A. The others only received whatever was left over, because Speer told me once in the presence of the Fuehrer that I am here to work for Speer and that I mainly am his man, he mentioned it very often, without reference to the countries involved. It was very unnatural, that process of doing these things. These smaller plants, instead of ordering their workers from the next higher echelons, gave their orders to the very highest, to Speer, who in turn handed them down to the lower ones and to me, and this was the reason for the Rotzettel (red slip) system which had to be fulfilled by me without question. In practice it came to this that if a factory actually didn’t need any workers but Speer demanded them for that factory I had to supply these workers without being able to discuss or to tell him that it would be a waste of manpower; I just had to do it because Speer had complete domination.
Q. When it was determined in the Central Planning Board that say a thousand workers would be required by Speer, how did these workers find their way from all over Germany and Europe into the Krupp factory, for instance?
A. The orders were given from higher echelons down to lower echelons; for instance, the transports were either turned over from one office to another or the lower echelons in Berlin, for instance, got orders to transfer certain men from one factory which happened to be in Berlin to another factory which was also in Berlin. This happened also through the cooperation among the various offices who were headed by Hildebrand. The orders were discussed in a so-called daily schedule of trains which was decided upon in all these meetings.
Q. Well, as I understand it, you would get a requirement for say a thousand workers for panzers, say; now, in Germany certain factories would be making tread, some would be making turrets, and some would be making other things. Now, of that thousand workers needed for tank production some would be working on treads and some would be working on other things. How did they get into the particular factories which were making the specific products?
A. This was accomplished by giving orders recklessly through the various offices. A factory, for instance, got an order to send 20 or 30 men to another place, and they were just ordered to go there. This was the reason for the Notdienstverordnung [Emergency Service Decree] where the workers were forced by a decree to obey any order which was given to them.
Q. After the workers were conscripted inside the Reich and outside, they would be worked according to certain skills and technical specialties, would they not?
A. As far as possible, they were used according to the profession they had been trained in.
Q. And the local Gau labor offices, etc., would have a list of all the workers according to their skills, would they not?
A. Yes, there were detailed files about this. This was the basic principle: There were various offices which only were concerned about a certain kind of trade or skill.
Q. So, when you got the request from the Central Planning Board for a hundred thousand men for tank production, would you, through your ministry, tell the various offices that you needed so many welders and so many machine tool people, etc., and then tell them how many of each specialty you wanted?