A. I regarded it as absolutely natural that whenever I visited a factory it was natural for me to talk to these workers, even if, in my official capacity, I had nothing to do with that question. However, as a soldier I was accustomed to act in that way. On each occasion I asked them how they were, how the food was; I looked at the people and I saw how they were clad and what kind of an impression they gave, generally speaking, whether they looked healthy, whether they looked satisfied or not. I saw Russians, and also Russian prisoners of war. Then I saw Russian female civilian workers, namely, Ukrainians. I saw Frenchmen, namely French civilian workers. There could have been prisoners of war among them, but they were wearing protective overalls over their clothes. There could have been workers from Slovakia, who considered themselves our allies, but they were very, very few. Then there were quite a few Italian workers there, those who had come on a voluntary basis at the time; those so-called “Imis” (Italians who revolted against Mussolini and were sent as prisoners of war to work in Germany) I did not see.
Q. Did eastern workers, male or female, ever complain to you concerning their work?
A. No, they did not. On the contrary, the general impression of these female Ukrainians who worked on the Junker 52’s was a very pleasing one. The girls were singing; they were well fed; they were well dressed; and they answered my questions in a nice, cheerful way. I spent about 20 minutes with these girls. There were quite a few pretty ones among them, and towards the end they flirted with me, and the girls were laughing all the time.
Q. Witness, I will now enter into the question of what the Central Planning Board has to do with labor questions at all?
A. The Central Planning Board had considerable difficulties connected with the question of getting raw materials. The acquisition of raw materials was originally the tasks of the Ministry of Economics and then of Speer in the Armament Ministry. On such raw materials depended the armament program.
The pacemaker among all these raw materials for the armament program was steel, but the pacemaker in turn for steel was coal or coke production. That was the biggest bottleneck, since, unfortunately, during the first years of the war the youngest and strongest age groups of miners had been called up for military service. Hitler had given us the order to develop a steel production program amounting to 3.2 million tons per month. This was to be done by Speer, and Speer had succeeded in reaching the figure of 2.6 million tons, but that was the maximum. Hitler’s armament program, however, had been based on the figure of 3.2 millions. Hitler had demanded these armament programs and the experts had calculated the amount of steel they needed for those programs.
We in the Central Planning Board discussed the possibilities of getting up to 3.2 million tons of steel, and Speer being the man for that part of the production, ordered the men from the steel manufacturers’ union to come and see him in a conference in which all steel problems, through the self-administration of the industry, were dealt with. Speer was in agreement with me, this is an aside which I must add, to the effect it was a mistake to direct industry through the state, but that industry ought to govern itself through committees of their own, coming from their own ranks, and in this sense of course, these main committees and rings which we have talked about must be understood.
These gentlemen from the Reich Association Iron stated that the possibilities existed that 3.2 million tons of steel could be manufactured, subject to certain conditions. In that connection the main prerequisite was a very much larger allocation of coke. Apart from that they wanted certain additional matters for their own production, some labor too. I remember the question of smelters which was submitted at the time. I am not an expert, but at that time I did gather that we were concerned with specialists with very considerable ability and knowledge, since otherwise a few handful of men wouldn’t have been brought into our conversation. At any rate, the main problem was coal.
Speer, anyhow, during one of our conferences, sent for the men representing the coal industry. Such a Reich Association Coal had existed for some considerable time. These people stated that there was enough coal in the mines but that human manpower was lacking to bring it up. Speer in his capacity as Armament Minister now asked them to tell him in writing what was needed. Now, these men apparently reported the figures regarding workers they had, and during those conferences with the coal representatives, always, of course with reference to the question of steel, it was stated that all efforts on the part of the Armament Ministry would have to fall down because of the labor shortage.