[Turning to the defendant.] Apart from the information which you received from Rosenberg, did you receive any other reports concerning recruiting methods?
SAUCKEL: Apart from the information from Rosenberg and his letters of that time, I did not receive any other direct complaints. But I had issued emphatic orders that any complaints received by my office were to be forwarded immediately to the competent Reich authorities for investigation, punishment, and the remedying of the grievances. I should like to state this: My office received a great many complaints which concerned me; but they were complaints about insufficient numbers of workers provided by me. It was my duty to correct this. For the correction of inadequacies in administration, for eliminating unjust measures in various fields or various agencies, I could not be competent, as the Reich authorities themselves were competent in that respect.
DR. SERVATIUS: But it should have been of great interest to you what happened there. Did you not hear anything of these incidents? Was nothing reported to you?
SAUCKEL: That I was interested from a humane and personal point of view can be seen from the fact that I was concerned about these things, although they did not come within my office.
DR. SERVATIUS: But you spoke here about one case in which it was reported to you that a cinema had been surrounded. Perhaps you remember that case?
SAUCKEL: When on a visit to Field Marshal Kluge, I heard from him that he had been informed that in the area of his army, or army group, a cinema had been surrounded and the people attending the cinema had been brought to Germany to work. I immediately had that case most carefully investigated, and the investigation took 3 months. Witnesses will be able to testify to that when they appear here. The result of the investigation was the following: It was not a case of labor recruitment for Germany. A construction unit near Rovno was celebrating in that cinema the end of one of its tasks; and in the middle of that celebration the order was received that this unit had to be put on a new job, a different place of work. The contractor thereupon interrupted the celebration in a very drastic way by having the immediate transport of these workers carried out by a force of police. That, of course, had nothing to do with my work and my organization; but it took me 3 months to discover the true facts of this complaint by Field Marshal Kluge. In every case where such complaints came to my attention I investigated and dealt with them and condemned them, because they did not help me.
DR. SERVATIUS: We will leave this matter of recruitment now and turn to the question of the transportation of these people to Germany. Who was responsible for their transportation?
SAUCKEL: For transportation the German Reichsbahn and the authorities designated in my Directive Number 4—regional offices and regional labor departments—were responsible. Immediately on assuming my office I had a detailed discussion with Dr. Dorpmüller, Reich Minister of Transport; his state secretary, Dr. Ganzenmüller; and before him Dr. Kleinmüller; and it was agreed that the transportation of workers to Germany should be carried out in an unobjectionable manner; that the transport trains should be supplied with food for the duration of the journey; that, if Russians were included in these transports, the cars should under no circumstances be overcrowded; and that, if at all possible, passenger coaches should be used for these transports. We agreed on this, though the Reich Minister of Transport said that he could not be expected to provide the people with better transport than the German soldiers had; still, he could at least guarantee that the cars would not be overcrowded.
DR. SERVATIUS: You have seen the Molotov report, that is Exhibit Number USSR-51. You know its contents, describing the conditions of these transports, saying that the cars were overcrowded, that the dying were thrown out and left lying on the tracks, and that newly born children died immediately. Were such conditions reported to you, or did you hear of them in your official position?
SAUCKEL: Such incidents were not reported to me in my official position, and they could not possibly have referred to worker transports of my office.