“2. Treatment of prisoners of war. The treatment of prisoners of war shall be dictated, within limits compatible with security, by the sole purpose of increasing the labor output to the utmost extent. In addition to just treatment, providing the prisoners with the food due them according to stipulations, and with proper billets, supervision of the labor output is necessary to achieve this highest possible production.
“Available means must be employed with extreme rigor as regards lazy and rebellious prisoners.”
The resistance of war prisoners caused the German labor bureaus to use a subterfuge to force them to work. I refer to the operation called the transformation of war prisoners into free workers. It consisted in transforming prisoners of war into so-called free workers, to whom a labor contract was offered. The operation was perfected by the Defendant Sauckel in the course of one of his trips to Paris on 9 April 1943. To Germany it offered the advantage of permitting the use of transformed prisoners in armament factories without directly violating the Geneva Convention. For the prisoners it presented only an illusory advantage, the decrease of the surveillance to which they were subjected. In reality the length and the nature of the work imposed upon them was in no way changed; their housing conditions and the quality of their rations remained unchanged. Moreover, this operation, presented by German propaganda as a special measure to war prisoners, brought about a deterioration of their legal status.
The prisoners of war were not fooled; in most cases they refused to co-operate with this German maneuver. Some agreed to do it, but a number of these took advantage of the first leave granted them because of their change in status, and fled. The report of the Statistical Institute on Forced Labor, which I submitted to the Tribunal this morning under Exhibit Number RF-22, (Document Number F-515) gives in this connection the following information. I quote it, Page 70 of the French text, Page 70 of the German translation. I shall read the second paragraph:
“The transformation of prisoners into ‘free’ workers, which was realized or carried out as the second Sauckel act and which because of this fact must be counted in the present list as dating from 25 April 1943, was decided by him, Sauckel, in the course of a trip to Paris on 9 April 1943. It was to afford, after the prisoner had signed his contract, leave to go to France which was dependent on the return of the men who had gone on leave before. Two attempts were made to carry out this plan. As of 24 April 1943, out of 1,000 on leave, 43 did not return. In the month of August following, out of 8,000 on leave, 2,000 did not return. A last appeal directed to them was published in the press of 17 August without result. There is no third experiment, and the transformation in practice limited itself to the removal of sentinels and of camp guards, but did not change either the nature or the duration of the work or the housing conditions or the rations. On the other hand, it entailed loss of rights to receive packages from the International Red Cross and loss of the diplomatic protection of prisoners of war.”
The forced utilization of war prisoners did not permit the German authorities to solve the labor problem of the war economy. That is why they applied their policy of force to the civilian populations of the occupied territories.
The National Socialist authorities systemized their policy of force, from 1942 on, by instituting compulsory labor in the different occupied territories. From the end of 1941 it has been confirmed that neither the recruiting of voluntary workers nor the utilization of prisoners led to a solution of the problem of the labor required for the war economy. The Germans then decided to proceed to the forced enrollment of civilian workers. They decreed a veritable civilian mobilization, the execution of which characterizes their criminal activity.
I refer to a circular of 29 January 1942, issued by Dr. Mansfeld on the responsibility of the Defendant Göring. I remind the Tribunal that I have submitted this Document Number 1183-PS already under Exhibit Number RF-26. I read the passage from the document where I stopped this morning, Page 2, last paragraph of the French translation, Page 2; last paragraph also of the German original: