I make reference to Document Number 407(II)-PS, which bears Exhibit Number USA-226. This document is a telegram from the Defendant Sauckel to Hitler dated 10 March 1943. It is a rather long message, but I wish to call particularly to the attention of the Tribunal the last paragraph on Page 1 of the English text. It is Page 2, Paragraph 5 of the German text. Quoting the last paragraph of the English text:
“Therefore, my Führer, I ask you to abolish all orders which oppose the obligation of foreign workers for labor and kindly to report to me whether my conception of the mission presented here is still right.”
Turning to Paragraph 5 on the first page of this English text, we find these words, quoting them directly:
“If the obligation for labor and the forced recruiting of workers in the East is not possible any more, then the German war industries and agriculture cannot fulfill their tasks to the full extent.”
The next paragraph:
“I myself have the opinion that our Army leaders should not give credence, under any circumstances, to the atrocity and defamatory propaganda campaign of the partisans. The generals themselves are greatly interested that the support for the troops is made possible in time. I should like to point out that hundreds of thousands of excellent workers going into the field as soldiers now cannot possibly be replaced by German women not used to work, even if they are trying to do their best. Therefore, I have to use the people of the Eastern Territories.”
THE PRESIDENT: I think you should read the next paragraph.
MR. DODD: “I myself report to you that the workers belonging to all foreign nations are treated humanely, and correctly, and cleanly; are fed and housed well and are even clothed. On the basis of my own services with foreign nations I go as far as to state that never before in the world were foreign workers treated as correctly as they are now, in the hardest of all wars, by the German people.”
In addition to being responsible for the recruitment of foreign civilian labor by force, Defendant Sauckel was responsible for the conditions under which foreign workers were deported to Germany and for the treatment to which they were subjected within Germany.
We have already referred to the conditions under which these imported persons were transported to Germany and we have read from Document 2241(3)-PS to show that Sauckel knew of these conditions. Yesterday we referred at length to the brutal, degrading, and inhumane conditions under which these laborers worked and lived within Germany. We again invite the attention of the Tribunal to Document 3044-PS, already offered as Exhibit USA-206. It is Regulation Number 4 of 7 May 1942, issued by Sauckel as the Plenipotentiary General for the mobilization of labor, concerning recruitment, care, lodging, feeding, and treatment of foreign workers of both sexes. By this decree Defendant Sauckel expressly directed that the assembly and operation of rail transports and the supplying of food therefor was the responsibility of his agents until the transports arrived in Germany. By the same regulation Defendant Sauckel directed that within Germany the care of foreign industrial workers was to be carried out by the German Labor Front and that the care of foreign agricultural workers was to be carried out by the Reich Food Administration. By the terms of the regulation, Sauckel reserved for himself ultimate responsibility for all aspects of care, treatment, lodging, and feeding of foreign workers while in transit to and within Germany.