“In other places where the raids were held later, the numbers were much lower, because one was forewarned by the events. The exact figures are not known as they have never been published by the occupants.
“The people thus seized were put to work partly in the Netherlands, partly in Germany.”
A document found in the OKH files furnishes further evidence of the seizure of workers in Holland; and I refer to Document Number 3003-PS, which is Exhibit USA-196. This document is a partial translation of the text of a lecture, delivered by one Lieutenant Haupt of the German Wehrmacht, concerning the situation of the war economy in the Netherlands. I wish to quote from Page 1 of the English text, starting with the fourth line of Paragraph 1—quoting that directly, which reads as follows:
“There had been some difficulties with the Arbeitseinsatz, that is, during the man-catching action, which became very noticeable because it was unorganized and unprepared. People were arrested in the streets and taken out of their homes. It has been impossible to carry out a uniform exemption procedure in advance, because for security reasons the time for the action had not been previously announced. Certificates of exemption, furthermore, were to some extent not recognized by the officials who carried out the action. Not only workers who had become available through the stoppage of industry, but also those who were employed in our installations producing things for our immediate need were apprehended or did not dare to go into the streets. In any case it proved to be a great loss to us.”
I might say to the Tribunal, that the hordes of people displaced in Germany today indicate, to a very considerable extent, the length to which the conspirators’ labor program succeeded. The best available Allied and German data reveal that, as of January 1945, approximately 4,795,000 foreign civilian workers had been put to work for the German war effort in the Old Reich; and among them were forced laborers of more than 14 different nationalities. I now refer to Document Number 2520-PS, Exhibit USA-197, which is an affidavit executed by Edward L. Deuss, an economic analyst.
At the top of the first page there are tables setting forth the nationality and then the numbers of the various nationals and other groupings or prisoners of war and politicals, so-called. The workers alone total, according to Mr. Deuss who is an expert in the field, the 4,795,000 figure to which I have just referred. In the second paragraph of this statement of Deuss, I should like to read for the record and quote directly:
“I, Edward L. Deuss, for 3 years employed by the Foreign Economic Administration, Washington, as an economic analyst in London, Paris, and Germany, specializing in labor and population problems of Germany during the war, do hereby certify that the figures of foreign labor employed in the Old Reich have been compiled on the basis of the best available German and Allied sources of material. The accompanying table represents a combination of German official estimates of foreigners working in Germany in January 1945, and of American, British, and French figures of the number of foreigners actually discovered in the Old Reich since 10 May 1945.”
Only a very small proportion of these imported laborers came to Germany on a voluntary basis. At the March 1, 1944 meeting of this same Central Planning Board, to which we have made reference before, the Defendant Sauckel himself made clear the vast scale on which free men had been forced into this labor slavery. He made the statement, and I quote from Document Number R-124, which is in evidence as Exhibit USA-179 and from which I have quoted earlier this morning. I wish to refer to Page 11 of that document, the middle paragraph, Paragraph 3. In the German text it appears at Page 4, Paragraph 2—the Defendant Sauckel speaking—and I quote directly from that document: