Then began the occupation, the next step in the plan of the Third Reich—an empire which was to last a thousand years. Over an entire continent there spread the deadly rigor of a “Pax Germanica” in which there was to be one citizen class, one race of supermen, and the balance, one class of slaves. At first the occupation overlords maintained the appearance of legality. They gave receipts for the property they plundered, they offered inducements to the laborers they shanghaied, they went through the mockery of signing contracts which were both illusory and fraudulent. But even this sham disappeared as the war went on, and as early as 1942, the German occupation appeared in public as the ugly thing it was, complete with armed recruiters, military escorts on deportation trains and prison camps for the workers brought into Germany. Mr. Justice Jackson, in his opening address on behalf of the United States of America before the International Military Tribunal,[[67]] vividly described the character and extent of the slave-labor program in the following words:
“Perhaps the deportation to slave labor was the most horrible and extensive slaving operation in history. On few other subjects is our evidence so abundant and so damaging. In a speech made on 25 January 1944 the defendant Frank, Governor General of Poland, boasted, ‘I have sent 1,300,000 Polish workers into the Reich.’ (059-PS, p. 2.) The defendant Sauckel reported that ‘out of the 5 million foreign workers who arrived in Germany not even 200,000 came voluntarily.’ * * * Children of 10 to 14 years were impressed into service * * *.
“When enough labor was not forthcoming, prisoners of war were forced into war work in flagrant violation of international conventions (016-PS). Slave labor came from France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, and the East. Methods of recruitment were violent (R-124, 018-PS, 204-PS). The treatment of these slave laborers was stated in general terms, not difficult to translate into concrete deprivations, in a letter to the defendant Rosenberg from the defendant Sauckel, which stated:
“ ‘All the men’ (prisoners of war and foreign civilian workers) ‘must be fed, sheltered, and treated in such a way as to exploit them to the highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure * * *’ (016-PS)”.
Working as we do every day with crimes of unbelievable enormity, we are apt to become quite deadened to the hideous nature of specific crimes. It is, therefore, well to stop and consider the particular offenses with which this man stands charged.
Crimes are best evaluated in terms of the rights they violate. The evil, slavery, which is the deprivation of another’s liberty, is best judged through a consideration of its opposite good, freedom. Freedom is, to an extent, properly regarded as the symbol of human progress, the measure of civilization. Much of man’s history can be expressed in terms of his fight for freedom. Man’s personal freedom is his most precious prerogative, the exercise of his free will is his distinctive function. The building of a legal structure to protect the freedom of the individual is the basic purpose of good government. Men have lived for freedom, worked for it, fought for it, and died for it.
It is precisely because of their destructive effects on the freedom of the individual that governments such as the Nazi German State are so hatefully and essentially evil. The Nazi rise to power is a story of duress which ripened into slavery, first for the people within Germany and then for those in the lands she conquered. The enforced labor program was no expedient forced upon Germany by the exigencies of war. It was a basic concept of the Nazi scheme and the permanent destiny of those who would come under the German yoke.
It is most natural, therefore, that Control Council Law No. 10, which was enacted for the guidance of this and other tribunals which are set up for the trial of the principals in the crime of Nazi Germany, should deal in very severe terms with that most Nazi of all crimes—slavery. Article II, paragraph 1 (sec. b) specifically names among the enumerated war crimes the ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor of civilian populations from occupied territory and the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war. Paragraph 1 (sec. c) specifies as a crime against humanity, deportation of civilian populations. Article II, paragraphs 2 and 3 proclaim that anyone taking a principal or consenting part in these crimes, or belonging to a plan or enterprise for the commission of these crimes, is guilty of an offense for which the death penalty may be prescribed.
The prosecution will prove that Milch was a principal in the deportation into slave labor of civilian populations from occupied territories. It will show that he was involved in the murder and ill-treatment of prisoners of war. Evidence will be presented which will prove that he was engaged in plans and enterprises which directly involved the use of slave labor. We will show that this man was as much concerned with the employment of slave labor as was any man in Germany. In his positions as a member of the Central Planning Board, as Generalluftzeugmeister, and as Chief of the Jaegerstab, he had full opportunity to hear all the grim details of the exploitation of slave labor. He participated in decisions and formulated basic policies with reference to its use, and over and above all this he showed his personal animosity and his gratuitous fanaticism in constantly urging the most repressive and cruel measures in the procurement and exploitation of foreign workers.