VON SCHIRACH: It had as its purpose the improvement of trade relations, economic relations, with the southeast. Its functions were essentially in the field of research and representation.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, what were your main Viennese activities?
VON SCHIRACH: My principal activities in Vienna were social work and cultural work, as I have already explained before.
DR. SAUTER: Social work and cultural work?
VON SCHIRACH: These were the two poles which dominated my entire political life.
DR. SAUTER: I come now to the particular accusations which have been made against you by the Prosecution concerning that period in Vienna. Among other things you have been accused of participating in the so-called slave-labor program, and I ask you to state your position concerning that, and in that connection also to deal with Directive Number 1 of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor, of 6 April 1942, which was presented, I believe, as Document 3352-PS. Please go ahead.
VON SCHIRACH: Maybe I would do best to start with the decree by which Gauleiter were appointed Plenipotentiaries for the Allocation of Labor under the Plenipotentiary General.
DR. SAUTER: 6 April 1942.
VON SCHIRACH: In the way of documentary material that decree contains no more than that the Gauleiter could make suggestions and submit requests to the competent offices for the allocation of labor. But they were held responsible—I do not know whether by this decree or another one—for the supervision of the feeding and quartering, et cetera, of foreign workers. This feeding and quartering, et cetera, of foreign workers was—in my Gau and I believe also in all other Gaue of the Reich—mainly in the hands of the German Labor Front.
The Gauobmann of the German Labor Front in Vienna reported to me very frequently about the conditions among German workers and foreign workers in the Gau. He often accompanied me on inspection tours of industries; and from my own observations I can describe my impressions here of the life of foreign workers in Vienna as far as I could watch it.