SAUCKEL: I do not consider slavery and deportation admissible. Please allow me to add the following explanation to this clear reply. Personally, I was firmly convinced that it is no crime...
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Please do not evade the question.
SAUCKEL: I am not evading the question, but I may and I have the right to give an explanation of my reply; I have already given the answer.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Give a direct answer.
SAUCKEL: It is necessary for my defense...
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I do not think it is necessary. Answer directly: Do you consider these methods criminal or do you not?
THE PRESIDENT: One moment, General, you asked the defendant whether he considered it honorable. Let him answer it in his own way. It is not a question whether a thing is honorable. He is entitled to answer it freely.
SAUCKEL: Now that I have given a clear reply to the effect that I could not be convinced in all conscience that I was committing a crime, I ask permission to read out the relevant sentences from Document Sauckel-86 in Document Book 3. They contain the instructions which I gave to my department and to the industrial concerns:
“We are not concerned”—I quote—“with material things but, and I would emphasize this again very definitely, with human beings, with many millions of human beings, every single one of whom—whether we want it or not—makes his criticism from his own point of view, be he a German or a foreign worker.
“On the other hand, the output of the individual, be he a Volksgenosse”—that means a German—“or not a Volksgenosse”—that means an alien—“be he a friend or an enemy of Germany, will always depend on whether he admits to himself that he is being treated justly, or whether he comes to the conclusion that he has been exposed to injustice.