MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did this apply only to Germans?
MILCH: As far as I know this applied to Germans only. By slackers—they were also called casual workers—was meant only those people who went from place to place, who practically every week changed their job and who were reported to us mainly by the representatives of our own workers. Our own workers complained that these people availed themselves of all privileges as to food, et cetera, while they did not do anything, that they always gave up their jobs soon, and that every establishment was glad to get rid of them.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And got rid of them by sending them to the concentration camps under the SS?
MILCH: They had to be taught, and we were told that if these people had their additional—not their basic—rations made dependent on their output, as was the case in the concentration camps, they would very quickly learn.
I do, however, remember that it was proposed to limit this treatment to 2 or 3 months, after which they would be brought back, and if they had learned their lesson they would be given full freedom again.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, did you have anything to do on the Central Planning Board with the work of prisoners of war?
MILCH: No; I do not think so.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, I ask that you be shown the 22d conference of the Central Planning Board minutes of the meeting held on the 2d of November 1942, Page 1042, at Line 24, which quotes you. The English translation is on Page 27.
I ask you to refresh your recollection by reading this paragraph.
“Milch: I think that agriculture must get its labor quota. Assuming that we had given agriculture 100,000 more workers, we would now have 100,000 more people who would be decently fed, whereas, the human material we are now receiving, particularly the prisoners of war, are not sufficiently fit for work.”