My Fuehrer,

You may be assured that the labor assignment is being pushed by me with fanatical will but also with circumspection and with due consideration for economic and technical as well as human necessities and conditions.

Replacement for soldiers who will be relieved and the stockpiling of additional labor needed for the armament programs can and will be carried through, notwithstanding the fact that especially during the last two winter months the greatest difficulties had to be overcome. Yet it was possible to make 258,000 foreign workers available to the war economy for January and February alone despite the fact that in the East transports practically ceased. The employment of German men and women is in full progress.

Inasmuch as the difficulties of the winter months will now gradually disappear, and as preparations were made by me, also the transports from the East can again be resumed in full measure. Although the yield of the registration and employment of German men and women is excellent, the employment of the strongest and most efficient foreigners who are used to work cannot be neglected.

Unfortunately, some of the commanding generals [Oberbefehlshaber] in the East have prohibited the compulsory enrollment of men and women in the conquered Soviet territories for—as Gauleiter Koch[[89]] informs me—political reasons.

My Fuehrer, in order to enable me to carry out my assignment, I ask that these orders be rescinded. I consider it entirely impossible that the population of former Soviet nationality could be accorded a greater measure of consideration than our German people on whom I have been forced to place very drastic measures. Should it no longer be possible to enforce the compulsion to work in the East, nor to draft labor, then the German war economy and agriculture will likewise no longer be able to fulfil their tasks in full measure.

I myself am of the opinion that under no circumstances should the commanders of our armies give credence to the Bolshevist propaganda of atrocities and defamation. After all, it is to the interest of the generals themselves that replacements for the troops be made in opportune time.

I take permission to point out that—without wishing to discredit their best will—it is impossible to put German women—entirely inexperienced in work—into the place of hundreds of thousands of excellent workers who now have to go to the front as soldiers. It must be possible for me to replace them with people from the Eastern territories.

I myself report to you that all foreign nationals who are working with us are being treated satisfactorily according to humane standards; that they are being treated correctly and fairly; they are being fed, housed, yes, even clothed. Because of my own experience in the service of foreign nations, I am even bold enough to claim that never before have foreign workers been so decently treated anywhere in the world as is being done by the German people during this the hardest of all wars.

I therefore ask you, my Fuehrer, to cancel orders which prevent the enrollment of foreign male and female workers and to kindly advise me whether my concept of the assignment as laid down herein still is correct.