DR. SERVATIUS: At the meeting of the Central Planning Board on 1 March 1944 you also stated that, if the French executive agencies were unable to get results, then one might have to put a prefect up against a wall. Do you still consider this to be legally justified pressure?
SAUCKEL: That is a similarly drastic remark of mine in the Central Planning Board which was never actually followed by an official order and not even by any prompting on my part. It was simply that I had been informed that in several departments in France the prefects or responsible chiefs supported the resistance movement wholeheartedly. Railroad tracks had been blown up; bridges had been blown up; and that remark was a verbal reaction on my part. I believe, however, I was then only thinking of a legal measure, because there did, in fact, exist a French law which made sabotage an offense punishable by death.
DR. SERVATIUS: May I refer to the document in this connection?
THE PRESIDENT: Is it in Document Number R-124?
DR. SERVATIUS: It is on Page 1776, where it says that on the basis of the law it would then be necessary to put a mayor up against a wall.
[Turning to the defendant.] Do you know what laws existed in France compelling co-operation from the French authorities, or whether there were such laws?
SAUCKEL: Yes, such laws existed.
DR. SERVATIUS: A number of reports, which were submitted here, concerning the application of measures of compulsion, mentioned abuses and outrageous conditions allegedly caused by recruitment measures. What can you say about that in general?
SAUCKEL: I did not quite understand your question.
DR. SERVATIUS: Concerning the use of compulsion, a number of reports were brought up here, and you have heard them; reports setting forth measures which must surely be generally condemned. You heard of the burning down of villages and the shooting of men. What can you say to that in general?