SPEER: This record states that measures must be taken to raise economy in France to a higher level. It contains stern injunctions from Hitler concerning the ways and means that he contemplated using to this end. It states that acts of sabotage are to be punished with the most rigorous means and that “humanitarian muddleheadedness” is out of place.
These minutes also show that at that time I asked Hitler to transfer the management of production questions in France to me, a step which was actually taken several months later.
I mention this only for the purpose of making it clear, while I am still in a position to testify as a witness, that I did not carry out Hitler’s policy of abandoning all “humanitarian muddleheadedness” in France.
My attention was drawn to one case in which 10 hostages were to be shot as a reprisal for acts of industrial sabotage committed in the Meurthe-et-Moselle district. At that time I managed to prevent the sentence from being carried out. Roechling, who was at that time in charge of iron production in the occupied western territories, is my witness in this case. That is the only case I know of where hostages were to be shot on account of sabotage in production.
I can also prove that, through a decision by Hitler dated September 1943, I was responsible for providing a supplementary meal in addition to the existing ration for factory workers employed in France. In a letter which I sent to the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor in December 1943, I strongly urged the necessity not only of paying wages to the workers in the occupied western territories, but also of making available to them a corresponding quantity of consumer goods—a line of policy which doubtless does not accord with the policy of plundering the western regions, on which so much stress has been laid by the French Prosecution.
All three documents are in my possession and they can be produced. I only mention these facts to show that I neither approved nor followed the very harsh policy laid down by Hitler for application in France in the records of 3 to 5 January.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: I now turn to another point. Herr Speer, what did you have produced in France; that is, on the basis of your program?
SPEER: We have already discussed this at sufficient length. No armament goods were manufactured, only bottleneck parts and consumer goods.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Very well. I merely wanted to get that clear.
The Prosecution has submitted to you minutes of a Führer conference—R-124—dated March 1944 and containing a statement that you discussed with Hitler the Reich Marshal’s proposal to deliver prisoners of war to France.