DR. FLÄCHSNER: Was there often an unusual increase in working hours in industry and how did this happen?
SPEER: Working time should remain uniform in modern assembly-line production during the entire month. Due to the bombing attacks, delays in supplying tools and raw materials set in. As a result the number of hours of work varied from 8 to 12 a day. The average, according to our statistics, might have been 60 hours to 64 hours a week.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: What were the working hours of the factory workers who came from concentration camps?
SPEER: They were exactly the same as for all the other workers in the industry, for the workers from concentration camps were on the whole only a part of the workers employed; and these workers were not called upon to do any more work than the other workers in the factory.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: How is that shown?
SPEER: There was a demand on the part of the SS that the inmates of concentration camps be kept in one part of the factory. The supervisors consisted of German foremen and specialists. The working hours, for inherent reasons, had to be co-ordinated with those of the entire industry, for it is a known fact that there is only one rhythm of work in a given industry.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: It is shown unequivocally from two documents which I shall submit in another connection that the workers from concentration camps in army and naval armament and in the air armament branch worked on an average 60 hours per week.
Why, Herr Speer, were special KZ Camps, the so-called work camps, established next to the industries?
SPEER: The work camps were established so that long trips to the factories could be avoided and in this way permit the workers to arrive fresh and ready for work.
Furthermore, the additional food which the Food Ministry had granted for all workers, including the workers from concentration camps, would not have been received by these men if they had come directly from big concentration camps; for then this additional food would have been used up in the concentration camp. In this way, those workers who came from concentration camps received, in full measure, bonuses which were granted in the industry, such as cigarettes or additional food.