“I have been employed by the Reich Railways since 1918 and have been at Essen-West Station since 1935. In the middle of 1941 the first workers arrived from Poland, Galicia, and the Polish Ukraine. They came to Essen in trucks in which potatoes, building materials and also cattle had been transported, and were brought to perform work at Krupp’s. The trucks were jammed full with people. My personal view was that it was inhuman to transport people in such a manner. The people were packed closely together and they had no room for free movement. The Krupp overseers laid special value on the speed with which the slave workers got in and out of the trucks. It was enraging for every decent German who had to watch this to see how the people were beaten and kicked and generally maltreated in a brutal manner. In the very beginning when the first transport arrived we could see how inhumanly these people were treated. Every truck was so overfilled that it was incredible that such a number of people could be jammed into one. I could see with my own eyes that sick people who could scarcely walk (they were mostly people with foot trouble, or with injuries, and people with internal trouble) were nevertheless taken to work. One could see that it was sometimes difficult for them to move. The same can be said of the Eastern Workers and PW’s who came to Essen in the middle of 1942.”
He then describes their clothing and their food. In the interest of time, I will not attempt to read the entire thing.
Do you consider that that, too, is an exaggerated statement?
SPEER: When the workers came to Germany from the East, their clothing was no doubt bad, but I know from Sauckel that while he was in office a lot was done to get them better clothes, and in Germany many of the Russian workers were brought to a considerably better condition than they had previously been in in Russia. The Russian workers were quite satisfied in Germany. If they arrived here in rags, that does not mean that that was our fault. We could not use ragged workers with poor shoes in our industry, so conditions were improved.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, now, I would like to call your attention to D-398.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, before you pass from that, what do you say about the conditions of the transports? The question you were asked was whether this was an exaggerated account. You have not answered that except in reference to clothing.
SPEER: Mr. President, I cannot give any information about this transport matter. I received no reports about it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, I will ask you about Exhibit 398, which becomes USA-894. I mean Document 398, which becomes Exhibit 894, a statement by Höfer, living in Essen:
“From April 1943 I worked with Löwenkamp every day in Panzer Shop 4. Löwenkamp was brutal to the foreigners. He confiscated food which belonged to the PW’s and took it home. Every day he maltreated Eastern Workers, Russian PW’s, French, Italian, and other foreign civilians. He had a steel cabinet built which was so small that one could hardly stand in it. He locked up foreigners in the box, women too, for 48 hours at a time without giving the people food.
“They were not released even to relieve nature. It was forbidden for other people, too, to give any help to the persons locked in, or to release them. While clearing a concealed store he fired on escaping Russian civilians without hitting any of them.