“Extension of work contracts, fixed for a period of time, of foreign workers, who during the time of their contract have, absented themselves from their work without proper excuse.
“The Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor decrees:
“The regular carrying out of the clauses of a contract for a fixed period of time concluded by a foreign worker necessitates that the worker should devote all his energy to the enterprise for the whole duration of the contract. Nevertheless, it happens that foreign workers as a result of idleness, delays in their return to work from visits to their homes,”—I draw the Tribunal’s attention to the following words—“serving terms of prison, internment in a camp of correction, or for other reasons, remain absent from their work . . . without just cause, for a longer or shorter period of time. In such cases foreign workers cannot be authorized to return to their country when the period of time has elapsed for which they agreed to work voluntarily in Germany.
“Such procedure is not in keeping with the spirit of a work contract for a fixed period of time, whose object is not only the presence of the foreign worker, but also the work accomplished by him.”
Kept by force in the German factories which they had entered under compulsion, the foreign workers were neither voluntary workers nor free workers. The exposé of the methods of German recruiting will suffice to show the Tribunal the fictitious character of the voluntary enrollment on which it was supposed to be based. The foreign workers who agreed to work in the factories of the National Socialist war industry did not act through free will. Their number, however, remained limited. The workers of the occupied territories had the physical and moral courage to resist German pressure. This is proved in an admission by the Defendant Sauckel, which I take from the minutes of the meeting of 3 March 1944 of the Conference of the Four Year Plan.
This is from an extract which has already been read by my American colleague, Mr. Dodd, so I will not read it again to the Tribunal. I merely wish to recall that the Defendant Sauckel admitted that out of 5 million foreign workers who came to Germany, there were not even 200,000 who came voluntarily. The resistance of the foreign workers surprised the Defendant Sauckel as much as it irritated him. One day he expressed his surprise to a German general who replied, “The difficulty comes from the fact that you address yourself to patriots who do not share your ideal.”
Indeed, only force could constrain the patriots of the occupied territories to work in behalf of the enemy. The National Socialist authorities resorted to force.