On 7 July 1944, Sauckel stated that the number of workers deported to Germany during these first 6 months of 1944 reached a total of 537,000, of which 33,000 were Frenchmen. On the 1st of March 1944 he acknowledged, during a conference held by the Central Office of the Four Year Plan, that there were in Germany 5 million foreign workers, of whom 200,000 were actually volunteers.
The report of the French Ministry for prisoners, deportees, and refugees, gives the figure of 715,000 for the total number of men and women who had been deported.
It should be added that, contrary to international law, the workers who were transported to Germany had to work under labor conditions and living conditions that were incompatible with the most rudimentary regard for human dignity. The Defendant Sauckel has himself stated that foreign workers, who could achieve substantial production, should be fed so that they could be exploited as completely as possible with the minimum of expense, adding that they should receive less food the moment their production began to decrease and that no concern should be given to the fate of those whose production capacity no longer presented any interest. Special reprisal camps were organized for those who sought to avoid the compulsion imposed on them. An order of 21 December 1942 stipulated that unwilling workers should be sent, without trial, to such camps. In 1943 Sauckel, during an inter-ministerial conference, stated that the co-operation of the SS was essential to him in order to fulfill the task with which he had been entrusted. Thus, the crime of forced labor and of deportation gave rise to a whole series of additional crimes against persons.
The work required of war prisoners did not remain within the legal limits authorized by international law any more than did that of the civilian laborers. National Socialist Germany obliged prisoners of war to work for the German war production, in violation of Articles 31 and 32 of the Geneva Convention.
National Socialist Germany, while exploiting to the fullest extent for the war effort prisoners as well as workers from occupied territories against all international conventions, was at the same time seizing, by every possible means, the wealth of these countries. German authorities applied systematic pillage in these countries. By economic pillage we mean both the taking away of goods of every type and the exploitation, on the spot, of the national resources for the benefit of Germany’s war.
This pillage was methodically organized.
The Germans began by making sure that they had in their possession, in all countries, the necessary means for payment. Thus, they insured that they could seize, with the appearance of legality, the wealth which they coveted. After freezing the existing purchasing power, they required enormous payments under the pretext of indemnity for the maintenance of occupation troops.
It should be recalled that, according to the terms of the Hague Convention, occupied countries may be obliged to assume the burden of the expenses caused by the maintenance of an army of occupation. But the amounts that were exacted under this by the Germans were only remotely related to the actual costs of occupation.
Moreover, they forced the occupied countries to accept a clearing system which operated practically for the exclusive profit of Germany. Imports from Germany were almost nonexistent; the goods exported to Germany by the occupied countries were subject to no regulation.
In order to maintain for the purchasing balance thus created a considerable purchasing power, the Germans endeavored everywhere to achieve the stabilization of prices and imposed a severe rationing system. This rationing system, which left the population with a quantity of inferior goods which was less than the minimum indispensable for their existence, afforded the additional advantage of preserving for the benefit of the Germans the greatest possible portion of the production.