In the first place, it is not proved that the Defendant Sauckel can be connected with the biological extermination of the population. His whole interest, as has been shown, pointed toward the opposite direction, since his purpose was to obtain people as laborers. He had nothing to do with migration measures and any methods used in that respect.
Work in concentration camps was just as far removed from the Defendant Sauckel’s responsibility. Himmler’s speech in Posen in October 1943 (Document 1919-PS, Page 21) reveals that the SS had erected gigantic armament plants of their own. We know that Himmler covered his extensive labor requirements by despotic arbitrary arrests of persons in occupied territories. Inside Germany he had workers engaged in regular employment arrested on insignificant pretexts and brought to concentration camps, fraudulently using the regular labor offices. This is clearly shown in Document 1063-PS, containing a letter dated 17 December 1942 as well as a letter dated 25 June 1943, in which a requirement of 35,000 prisoners is signified. Moreover, no correspondence with reference to concentration camp labor ever passed through Sauckel’s offices. As an example, I refer to Document 1584-PS containing some correspondence with Himmler’s department. The Defendant Sauckel’s name is never mentioned with reference to a conscription of prisoners, and the witnesses have unanimously stated that the Defendant Sauckel had no connection with these matters. This is also confirmed by the statement of the Director of the armament ministry’s Labor Office, Schmelter, who received the prisoners required direct from Himmler.
Another field which must be eliminated is the conscription of Jews for labor. This formed a part of labor conscription of concentration camp prisoners; it was Himmler’s own personal secret sphere. This is revealed for instance by Document R-91, in which Himmler’s service orders the arrest of 45,000 Jews as concentration camp prisoners.
By the production of Document L-61 the Prosecution has attempted to convict Sauckel of a share of guilt in this field. This document is a letter, dated 26 November 1942, from Sauckel’s office to the presidents of the provincial labor offices, stating that by agreement with the Chief of the Security Police and SD, Jewish workers remaining in the plants must be withdrawn and evacuated to Poland. As a matter of fact, this letter actually confirms that Sauckel had nothing to do with Jewish labor in the concentration camps, since Jewish workers were withdrawn from his department under the very pretext of evacuation. The measure is indeed solely concerned with the purely technical matter of excluding the Jewish laborers and replacing them by Poles, an operation which could not have been carried out without the participation of Sauckel’s office.
This letter is in continuation of a correspondence which can be traced back to the period prior to Sauckel’s assumption of office, and Document L-156 subsequently deals with the same technical operation. The unimportant character of the matter is attested by the fact that these letters were not sent from the Defendant Sauckel’s head office in the Thüringerhaus, but from an auxiliary office in the Saarlandstrasse. The Defendant Sauckel disclaims knowledge of this correspondence and points out that the letters do not bear his original signature but were, according to the routine of his service, made out in his name just because they were of minor importance. The fact that the letters begin with the routine business term of “by agreement with,” instead of “by consent of,” the Chief of Police and SD does not mean that they refer to an agreement reached, but simply points to the agency in charge of the matter.
Next, reference has been made to “extermination by labor.” However, Documents 682-PS and 654-PS, dated September 1942, unmistakably show that this is a case of a secret maneuver of Himmler and Goebbels in co-operation with the Reich Minister of Justice, Thierack. The Defendant Sauckel is not involved.
Neither was the conscription of workers for the Organization Todt under Sauckel’s responsibility. The accusations proceeding from Document UK-56 in this respect, bearing upon labor conscription methods in the Channel Islands, do not therefore concern him. The documents do not show that the Defendant Sauckel was aware of these proceedings or that he could have prevented them. This separation between the Defendant Sauckel’s labor jurisdiction and the Organization Todt is confirmed in Document L-191, the report of the International Labor Office in Montreal.
The enlistment of labor by civil and military departments is another chapter. This was to a certain extent carried out as “pirate” mobilization and kept secret from the Defendant Sauckel, because he opposed these practices and endeavored to prevent them by all means. Occasionally he was by-passed by higher orders. In this category there is labor enlistment by the SS, the Reichsbahn, Air Force construction battalions, Speer’s transport and traffic units, fortification and engineering staffs, and other services.
The exclusion of these aspects from the scope of the Indictment should exonerate Sauckel all the more since in these cases his directives did not apply.
Document 204-PS illustrates in this respect the circumstances in which transport auxiliaries were produced in White Russia. Document 334-PS shows the same with regard to the execution of an independent drive for Air Force auxiliaries, which cannot be held against Sauckel. The commitment of adolescents, known as the Hay Action, according to Document 031-PS of 14 June 1944, remained outside Sauckel’s jurisdiction and activities, as becomes clear from the document itself. The 9th Army together with the Eastern Ministry were the originators.