DR. SERVATIUS: Yes. This document is a preamble added by Reichsleiter Bormann to the decree and which shows that it was Speer who suggested Sauckel for this position.
Was it an entirely new office which you then entered?
SAUCKEL: No. The Arbeitseinsatz had been directed by the Four Year Plan before my appointment. A ministerial director, Dr. Mansfeld, held the office then. I only learned here, during these proceedings, that the office was already known before my time as the office of the Plenipotentiary General.
DR. SERVATIUS: On taking up your office did you talk to Dr. Mansfeld, your so-called predecessor?
SAUCKEL: I neither saw Dr. Mansfeld nor spoke to him, nor did I take over any records from him.
DR. SERVATIUS: To what extent was your office different from that of the previous Plenipotentiary General?
SAUCKEL: My office was different to this extent: The department in the Four Year Plan was given up and was no longer used by me. I drew departments of the Reich Labor Ministry more and more closely into this work as they had some of the outstanding experts.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the reason for this reconstruction of the office?
SAUCKEL: The reason was to be found in the many conflicting interests which had been very prominent up to the third year of the war in the political and state offices, internal administration offices, Party agencies and economic agencies, and which now for territorial considerations opposed the interdistrict equalization of the labor potential, which had become urgent.
DR. SERVATIUS: What sort of task did you have then? What was your sphere of work?