HILDEBRANDT: I assume that that may have happened sometimes. I do not know for certain.
DR. SERVATIUS: German or French courts?
HILDEBRANDT: French courts, according to French regulations.
DR. SERVATIUS: What would be your estimate of the number of voluntary workers who came from France to Germany?
HILDEBRANDT: The number of voluntary workers from France, until the middle of 1942—but I can only give approximate figures from memory...
DR. SERVATIUS: Please, just the approximate figure.
HILDEBRANDT: Something over 200,000. After the compulsory labor decree had been introduced in the course of 1942, there were still voluntary recruitments as well on a fairly large scale. The number of volunteers was, at times, considerably larger than the number of conscripts, so that altogether more than half of all the labor recruited in France consisted of volunteers. It is noticeable that women were only recruited if they volunteered. There was no compulsory service for them. With regard to the compulsory labor assignments moreover, it must be pointed out that a number of them were only formal. In reality these people had come voluntarily, but for economic reasons, or out of consideration for their relatives and friends in their home towns, they attached importance to being conscripted. We had compulsory labor assignments which were only put on an official basis afterwards. Such requests reached the German labor offices especially during the last months before the end of the war; and the Foreign Office requested the Plenipotentiary General to approve such demands, and that was done.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you hear anything in your department about recruiting measures such as the surrounding of churches, cinemas, and similar places in France?
HILDEBRANDT: No; I do not know of any such recruiting measure. I know that in France, as well as in Belgium, identity papers were controlled among members of the age groups which had been called up to register.
DR. SERVATIUS: You were also probably in Paris, and you spoke to the German authorities there; is that right?