Why do you have to go into some questions of—I do not know what the word is, “Amt”—to do with agriculture? Why do you want to go into that? He, the defendant, said he had nothing to do with it.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Yes, in a way he was connected with it, Mr. President, insofar as these agricultural efforts were made through the Land Office.
THE PRESIDENT: If he was connected with it let him explain it. I thought he said the Party and the SS did it.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Yes, but via the Land Office, and he prevented this.
Perhaps you can tell us briefly about this, Herr Von Neurath.
VON NEURATH: I believe that according to the statements of the President of the Court, that is hardly necessary. As a matter of fact, I had no direct connection with the Land Office. I only succeeded in having a rather unpleasant leader of this office, a member of the SS, removed.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: During your period of office as Reich Protector, was there any compulsory transportation of workers to the Reich?
VON NEURATH: No. In this connection I shall also be brief.
Compulsory labor did not exist at all while I was in the Protectorate. There was an emergency service law which was issued by the Protectorate Government and applied to younger men who were employed in urgently needed work in the public interest in the Protectorate. Compulsory deportations of workers to the Reich did not occur in my time. On the contrary, many young people reported voluntarily for work in Germany, because labor conditions and wages were better in the Reich than in the Protectorate at that time.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: How did your resignation from office—and this is my last question—your leaving your office as Reich Protector come about?