DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, the accusation of slave labor has been made, and this as a rule is unpaid labor. The French report, Document RF-22, has estimated a loss of 77 milliards which is supposed to have been suffered by France through the use of her workers. It is interesting to hear at least...
THE PRESIDENT: You do not want exact details of it, do you?
DR. SERVATIUS: [Turning to the defendant.] What have you to say about the facilities for transferring these wages?
SAUCKEL: I first had to create facilities for transferring wages, because the only real attraction for a foreign worker to work in Germany was that he could support his family at home by sending part of his earnings to his native country. That was done on the basis of agreements reached with the President of the German Reichsbank. He himself has testified to that.
DR. SERVATIUS: Concerning the question of wages, I refer to Document 021-PS, which has been submitted as F-44. It is not in either of the document books. It is dated 2 April 1943. It shows how rates of pay were calculated and deals with the improvement of the wages of Eastern Workers. I do not want to quote it in detail; but a study will reveal that serious attempts were made here to bring about an improvement and an equalization.
[Turning to the defendant.] What was the duration of labor contracts?
SAUCKEL: The duration of labor contracts depended on agreements which had been concluded with the governments in question. For the western and southern countries the contract was for 6 months, 9 months, or 1 year. As for the eastern countries and the Soviet workers, when I came to office, the existing regulations provided for an indefinite period. As I considered a definite period to be necessary in spite of the greater distances, here too I finally succeeded in obtaining a time limit of 2 years.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was it intended to continue to use this manpower after the war, and were these foreign workers to remain in Germany? I ask that question because the French Prosecution quoted the following passage from the book, Work for Europe, Exhibit RF-5, Page 23:
“A large percentage of foreign workers will remain in our country even after the victory, and then, having been trained for construction work, they will continue and complete the projects interrupted by the war.”
From that was it concluded that forced labor was to continue even after the war?