SAUCKEL: That was partly or entirely the opinion of the author of that article, but I believe that it was also mentioned that the workers would return home and there use, for the benefit of their own homeland, the knowledge and skill which they had gained from new work in Germany. I had absolutely no intention of keeping foreign workers in Germany after the war, and in any case I could not have done so. On the contrary, I even ordered that a card index of foreign workers, a central register, should be carefully kept on the basis of which, in case of a favorable conclusion of the war, it would be possible for me faithfully to return these workers to their native countries and have a record of them.
DR. SERVATIUS: If I understood you correctly, it was not a question of forcibly retaining the workers, but of keeping them here by recruitment?
SAUCKEL: Yes; it was not reported to me that a large number of foreign workers wanted to stay in Germany of their own accord. That is an assumption.
DR. SERVATIUS: What about the compulsory labor? What was the duration of the contracts?
SAUCKEL: There was no difference in pay or length of contract between voluntary work and compulsory work, or what we called in the language of the decree, “Dienstverpflichtungen.” This held true for all countries. If a Frenchman doing compulsory labor had a contract for 6 or 9 months, he had the same right as the voluntary worker to return after 9 months. It was possible to extend the period.
DR. SERVATIUS: In which cases was the contract extended?
SAUCKEL: The contract was extended when the worker wanted of his own free will to continue his services, or when there was an emergency or shortage of manpower in a particular factory which justified an extension. Then that had to be arranged with the liaison officers.
DR. SERVATIUS: Besides civilian workers, were prisoners of war also used in Germany? What did you have to do with that use of manpower?
SAUCKEL: The employment of prisoners of war was quite complicated, because it had to take place in agreement with the general in charge of the Prisoners of War Organization. The so-called technique of transposition caused me difficulties. Allow me to explain this.
There existed the Geneva Convention, or the Hague Convention, according to which prisoners of war could not be used in armament or ammunition industries. When, however, we spoke of prisoners of war being engaged in the armament industry that meant that so-and-so many German women or workers were transferred to industries in which the Geneva Convention prohibited the use of prisoners of war, and that prisoners of war took their place. That was done in agreement with the offices of the general in charge of the Prisoners of War Organization.