Reich Marshal: I can do this here much better.
Milch: That’ll get us nowhere. We shall then have to shut down the plants in France.
Reich Marshal: The fault is this: Sauckel should have said: Milch, there are too many skilled workers in that plant; take so-and-so many out for your German plants; I am going to replace those skilled workers from our French workers pool. Otherwise there is no sense in his taking them away.
Milch: Until six months ago we piloted the whole French industry by way of the government, but since then we changed and took sponsor-firms. * * *
Reich Marshal: I’ll tell Sauckel not to touch our industry at all. But we must do it ourselves.
Milch: I told Sauckel that we will cooperate on all matters on the very spot, that we will get the thing done but not smash up anything that is producing for us or is going to produce. He admitted that his men had acted wrongly. * * * Speer and myself are of the opinion that he must be incorporated somehow in the Central Planning in order to secure manpower for us as well as the material. Now we got the first workers in November; prior to that date none at all. Of course, by taking into account the many fluctuations he arrives at fantastic figures. We try to diminish the fluctuations with the aid of Himmler and Ley. The military physicians are put in to examine the men. I have proposed that a man who leaves his working place more than three times a year, should be put into a detention camp and be released only when he stays on the very spot. * * *
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NOKW-449
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 148