DR. FLÄCHSNER: In this connection I should like to refer to Document 3012-PS, which is Exhibit USA-190. This document is found on Page 19 of the English text, and Page 16 of the French text of my document book. I quote from the conference of the Economic Inspectorate South in Russia. Peuckert—the delegate of Sauckel in Russia—states here, and now I quote:
“....provisions have been made for employing workers from the East principally in agriculture and in the food economy, while the workers from the West, especially those skilled workers required by Minister Speer, are to be made available to the armament industry....”
Document 1289-PS, which is Exhibit Number RF-71, may be found on Page 42 of the English text of my document book and Page 39 of the French and German texts. Here we are concerned with a file note by Sauckel on 26 April 1944 and I quote:
“Only by a renewed mobilization of reserves in the occupied western territories can the urgent need of German armament for skilled workers be satisfied. For this purpose the reserves from other territories are not sufficient either in quality or in quantity. They are urgently needed for the requirements of agriculture, transportation, and construction. Up to 75 percent of the workers from the West have always been allocated to armament.”
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Flächsner, speaking for myself, I don’t know what the problem is that you are trying to solve, or what argument you are putting forward, in the very least. I don’t know what relevance this has at all. What does it matter whether they came from the West or whether they came from the East? I understand your argument, or the defendant’s argument, that the armament industry, under the Geneva Convention, does not include a variety of branches of industry which go eventually into armament, and it only relates to things which are directly concerned with munitions. But when you have placed that argument before us, what is the good of referring us to this sort of evidence?
I mean, I only want to know because I don’t understand in the least what you are getting at.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Mr. President, this is to prepare for the problem to which we are now turning, and that is the problem of the blocked or protected factories (Sperrbetriebe). By setting up these blocked factories, Speer, if I may put it that way, wanted to put an effective stop to the transfer of workers from the West to Germany. Therefore I first have to show that up to that time his workers, the labor for his industries, mainly came from the West. I want to establish that...
THE PRESIDENT: Supposing he did want to stop them from coming from the West; what difference does it make?
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Mr. President, Speer is being charged with actively having taken part in the deportation of workers from the West, workers who were used in his armament industries. Now, the date is important here. Beginning with the year 1943 he followed a different policy. Before that time, as may be seen from the evidence, the workers who had come to Germany had to a large extent been voluntary workers.
THE PRESIDENT: Of course, if you can prove that they were all voluntary workers it would be extremely material, but you are not directing evidence to that at all.