DR. SERVATIUS: Did you approve of the dissolution of the trade unions?
SAUCKEL: The dissolution of the trade unions was in the air then. The question was discussed in the Party for a long time and there was no agreement at all as to the position trade unions should hold, nor as to their necessity, their usefulness and their nature. But a solution had to be found because the trade unions which we, or the Führer, or Dr. Ley, dissolved all held different political views. From that time on, however, there was only one party in Germany and it was necessary, I fully realize, to come to a definite decision as to the actual duties of the trade unions, the necessary duties indispensable to every calling and to workers everywhere.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was not the purpose of removing the trade unions to remove any opposition which might stand in the way of an aggressive war?
SAUCKEL: I can say in all good conscience that during those years not one of us ever thought about a war at all. We had to overcome such terrible need that we should have been only too glad if German economic life could have been started again in peace and if the German worker, who had suffered the most during that frightful depression, could have had work and food once more.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did members of trade unions suffer economically through the dissolution?
SAUCKEL: In no way. My own father-in-law, who was a member of a trade union and still is today, and whom I repeatedly asked for information, whom I never persuaded to join the Party—he was a Social Democrat and never joined the Party—confirmed the fact that even when he was getting old and could no longer work, the German Labor Front never denied him the rights due to him as an old trade unionist and by virtue of his long trade-union membership, but allowed him full benefits. On the other hand, the German State—since in Germany old age and disability insurance and the accident insurance, et cetera, were paid and organized by the State—the National Socialist State guaranteed him all these rights and made full payment.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were all Communist leaders arrested in your Gau after the Party came to power?
SAUCKEL: No. In my Gau, as far as I know, only Communists who had actually worked against the State were arrested.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what happened to them?
SAUCKEL: The State Police arrested and interrogated them and detained them according to the findings.