“By unjust treatment the German worker means that the treatment is not the same for all. That is what makes the German worker indignant. He wants everyone to be treated the same way. He wants justice and does not want to be ill-treated in words or any other way. He cannot stand it and he is right in not being able to stand it.”
The defendant advocated that the German worker be carefully handled. The Tribunal has heard from the witnesses Ferrier, Le Friec, and Krysiak how the foreign workers were handled.
He outlined the working program for the Easter week end—
“Finally I ask that the troops receive the fundamental order to work on Good Friday, the Saturday before Easter, and on Easter Monday in the same way as the people in the factories. The soldiers just do not have to go on furlough either. They must be told why.”
Are these the words of a man who is without authority to issue orders concerning the troops?
He acknowledged his employment of Russian prisoners of war and advocated that shirkers among the factory laborers be whipped back to their jobs. He said—
“I further ask for support by the Luftwaffe physicians. With all the rabble that we have among the foreign workers there is of course a lot of shirking. At the moment the Russians—that is, the Russian prisoners of war—are feigning a lot of fatigue and illness. The incidence of sickness of one and a half to two percent which we have had up to now has at least doubled, and in some factories it has been increased to eight, nine, and ten percent. That is, of course, done by previous agreement. There the official physicians must undertake an examination and if the physicians, who have to be very strict, find out that it is not true, then we return the fellows to work by means of the whip. Then the whip serves as cure.”
He again spoke of orders that have been given.
“If the factory knows: Now we are going to be attacked, and it has a few trench shelters but does not have a bombproof shelter or the like, then the people simply ran away from the factory automatically at each raid after the first one, and they could usually not be caught the next day either. That applies particularly to the foreigners. We have therefore now issued the following order, and have equipped the superiors accordingly with weapons and pistols: As soon as a factory which has already been attacked a few times can count on the raid’s being aimed at that particular factory again, then the personnel leave the factory, but in closed groups by shops, under the leadership of the man in charge of the shop, and, to the extent that they are German personnel, they leave singing military songs.”
Are superiors armed with weapons and pistols to lead contented German workers away from a factory in case of an air-raid? Little wonder that the foreigners who had been brought in like chattels ran away when the opportunity presented itself. Were these workers who were fleeing, voluntary workers?