DR. SERVATIUS: Did you remain in your home town?
SAUCKEL: At first I remained in my home town. I learned to be a turner and engineer in the Fischer ball-bearing factory in order to save money so that I later could attend a technical school, an engineering college.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were you already interested in politics at that time?
SAUCKEL: Although as a sailor I despised politics—for I loved my sailor’s life and still love it today—conditions forced me to take up a definite attitude towards political problems. No one in Germany at that time could do otherwise. Many years before I had left a beautiful country and a rich nation and I returned to that country 6 years later to find it fundamentally changed and in a state of upheaval, and in great spiritual and material need.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you join any party?
SAUCKEL: No. I worked in a factory which people in my home town described as “ultra-Red.” I worked in the tool shop, and right and left of me Social Democrats, Communists, Socialists, and Anarchists were working—among others my present father-in-law—and during all the rest periods discussions went on, so that whether one wanted to or not one became involved in the social problems of the time.
DR. SERVATIUS: You mention your father-in-law. Did you marry then?
SAUCKEL: In 1923 I married the daughter of a German workman I had met at that time. I am still happily married to her today and we have 10 children.
DR. SERVATIUS: When did you join the Party?
SAUCKEL: I joined the Party definitely in 1923 after having already been in sympathy with it before.