MILCH: No; these were Englishmen, the slackers.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Englishmen are foreigners in Germany, are they not? I do not know what you mean, they were not foreigners. They were Englishmen.
MILCH: Englishmen never worked for us. So they cannot have been Englishmen.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: What were they? You say they were all German.
MILCH: What we understood as slackers were those people who were compelled to work during the war, Germans who normally were not regular workers, but were forcibly made to work during the war.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: We will get to that in a minute. First, I want to ask you how Himmler was going to make them work. What did Himmler do, what methods did Himmler use? Why were you making proposals to Himmler in this matter?
MILCH: Because Himmler at a meeting had stated that as regards supplementary rations—the worker in Germany had the same basic rations as the rest of the population, and apart from this he received quite considerable additions which in the case of those doing the heaviest work were several times the normal basic rations. The general routine was that these rations were issued by food offices, irrespective of where and how the individual was working. The suggestion was made by Himmler that these additions should be made dependent upon the output of the workers. This was possible in the case of those workers who came from concentration camps, et cetera, and were under Himmler. This procedure could not be applied to free workers; hence the proposal to bring to reason those who sabotaged work in their own country, by issuing additional rations, as laid down for their type of work, only in proportion to their output.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You know the difference between labor camps and concentration camps, do you not?
MILCH: Yes, of course.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And these people who were doing work in these industries were kept mainly in the work camps, were they not, in which their rations were controlled without Himmler’s hands being in it at all?