DR. SERVATIUS: Do you also know that officers’ wives and the wives of high officials also worked in factories?
SPEER: Yes, as from August 1944.
DR. SERVATIUS: Well then, where were these labor reserves of which you are speaking?
SPEER: I was talking about the time of 1943. In 1943 I demanded in the Central Planning Board that the German labor reserves should be drawn upon, and in 1944 during the conversation of 4 January with Hitler I said the same thing. Sauckel at that time stated—and that can be seen from his speech of 1 March 1944, which has been submitted as a document—that there were no longer any reserves of German workers.
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes.
SPEER: But at the same time he also testified here that he had succeeded in 1944 in mobilizing a further 2 million workers from Germany, whereas at a conference with Hitler on 1 January 1944 he considered that to be completely impossible. Thus he has himself proved here that at a time when I desired the use of internal labor he did not think there was any, although he was later forced by circumstances to mobilize these workers from Germany after all; therefore my statement at the time was right.
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, these 2 million workers you have mentioned, were they people who could be employed in industry?
SPEER: Yes, of course.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were they employed directly as skilled workers in industry?
SPEER: No, they had to be trained first.