“The question of whether and in what form greater compulsion can force people to accept work in Germany must remain in the foreground.”
The operative word is, you know, “compulsion.”
LAMMERS: Yes; they were obviously thinking of female labor and of a reduction of the age limits set for juvenile workers.
MAJOR JONES: Just go on to the next sentence of your statement:
“In this connection we must consider how the executives, whose inadequacy is the subject of strong complaints by the Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor, can be strengthened on the one hand by the exercise of influence on the foreign governments and on the other by the expansion of our executive forces and the intensified use of the Wehrmacht, the Police, or of other German services.”
That is how you opened that conference, you know.
LAMMERS: That is quite correct. These were the problems that had to be discussed.
MAJOR JONES: To produce more forced labor and discover by what terrorizing by the police and what pressures by Ribbentrop the results could be achieved? That was the object of the conference, was it not?
LAMMERS: No, our object was not to consider how we might terrorize people but how we could carry out official decrees with the necessary executive power to back them up. Surely no terrorist measures are implied in saying that something must be done in a matter. I could describe a case in France, for instance. The workers recruited by Sauckel in France were brought to the railroad station by French executives for transportation as prescribed by the French compulsory labor decree. Everything was in order...
MAJOR JONES: Just answer my questions, will you? You are going on to a different matter.