Sponsor firms have been appointed so as to make the affair operate. This system is not yet fully completed but has been favorably initiated everywhere and indeed brings quite other returns to some extent. The reproach is always made to us that nearly all Europe is at our disposal. The production we draw from France, with the exception of motor cars, is minute as regards the army. The whole French production potential is not yet fully exploited by us or only to a quite small proportion. If it were necessary for us to produce in France, because in Germany the capacity, space machine tools, etc., which are not convenient for removal are lacking, if the accommodation of the people were not so difficult, etc., we would in fact be reduced to the point of taking everything to Germany and have the work done here. But this would entail too great a decrease in the production in our own country, not to mention the reluctance of the people.
We came to an agreement yesterday. I am very thankful that this matter is now, thanks to yourself, Gauleiter Sauckel, together with Gen. v. d. Heyde and Col. Brueckner, to be settled on the spot. It is difficult to induce Frenchmen to come over here. An official agency alone cannot either appreciate or realize this, only a sponsoring firm can realize it. I therefore suggest that sponsor firms be called upon to cooperate, precisely because in France the sub-contract system is very widespread.
Behind the factory which actually organizes the thing, there are other factories which belong to the semi-finished goods and preparatory industry. This industry, however, can be supervised by our sponsor industries. We should have to assign to our people the task of investigating the individual firms and find out which people are working for our program. All others we annex ourselves. When we have got hold of them and annex them in German industry, that is, only those people who are really necessary to us, it will be possible to utilize them in the right way.
The proportion of specialist workers there is higher than in this country. We have indeed drained a certain number of them into our factories last year because they were the easiest to get. The Frenchmen must work with more specialists than we. We must work with more specialists than the Russian, and the Russian must have still more specialists than the American. In America they can place any simpleton before any machine, he will put it right in a flash. Only the installation requires a specialist. The man need only have arms; a head is a superfluous luxury.
In France the system is quite different. The Frenchman has adapted himself to it and has always indeed had unemployment. A labor organization as we conceive it does not exist. With the same number of Frenchmen and all other installations, facilities, etc., being the same, one will only obtain, as compared with German personnel, half at the most or only one-third of the production, even if the personnel have all good will and zeal. It is a matter of system. This system we cannot simply alter, neither can the sponsor firms, but we must try in this way to obtain from them to a certain extent the additional resources which we need for our industry and armament. By proceeding thus, we can put things right. I believe the sponsor firms have an obvious interest in this. If industry has too many specialist workers there working for us, let us draw upon them ourselves, because we are suffering a great shortage of them. This resource should be left to our firms after this extensive drain on specialist workers has been suffered. We want to raise our armament.
Now to another point. I have today ordered in my jurisdiction that an extensive action should take place; today, when we are counting upon obtaining a great number of women in virtue of the obligatory service whose age limit we hope to see extended to 55. The British have extended obligatory service to the age of 65. The additional 10 years are a trifle exaggerated. Women are not able to go to the machines immediately and perform heavy work. The few days that are necessary for them to instruct the personnel are immaterial. We can still spare that much time if it were not that it would convey to the population an impression to the following effect: Now that we have reported for work, it is months before we are called up. I have ordered, within my jurisdiction, that the women should as much as possible be employed in offices where men are now to be found, for instance in the wage offices, etc. In these, women and elderly men can be easily trained, as they will be able to do without further difficulty. In this way, men in the commercial offices, etc., should be released for the accountancy offices and similar offices. This involves, in the case of industry, over 20,000 individuals and there are other branches besides.
It amounts to quite a considerable number consisting solely of people who, in view of the war economy, are unfortunately necessary now. These men must now be placed at our machines insofar as they are not drafted, that is to say, are not soldiers. These people are more likely to be able to render better service at the machines or in the factories than the women now assigned, insofar as women are disposed to go to the machines. Of course, there will be women who have done such work before and who are now willing to turn to this work but who have not reported for work so far because they have not found it necessary to work for a living on account of the dole.
Where the assignment of women is concerned, I should suggest that, in the process of the action, only those women be assigned for whom work at the machine is not involved if a man is thereby released.
Timm: The danger lies in this that the draftees were partly to be released without replacement having actually been forthcoming.
Field Marshal Milch: That is quite another matter. When female auxiliaries of the Signal Corps are assigned, it is not additionally but only in the proportion that soldiers are released thereby. There are indeed several 100,000 men in the signal corps of the army and air force. In our department, 250 to 300,000 have been such. Whether there are so many now, I do not know. They are all young men fit for combat. I have always campaigned against this and said: one ought to assign women preferably so as to release soldiers. If that is done now, it will really release a large number, it does not matter whether for the workshop or for the front. Of course, there is a front somewhere in the East too. This front will be maintained for a certain time. The only useful thing the Russian will inherit from the territories evacuated by us will be the people. It might be better in principle to withdraw the population in time as far as 100 km. behind the front. The whole civilian population will move back to 100 km. behind the front. Nobody will now be assigned to trench [digging] work.