DR. SERVATIUS: The suggestion has been made that the work could have been carried out in the occupied territories themselves, and it would not then have been necessary to fetch the workers away. Why was that not done?
SAUCKEL: That is, at first sight, an attractive suggestion. If it had been possible, I would willingly have carried out the suggestion which was made by Funk and other authorities, and later even by Speer. It would have made my life and work much simpler. On the other hand, there were large departments in this system which had to provide for and maintain the different branches of German economy and supply them with orders. As the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor I could not have German fields, German farming, German mass-production with the most modern machinery transferred to foreign territories—I had no authority for that—and those offices insisted that I should find replacements for the agricultural and industrial workers and the artisans whose places had become vacant in German agriculture or industry because the men had been called to the colors.
DR. SERVATIUS: You said before that the manner in which you had planned the employment of workers was such that it could have been approved. What then were your leading principles in carrying out your scheme for the employment of labor?
SAUCKEL: When the Führer described the situation so drastically, and ordered me to bring foreign workers to Germany, I clearly recognized the difficulties of the task and I asked him to agree to the only way by which I considered it possible to do this, for I had been a worker too.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was not your principal consideration the economic exploitation of these foreign workers?
SAUCKEL: The Arbeitseinsatz has nothing to do with exploitation. It is an economic process for supplying labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: You said repeatedly in your speeches and on other occasions that the important thing was to make the best possible economic use of these workers. You speak of a machine which must be properly handled. Did you want to express thereby the thought of economic exploitation?
SAUCKEL: At all times a regime of no matter what nature, can only be successful in the production of goods if it uses labor economically—not too much and not too little. That alone I consider economically justifiable.
DR. SERVATIUS: It was stated here in a document which was submitted, the French Document RF-22, a government report, that the intention existed to bring about a demographic deterioration, and in other government reports mention is made that one of the aims was the biological destruction of other peoples. What do you say about that?
SAUCKEL: I can say most definitely that biological destruction was never mentioned to me. I was only too happy when I had workers. I suspected that the war would last longer than was expected, and the demands upon my office were so urgent and so great that I was glad for people to be alive, not for them to be destroyed.