Judge Musmanno: Herr Speer, I would like to understand the machinery by which labor was brought into Germany beginning with the request by any particular department for any particular number of workers. Let us suppose that someone appeared before the Central Planning Board and said, “I will need fifty thousand men for a factory that I am about to construct.” Now please tell us just what happened. Would you issue an order to somebody? Would he then in turn order someone else and how did these workers finally then arrive in Germany?
Witness Speer: If somebody on the Central Planning Board requested labor, the Central Planning Board did not issue an order that these workers must be supplied, but the Central Planning Board agreed that those workers can be supplied. An order by the Central Planning Board, Sauckel would not have accepted. That is a definite fact.
It is quite clear that the requests for labor did not occur in these long intervals between the meetings of the Central Planning Board, but this had to happen in much shorter intervals and in a constant collaboration with the people concerned, for the enemy air raids and changes in programs which became necessary because of the military situation made these changes very often necessary. Therefore, for the whole of our armament industry and also for certain branches of production outside armament that were in my ministry, we decided on so-called framework contingents, and priority lists were drawn up. I do not know whether you are interested in that part.
Q. Well, not particularly. I want very succinctly a statement as to the steps which ensue after the declaration of someone before the Central Planning Board that he needed a certain number of workers. Who was informed of this request? Who authorized the call for the workers? Who submitted the demand? Who then at the other end gathered the workers? Not in detail—I just want the steps in movement from the Central Planning Board until the men actually arrived.
A. The Central Planning Board did not deal with that matter anymore afterwards. Let us say the request of labor, say, of the coal mining industry——
Q. Yes.
A. ——was reported to Sauckel by the coal mining industry itself. Therefore, one could call a meeting of the Central Planning Board as a statement for Sauckel that such labor is very important for the coal mining industry, and that as far as possible he has to supply them. That is necessary within the framework of economic planning, but beyond that the Central Planning Board did not pursue the matter any further or was not even in a position to do so.
Q. Well, did you know there at the fountainhead of labor—because if you made the request originally, that is what started the machinery in motion—did you not know that bringing in workers forcibly from occupied territories to work in the war operation constituted a violation of international convention? Weren’t you aware of that right at the very source?
A. What I say now is not meant to be an excuse. I really did not know it. Up to the beginning of my trial here, the regulations of international law were unknown to me, and nobody ever drew my attention to the fact that such regulations exist; but I want to say once more, I don’t say this in order to excuse myself, here, but it is a fact that it was like this.