DR. THOMA: Were you aware of the fact that, at the same time when these methods were discontinued, the workers demanded could not be shipped?
ROSENBERG: That I could not readily assume, since I knew also that right at the start of the use of propaganda in many regional commissions, a large number of volunteers from the country—not from the cities, from the country—reported, and at this point a legal basis for the prevention of incidents which had taken place in every camp—as shown by the complaints of this letter—was given the Reich Commissioner.
I might here very briefly refer to the other documents quoted by the Prosecution, Document 054-PS—that is a criticism of abuses which reached me from the liaison officer of the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories with Army Group South. It is severe criticism. But I shall refer to Page 1 of the telegram, where it says in Paragraph a:
“With few exceptions, the Ukrainians in the Reich who are working individually—for example, in small workshops, as farmhands or as household employees—are very satisfied with their conditions.”
But in Paragraph b:
“Those accommodated in collective camps, on the other hand, complain very much.”
This was an attempt to exert influence on questions and dealings concerning a region under the authority, not of the civil, but of the military administration with its seat in Kharkov, and to exert influence even in German national territory where I, as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, had no right to issue instructions; but by criticism the lot of all Eastern Workers was always being improved and, to be sure, to the utmost.
Document 084-PS refers to a number of problems and measures for the improvement of the lot of the workers’ families and the energy with which the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories defended a policy of decent treatment of the Eastern peoples with reference to the question of pay, the deduction of taxes, et cetera. But I do not think I need to go any further into detail, since the Plenipotentiary General will probably do that himself. I merely refer to my constant efforts in this direction. I should also like to mention here that there was an agreement between the Plenipotentiary General and the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories according to which Eastern workers, after returning home, were to receive an allotment of land so that they would feel no prejudices against those who had stayed at home.
Document 204-PS also contains complaints regarding insufficient allowances, to which I need not refer in detail, and to which I merely allow myself to draw the attention of the Tribunal.
Document 265-PS is a report from the Commissioner General at Zhitomir, in the Ukraine, in which he states that the Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor, on his tour through the Eastern territories, had personally pointed out the gravity of the whole labor mobilization program and had transmitted the unconditional orders of the Führer that these quotas must be placed at the disposal of the Reich. The Commissioner General remarks further after this serious portrayal of the situation, he had no other choice during the enrollment process than to assign certain workers to the police force to aid the local authorities which had been set up.