The OKH in one case thereupon ordered the increased mobilization of workers and permitted collective conscription, while prohibiting collective punishment. In this connection see Document 3012-PS, containing a telephone message from the Economy Staff East to General Stapf of 11 March 1943.
The best illustration can be found in that same Document 3012-PS by a file note concerning a discussion of 10 March 1943. Here General Nagel requests clear guiding principles and State Counsellor Peuckert asks for “reasonable” recruitment methods to be established by the OKH as the authorized agency. Document 2280-PS is also relevant here, which is the only personal statement made in Riga on 3 May 1943 on this question by the Defendant Sauckel. There he states that only “all permissible means” are allowed.
Document 3010-PS, Economy Inspection South, may also be quoted, in which on 17 August 1943 the use of “all suitable means” is permitted.
Orders are issued which contain severe measures in case of noncompliance with the duty to work: deprivation of ration and clothing cards. Imprisonment of relatives is threatened, as well as the taking of hostages.
What is the position as to the admissibility of such measures?
The deprivation of food cards has today become a generally applied means of coercion based on the rationing system, which derives from present-day conditions. It is easily carried out and does not require any special executive force, while being extremely effective. Concerning the imprisonment of relatives, severe violations of personal custody can be recorded even today. The Hague Convention on Land Warfare offers protection only against collective punishment of the population, but it does not protect the members of the family who may be considered as sharing the responsibility in the case of a refusal to work. The French law of 11 June 1943, which was presented as Document RF-80, also provides for such imprisonment only in the case of deliberate co-operation.
There finally remains the shooting of a prefect, which the Defendant Sauckel demanded. Apart from the fact that this statement as such is irrelevant from the point of view of criminal law, because it was not actually carried out, its legal import is merely a request to apply the existing French law. This law has been submitted by the Prosecution as Document RF-25, a decree of 31 January 1943 by the military commander in France, Article 2 of which provides for the death penalty.
Equally misunderstood by the Prosecution is a statement uttered by the Defendant Sauckel according to which one should handcuff the workers in a polite way (Document RF-86, Page 10, negotiation by Sauckel in Paris on 27 August 1943). But as appears from the context, the point in question is merely a comparison between the clumsy manner of the Police and the obliging manner of the French; handcuffing was not thereby especially advocated as a method of mobilization: Clean, correct, and Prussian on the one hand while at the same time obliging and polite on the other; that is how the work was to have been done.
I also refer to the proposal for “shanghaiing” as described in Document R-124, Page 1770, which is known to the Tribunal from the proceedings. The statement which the Defendant Sauckel has made gives an understandable explanation; according to it, this was legally a preliminary recruitment intended to induce the workers to agree to the real enlistment later on in the official recruitment offices.
These various incidents—shooting of a prefect, handcuffing, and shanghaiing—may be explained in various ways, but one can reach a complete understanding of the subjective side only if one considers why these statements were made, and under what conditions. The underlying reason for all these statements is the struggle against resistance and sabotage which in France assumed ever greater proportions. Therefore it is not a question of brutality and cynicism; rather were these statements intended to counteract the indecision displayed by the authorities.