“In answer to the request of the Reich Security Main Office I ask that in the future: (a) All Jews about to be released and (b) all Poles awaiting release who have served a sentence of more than 6 months, are to be listed to the directorate of the State Police competent for the district for further confinement and, in due time before the end of sentence, are to be placed at its disposal for transfer.”
And the last paragraph states that this ruling replaces the hitherto ordered return of all Polish prisoners undergoing imprisonment in the Old Reich condemned in the annexed Eastern territory.
The next subject: The Gestapo and the SD participated in deportation of citizens of occupied countries for forced labor and handled the disciplining of forced labor.
With reference to the presentation heretofore made concerning forced labor, I do not intend to repeat. However, there were several references to important positions played by the Gestapo and the SD in rounding up persons to be brought into the Reich for forced labor and references in two or three documents that were introduced, I simply want to cite those documents as showing the part that the Gestapo and SD played. Document L-61, Exhibit Number USA-177. It is set out in this document book—I am simply citing it—it is a letter of the 26th of November 1942 from Fritz Sauckel, in which he stated that he had been advised by the Chief of the Security Police and SD under date of 26 October 1942 that during the month of November the evacuation of Poles in the Lublin district would begin in order to make room for the settlement of persons of the German race. The Poles who were evacuated as a result of this measure were to be put into concentration camps for labor as far as they were criminal or antisocial.
The Tribunal will also recall the Christensen letter, which is our Document 3012-PS, Exhibit Number USA-190. In that letter it is stated that during the year 1943 the program of mass murders carried out by the Einsatz groups in the East should be modified in order to round up hundreds of thousands of persons for labor in the armament industry. That was in Document 3012-PS, which has heretofore been introduced as Exhibit Number USA-190. And that force was to be used when necessary. Prisoners were to be released so that they could be used for forced labor. When villages were burned down the whole population was to be placed at the disposal of the labor commissioners.
Now in that connection the direct responsibility of the Gestapo for disciplining forced workers is shown in our exhibit, Document 1573-PS, Exhibit Number USA-498. This is a secret order signed by Müller himself to the regional Gestapo offices on the 18th of June 1941; and I quote from the document from the beginning. It is addressed:
“To all offices of the State Police—to the State Police, attention SS Sturmbannführer R. R. Nosske or deputy at Aachen.
“Subject: Measures to be taken against emigrants and civilian workers who come from the Greater Russian areas and against foreign workers.