DR. SERVATIUS: Was any mention made of a dictatorship which was to be aimed at?
SAUCKEL: No, a government was elected according to parliamentary principles.
DR. SERVATIUS: Well, you had a majority in the Thuringian Government, had you not, and you could use your influence?
SAUCKEL: Together with the bourgeois parties, by an absolute majority, a National Socialist government was elected.
DR. SERVATIUS: What happened to the old officials? Were they dismissed?
SAUCKEL: I myself became the President and Minister of the Interior in that government; the old officials, without exception, remained in their offices.
DR. SERVATIUS: And with what did that first National Socialist government concern itself in the field of domestic politics?
SAUCKEL: In the field of domestic politics there was only one question at that time, and that was the alleviation of an indescribable distress which is only exceeded by that of today.
DR. SERVATIUS: In this connection, Mr. President, may I submit two government reports from which I only wish to draw your attention briefly to two passages. One is the report contained in Document Number 96, which shows the activity of the government and its fight against social distress. What is particularly important when you run through it, is what is not mentioned, that is, there is no mention of the question of war or other such matters, but again and again the alleviation of distress is mentioned. And important, too, is the work that was carried out. That is in Document Number 97. In this book, on Page 45, there is a statement of the work undertaken by the government—bridge-building, road-making, and so on—and in no way had this work anything to do with war.
Then I am submitting Document Number 95 from the same period. It is a book called Sauckel’s Fighting Speeches. Here, too, the book is remarkable for what does not appear in it, namely preparations for war. Instead it emphasizes the distress which must be alleviated. It becomes clear from the individual articles that these are speeches made during a number of years, which show in a similar way what the preoccupations were of the Defendant Sauckel. It begins in 1932 with a speech dealing with the misery of the time, and ends with the final questions where reference is made once again to the alleviation of social need and the preservation of peace. The Tribunal will be able to read these articles in the document book.