“On the German side an impressive contribution toward the creating of a favorable atmosphere has been made by means of the intended release of an additional large number of prisoners of war, which was considered by you at the time of our conversation of 24 March as a primary condition for the success of a reinforced recruiting of workers for Germany. I am therefore probably not wrong in expecting that you will send to the economic organizations a communication so designed that the attitude of expectation, maintained by French economy up until now, will develop also in the field of the release of labor into a constructive co-operation. I therefore expect that you will submit to me your proposals with all possible speed.”
And, finally, the German services placed direct pressure upon the workers themselves.
First, moral pressure. The opération de la relève (prisoner exchange plan) tried in France in the spring of 1942 is characteristic. The occupation authorities promised to compensate for the sending of French workers to Germany by liberating prisoners of war. The return of a prisoner was to take place upon the departure of a worker. This promise was fallacious, and reality was quite different.
I quote in this connection the report on compulsory labor and the deportation of workers, which I submitted this morning to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-22 (Document Number F-515).
I quote Page 51, both in the French original and in the German translation. In the French original it is the third paragraph of Page 51 and in the German translation the first paragraph:
“If the press, inspired by the occupying power, pretends in its commentaries to applaud the replacement plan of one prisoner for one worker, it is undoubtedly done to order and based on calculation; and also it seems because until 20 June 1942, 2 days before the speech cited before”—it was a speech of the chief of the de facto government of France—“it was, indeed, this proportion which the Germans Michel and Ritter had pretended to accept in their reports to the French administrative services.
“The proportion, in fact, of one to five, appears to have been a last-minute surprise of which the press had never breathed a word.”
The pressure of which foreign workers were the victims was also a material pressure. I said that the fiction of voluntary enrollment could not be maintained in view of the arrests. I wish to submit a document to the Tribunal which furnishes a characteristic example of the German mentality and of the methods utilized by the National Socialist administrations. This is a document which in the French archives is Number 527, which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-43. This is a letter from the delegate of the Reich Labor Minister in the French department of Pas de Calais. This official enjoins a young French workman to depart for Germany as a free worker under threat of unfavorable consequences. This is in Exhibit Number RF-43 (Document Number F-527), third page: