visited the concentration camp Mauthaussen and factories such as those of Krupp, where concentration camp labor was exploited under barbarous conditions. Despite personal and first-hand knowledge of these conditions, Speer continued to direct the use of concentration camp labor in factories under his jurisdiction. In Speer’s interrogation under oath on 18 October 1945, he stated:
“Q. But, in general, the use of concentration camp labor was known to you and approved by you as a source of labor?
“A. Yes.
“Q. And you knew also, I take it, that among the inmates of the concentration camps there were both Germans and foreigners?
“A. I didn’t think about it at that time.
“Q. As a matter of fact you visited the Austrian concentration camp personally, did you not?”
“A. I didn’t—well I was in Mauthaussen once but at that time I was not told just to what categories the inmates of the concentration camps belonged.
“Q. But in general everybody knew, did they not, that foreigners who were taken away by the Gestapo, or arrested by the Gestapo, as well as Germans, found their way into the concentration camps?
“A. Of course, yes. I didn’t mean to imply anything like that.”
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