“In order to avoid effects detrimental to the armament industry, all considerations must yield to the necessity of filling in every case the gaps in the labor supply caused by extensive drafting into the Wehrmacht. To this end the forced mobilization of workers from the occupied territories must not be overlooked if voluntary recruitment should not succeed. The mere possibility of compulsory mobilization will, in many cases, facilitate recruiting.
“Therefore I ask you to take immediate steps in your district to promote the employment of workers in the German Reich on a voluntary basis. I herewith request you to prepare for publication, regulations to render possible forced mobilization of labor in your territory for Germany, so that they may be decreed at once in case recruiting on a voluntary basis remains without the success necessary to relieve labor in the Reich.”
The appointment of the Defendant Sauckel may be considered as preparatory measure for the establishment of compulsory labor. It was necessary that a central authority be set up in order to co-ordinate the activity of the different labor departments to proceed to the mobilization of civilian workers. The terms explaining the motives of the decree of appointment are explicit: The mission of the Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor consists in satisfying the labor needs of the German economy through the recruiting of foreign workers and the utilization of war prisoners. The decree of Sauckel dated 22 August 1942, which I have submitted to the Tribunal under Document Number RF-17, expresses, moreover, the will of the defendant to set about recruiting by means of coercion.
The institution of compulsory labor represents deliberate violation of international conventions. The deportation of workers is forbidden by several stipulated regulations which have the value of actual law. I shall quote, first of all, Article 52 of the Annex to the Fourth Convention of the Hague. I have already given a commentary on it to the Tribunal to demonstrate that the requisitioning of labor effected by the occupation authorities was illegal. Much more, the institution of compulsory labor was prohibited by Article 52. Compulsory labor was imposed upon foreign workers in the interest of the German war economy. It was carried out in armament factories of National Socialist Germany. It deprived the occupied territories of labor necessary for the rational exploitation of their wealth. It therefore is not within the framework of that labor requisition which Article 52 of the Hague Convention authorizes.
The prohibition of forced labor is, moreover, affirmed by another international convention. It is a question of the Convention of 25 September 1926 on slavery, of which Germany is a signatory. This treaty makes forced labor equivalent to slavery in its Article 5. I ask the Tribunal to refer to it.
Deportation of workers is the subject of a formal prohibition. Forced labor in German war factories was, therefore, instituted in flagrant violation of international law and of all pledges subscribed to by Germany. The National Socialist authorities transgressed positive international law; they likewise violated the law of nations. The latter guarantees individual liberty, on which the principle of forced recruitment is a characteristic attack.
The violation of treaties and the contempt of the rights of individuals are the tenets of National Socialist doctrine. Therefore, the defendants proceeded not merely to the mobilization of foreign workers; they proclaimed the necessity and the legitimacy of forced labor. I shall, first of all, indicate to the Tribunal certain declarations made by the defendants which amount to admissions. I shall thereupon indicate how the occupation authorities introduced the service of compulsory work in the different occupied territories. I shall demonstrate, finally, that the Germans took measures of violent coercion in an attempt to assure the execution of the civilian mobilization which had been decreed.
The legitimacy of forced enrollment has been upheld by Hitler. The proof of this can be found in the report of the Führer conferences held on 10, 11, and 12 August 1942. It is contained in Document R-124 which I presented this morning under Exhibit Number RF-30. I shall not read it to the Tribunal, because my American colleague, Mr. Dodd, has done so during his presentation on forced labor. I point out that the document to which I refer indicates that the Führer was in agreement with the exercise of all the necessary compulsion in the East as well as in the West, if the question of recruiting foreign workers could not be regulated on a voluntary basis.
The necessity of making use of compulsory labor was expressed in identical terms by certain defendants.