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Secret
SHORTHAND TRANSCRIPT OF THE GL-CONFERENCE
PRESIDED OVER BY THE STATE SECRETARY FIELD
MARSHAL MILCH ON TUESDAY, 2 MARCH 1943,
10 A.M. IN THE REICH AIR MINISTRY
Milch: Another question! All the reports from France show that the French have got their heads full of political thoughts and ideas. On the basis of the news they tell themselves: They are retreating on the eastern front and the English and Americans are gradually getting afraid that the Russians alone will be victorious. The French go on to say: If the promises made to us by the Americans are really kept, our fortunes are made. That has already led to our foreign workers slowly becoming hostile. On principle I have to be informed of every case of swinishness. I do not understand at all why Germany should put up with it when Poles and Frenchmen explain to the people: Today indeed you are still sitting in this work, but later we shall be the owners and if you treat us properly we shall see to it then that you are shot dead immediately and not tortured first. In all these matters energetic interference must be made. I am of the opinion that there should be only two types of punishment in such cases: firstly, a concentration camp for foreigners, and secondly, capital punishment. If a certain number of such hostile elements are removed and the others are informed, they will then work better. Their love for us certainly won’t become any greater, but neither will their hate, for it is already strong enough. In this respect, too, energetic interference must be made and in no case must the workers put up with it. The best method is to give the person concerned one with a sledge-hammer and I shall treat with distinction every man who does something like that whenever he hears such stupid nonsense. We are living in a total war and the workers must be told that they don’t have to put up with anything. Now the question is whether or not the gentlemen believe on the whole that we achieve something worth mentioning with our production in France. For then we must consider that the establishments there will be besieged. Then the French would have to be forced to come to Germany. There I must reflect on whether the available means of compulsion are sufficient. That does not depend on me. But, in the abstract, I see no difficulties in the way of getting 100,000 or 200,000 French workers to Germany, nor do I see any difficulties in the way of keeping them in order. If a case of sabotage occurs in one area, every tenth man in that area will be shot. Then such acts of sabotage would cease of themselves. The western peoples are very much afraid of death, while it is a quite different matter with the Russians.