A. I had to assume that but I wasn’t actually informed about it.
Q. Did you consider the French Government, which at that time was in Paris, France—did you consider it a regular government?
A. This is the same sort of question which his Honor put to me too. I had no basis to find out whether the French Government was legal or not, because these are problems of international law which are beyond me as a layman.
Q. Witness, do you not know that the Government of Pétain had been recognized and was recognized by the American Government, and that the American Government had an ambassador, if I recall correctly—and I am not sure I can pronounce his name—at that time, Mr. Leahy, Admiral Leahy?
A. I know that, but I must say frankly that I did not spend my time thinking about whether the French Government was legal or not.
Q. Thank you. I have no further questions.
Judge Musmanno: Herr Speer, what I was endeavoring to elucidate, or have you elucidate for us, was not whether you knew if a government was legal or not, if it was recognized internationally or not. I wanted to draw your attention to something quite more fundamental, and that was the employment against its will of population in a war activity, all of which was prohibited by international law. And if you and all the specialists in the Hitler regime knew of the limitation and were thoroughly aware, and the knowledge was so widespread that you couldn’t help but know that it was illegal and that you would be punished if you did it, that is, to bring in workers from another country and put them into war operations—if that were a matter of such general knowledge that every college man and every person that was well read would know of it, would Hitler not have had difficulty in obtaining such a crew to run a ship, regardless of what he may have had in mind as to the illegal port which he hoped to attain by that voyage?
Speer: I can only speak about the time in which I worked, that is to say, from 1942 onwards. In that time, I am sure that if these legal matters had been made quite clear a large number of technicians or industrial leaders would not have collaborated to the extent they did if they had realized the illegality and the possible punishment.
I would like to stress this particularly for the period from 1943 onwards. From that time onwards, many intelligent people realized that the war had been lost, and from that time onwards it would have made a great impression if in former trials heavy punishment was meted out. Not everybody would have been impressed; certain people would have followed the old line, but the majority of so-called specialists, certainly—
Q.—would have recognized the illegality of what they were asked to do. I understand you to say that the majority of the specialists would have recognized the illegality of what they were asked to do and would have refused. That is what I understand you to say.