SPEER: The disadvantages were considerable, since any closing down of a factory meant the taking out of machinery, and at the end of the war a reconversion to peacetime production would take at least 6 to 8 months. At that time, at a Gauleiter meeting at Posen, I said that if we wanted to be successful in this war, we would have to be those to make the greater sacrifices.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: How was this plan put into effect?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Flächsner, what has the Tribunal got to do with the details of these plans? What do we care whether his plans were efficient or whether they were inefficient? The only question this Tribunal has got to decide is whether they were legal in accordance with the character of international law. It does not matter to us whether his plans were good plans or bad plans, or what the details of the plans were, except insofar as they are legal or illegal.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: It is a mere waste of our time to go into the details of these plans.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: I wanted to show that the tendencies, or rather the tendency, followed by the defendant in his labor allocation policy was to employ foreigners in their own country and to use the German reserves solely for his own purpose, that is, for armament proper. Thus everything which...
THE PRESIDENT: But, Dr. Flächsner, that is a question of efficiency, not of legality. What he is saying is that he had a lot of German workers, good workers, and they were producing consumer goods instead of producing armament goods. He thought it better to institute his industries so that the workers could remain in France or the other western countries.
What have we got to do with that? If they were forced to work there, it is just as illegal as if they had been brought to Germany to be forced to work. At least, that is the suggestion that is made by the Prosecution.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Yes, but I thought and believed...
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.