What can you say to that?
SPEER: This record is dated 3 March 1944. From January until May 1944 I was seriously ill, and the discussion took place without me. A member of my staff was in charge of this discussion—a man who enjoyed the confidence of Hitler in an unusually high degree. In any case, the proposal was not carried out.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Herr Speer, you attended the session of 30 May, at which the question was discussed of how the office of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor came to be established. Will you comment briefly on that point?
SPEER: I should like to say that I wanted a delegate to deal with all labor allocation problems connected with my task of military armament production. My chief concern in the allocation problem, at the beginning of my term of office, was with the Gauleiter, who carried on a policy of Gau particularism. The nonpolitical offices of the Labor Ministry could not proceed against the Gauleiter, and the result was that manpower inside Germany was frozen. I suggested to Hitler that he should appoint a Gauleiter whom I knew to this post—a man named Hanke. Göring, by the way, has already confirmed this. Hitler agreed. Two days later, Bormann made the suggestion that Sauckel be chosen. I did not know Sauckel well, but I was quite ready to accept the choice. It is quite possible that Sauckel did not know anything about the affair and that he assumed—as he was entitled to do—that he was chosen at my suggestion.
The office of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor was created in the following way:
Lammers declared that he could not issue special authority for a fraction of labor allocation as that would be doubtful procedure from an administrative point of view, and for that reason the whole question of manpower would have to be put into the hands of a plenipotentiary. At first they contemplated a Führer decree. Göring protested on the grounds that it was his task under the Four Year Plan. A compromise was made, therefore, in accordance with which Sauckel was to be the Plenipotentiary General within the framework of the Four Year Plan, although he would be appointed by Hitler.
This was a unique arrangement under the Four Year Plan. Thereby Sauckel was in effect subordinated to Hitler; and he always looked upon it in that way.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: You have heard that Sauckel, in giving his testimony on 30 May, said that Göring participated in the meetings of the Central Planning Board. Is that true?
SPEER: No, that is in no way correct. I would not have had any use for him, for after all, we had to carry out practical work.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: The Prosecution has submitted a statement by Sauckel dated 8 October 1945, according to which arrangements for his delegates to function in the occupied territories were supposed to have been made by you. Is that true?