As chief of aircraft production, the defendant regulated the treatment of foreign forced labor in the German aircraft industry. The defendant fixed hours of labor and conditions of work and by directives to his subordinates set basic policies for the handling of this labor within the industry.
Where foreign workers refused to work, the defendant ordered that they be shot. When these wretched slaves attempted to revolt, the defendant directed that some of their numbers be killed, regardless of personal guilt or innocence. In the case of prisoners of war who attempted to escape, the defendant ordered that they be shot.
When the “contracts” of workers under his control expired, the defendant ordered their compulsory extension, and when workers attempted to change jobs, he advocated that they be put in concentration camps.
In the case of Italians who refused to work, the defendant ordered that they be beaten and so informed his chief, Goering. And where Frenchmen refused to work in French factories under his control, the defendant stated that he would deport them by force and bring them to Germany or to the East. Similar policies were applied by the defendant in the case of Polish workers.
No more need be said about the Generalluftzeugmeister. The Tribunal has seen the documents containing the minutes of the meetings. The documents dealing with this phase of the case are particularly revealing in showing the fanaticism of the defendant and the enthusiasm with which he recommended ruthless treatment of the hapless victims of German occupation policies.
We will now restate the pattern originally presented in terms of the proof brought forward at the trial in order to ascertain to what extent the defendant’s culpability has been established with reference to the medical phase.
First, the body of the crime. The prosecution contends that in violation of the laws of war and all the laws of humanity criminal high-altitude and freezing experiments were carried on by Luftwaffe physicians.
The testimony of Dr. Erich Hippke, the Medical Inspector of the Luftwaffe, is of interest on this subject. Hippke stated that Dr. Rascher, a Luftwaffe physician at the time, came to Hippke with a proposal to use prisoners as high-altitude experimental subjects in May 1941.
Hippke was in a receptive frame of mind, for it was essential that the scope of these experiments be widened and new human subjects were needed. The researchers working on the tests had developed a certain immunity so that results of self-experimentation did not give a true picture of the reactions.
With the aid of Himmler and the SS, the Luftwaffe was able to proceed with the experiments which were allegedly necessary in the interests of German military aviation medical knowledge. But lest one be inclined to believe that these pressure experiments were considered as minor nuisances to the subjects concerned, with no real dangers, note the words of Dr. Hippke: