I shall quote to the Tribunal a paragraph from this work, which is the last page in my document book. It is Document Number RF-5 and this sentence is found on Page 23. I quote:
“A great percentage of foreign workers will remain, even after victory, in our territory, in order to complete then—having been trained in construction work—what the outbreak of war had prevented, and to carry out those planned projects which up to now had remained unrealized.”
Thus, in a work of propaganda, consequently written with great prudence and with intent to seduce, we nevertheless find this main admission by the Germans, that they intended to keep, even after the war, the workers of other countries in order to insure the greatness of Germany without any limitation of aim or time. Hence it is a matter of a policy of perpetual exploitation.
If it please the Tribunal, my introduction having come to an end, M. Herzog will present the brief relating to forced labor in France.
M. JACQUES B. HERZOG (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): Mr. President and Your Honors.
The National Socialist doctrine, by the pre-eminence which it gives to the idea of the State, by the contempt in which it holds individuals and personal rights, contains a conception of work which agrees with the principles of its general philosophy.
For it, work is not one of the forms of the manifestation of individual personalities; it is a duty imposed by the community on its members.
“The relationship of labor, according to National Socialist ideas,” a German writer has said, “is not a simple judicial relationship between the worker and his employer; it is a living phenomenon in which the worker becomes a cog in the National Socialist machine for collective production.” The conception of compulsory labor is thus, for National Socialism, necessarily complementary to the conception of work itself.
Compulsory labor service was first of all imposed on the German people. German labor service was instituted by a law of 26 June 1935 which bears Hitler’s signature and that of the Defendant Frick, Minister of the Interior. This law was published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 769. I submit it to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number RF-6 (Document Number 1389-PS).
From 1939 the mobilization of workers was added to the compulsory labor service. Decrees were promulgated to that effect by the Defendant Göring in his capacity as Delegate for the Four Year Plan. I do not stress this point; it arises from the conspiracy entered into by the accused to commit their Crimes against Peace, and which my American colleagues have already brought to the attention of the Tribunal. I merely point out that the mobilization of workers was applicable to foreigners resident in German territory, because I find in this fact the proof that the principle of compulsory recruitment of foreign workers existed prior to the war. Far from being the spontaneous result of the needs of German war industry, the compulsory recruitment of foreign workers is the putting into practice of a concerted policy. I lay before the Tribunal a document which proves this. It is Document C-2 of the French classification, which I offer as Exhibit Number RF-7. This is a memorandum of the High Command of the German Armed Forces of 1 October 1938. This memorandum, drawn up in anticipation of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, contains a classification of violations possible under international law. In connection with each violation appears the explanation which the High Command of the Armed Forces thinks it possible to give. The document appears in the form of a list in four columns. In the first is a statement of the violations of international law; the second gives a concrete example; the third contains the point of view of international law on the one hand and, on the other hand, the conclusions which can be drawn from it; the fourth column is reserved for the explanation of the Propaganda Ministry.