Milch: So 75 percent are still free, and 25 percent are tied up in the S-industries.
Sauckel: We have to deduct the prisoners of war who are now in Germany. But there are hundreds of thousands of skilled workers who, according to the agreements made, have returned to France and Belgium month after month.
Sauckel: In reply to that I must ask you the following: What do you want to do now in Germany? In Germany you now have plane construction, the manufacture of highly expensive apparatus, complicated engine construction, you have here in general the most complicated manufactures in the world. If I brought the scum of French manpower to Germany for you what would you get as regards production? We of the Labor Allocation were always of the opinion in the French industries we must under all circumstances maintain a certain level of the trained workers and a certain degree of production. And we wanted to compel these French industries to lower their level of a hundred percent skilled personnel for the benefit of the German industries which have been bled of their skilled hands.
As Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor I considered my task to be not the transfer to Germany of the scum of Europe, but the bringing of efficient manpower. But a part of your gentlemen in France, and in your Ministry too, had no understanding for this. That I must say quite plainly. It would be mere child’s play for me to bring you the refuse of Europe if you would be satisfied with it. I would simply grab all the whores and gigolos in Paris and put them at your disposal, then I would not have to touch your armament industries. But if I have to provide you with real workers who will prove efficient in Germany, then in France—and that was just my program—we must do the same as we did in every German plant and in every German enterprise: when a German company is split in two, some of the good workers and some of the bad ones had to be given up and not just the bad workers. And French armaments never were harmed thereby. It is a fact, is it not, that a French worker of quality produces the double amount if he is put in a German factory under German discipline, with German supervision and German welfare?
If we agree to re-examine all S-plants—and that is all I ask—and if we take out all superfluous expert workers and assistant workers, then we put them at the disposal of the other French enterprises which need them, to the extent that they need them, and when they are satisfied, I have to request that if I am to carry out my program, then from these plants too, workers must be transferred to Germany. If that is not approved of and it is insisted that the severe formula be observed: S-plants are out of question for labor commitments to Germany, then, according to my experience, this program of January 4 can hardly be achieved. Then you are responsible for the decision of what was better at the end of this year, to have these people in France or in Germany. That is the responsibility you have to bear and which I shift from my shoulders. I was told: Why did you not take the Russian workers away in time, now they are in the Russian regiments. Exactly the same would happen here. My opinion is that the introducing of S-plants was altogether a great mistake which is damaging to the general interests of Germany. The French government jumped to that with the greatest cleverness. * * * That is the way we did it the first year, and up to 700,000 Frenchmen came to the Reich according to the program. These were all decent French workers. From the fall of this year on this came to an end. No more skilled French workers came, nor any others either. It was the entire collapse of the labor allocation built up on the slogan: From now on no worker needs to go from France to Germany.
Kehrl: The consideration which originated at that time with Minister Speer and which led to the arrangement with Bichelonne was the following: If I cannot transfer the people by force from France to Germany to the extent necessary, which is shown, by developments now, and if at the same time I run the danger of having the people leave the plants in which they are now working for fear of being taken by force, then it is a lesser evil for me to try and put these people to work in France and Belgium, in which case I do not have to use German force to get them across the frontier. Then at least I am sure that the people are not running away from the plants in the first place and secondly that additional employment will be brought there.
He sent an invitation to Minister Bichelonne. The conferences took place between the 16th and 18th September. The question was put to Bichelonne to what extent the shifting of industries would be possible, and what additional productions he could place, etc. This caused a change in the policy of production. So far Minister Speer had chiefly shifted to France all the urgent armament productions in those fields in which the German capacity was insufficient. Now he said: I will not only shift this to France, but I will also shift really important war production, which is carried out at present in Germany with German labor, so that I can release German labor in Germany and have this production carried out in France, Belgium, and Holland. There is sufficient capacity in this field in France and labor is also available in sufficient numbers. Therefore a large part of the work can be accomplished there and I can release the people in Germany. Thereby I am serving two ends: in the first place I am setting free German labor and secondly I am utilizing the French workers who are not working at all now because industry is at standstill. And there is still a third factor, that Frenchmen will be ready of their own accord to carry out such production as serves the welfare of the civilian population, because with such work they are no longer in danger of air raids and they are not working directly for the war. So that they will not be considered as traitors to their country, but are working for the advantage of their own country.
This development has been encouraged in the meantime. The time is still too short to make any definite statement as to the results. In some fields the results are already quite exceptional. In some instances we have transferred up to 50 percent and more of the total German requirements to the West and the manufacturing is done there. The transfer figures are rising rapidly from month to month. The coal and power questions are of course great obstacles. We hope, however, to overcome them in the course of this year, because by the middle of the year we shall have increased 25 percent of the power supply in France by water power, the necessary constructions for which will be finished by them, and by the end of 1944 hydroelectric stations will be ready and they will be equal to 50 percent of the present French power production.