He has said that he was not a wholehearted Nazi, but here he referred to himself as one of the true leaders and this at a time when the hands on the clock tolling the hours of the Reich were approaching twelve. Yet he would have you believe that he was a minor man.
He did not confine his speaking efforts solely to the Luftwaffe; he was one of the leaders, and as such it was natural that he should address the armament feeder industry. On that subject he said—
“What I am telling you today was told the other day to the entire armament feeder industry—that includes the blacksmiths, foundries, crankshaft workers of the iron producing industry, etc. They were likewise exhorted to produce the maximum. In the same way the Gauleitungen, all of the provincial offices, wherever we were, were addressed by us to that effect. But everyone considers that if he does not do his duty, we do not ask whether there is a law, we ask only that he is the responsible one, and that we will seize him no matter who he is.”
His first peroration is indicative of his attitude.
“Please go wherever you are going and knock everybody down who blocks your way! We cover up everything here. We do not ask whether he is allowed to or whether he is not allowed to. For us, there is nothing but this one task. We are fanatics in this sphere. We do not even consider letting anything at all distract us from that task. No order exists which could prevent me from fulfilling this task. Nor shall I ever be given such an order.”
Yes, the defendant was a fanatic. Too, he was one who could cover up. It was a willful man who could say that.
There is an interesting statement concerning the number of employees of the Luftwaffe. The defendant set it at 1.8 million. This is somewhat in excess of the .5 million figure that one witness mentioned.
It has been insisted that he had nothing to do with labor, it has been insisted that he could give no orders, yet in his second peroration to the same speech, he said—
“We have given orders that will make you laugh. Some labor control office or other suddenly declared that the Jaegerstab was not entitled, according to paragraph so-and-so, to establish a 72-hour workweek; it was not valid. I said: The gentleman is herewith informed, if he should say such a thing once more, he will be picked up; I have excellent cellars in this house. Then the opposition disappears immediately. But you have to count on such things, and the difficulty for you is that, in order to get through all the junk, one should clean out, first of all, a whole lot of little pigsties. Something will come out of this whole affair with us, yet. Whoever of my technical people from the Ministry does not earn his keep with the Jaegerstab now, and does not cooperate, I guarantee that he will never appear again in this Ministry, in the machine where I give the orders.”
Is this the man who said he could not have people sent to concentration camps? The witness Krysiak was “picked up” for having said in 1940 that Germany would lose the war. He was arrested by the Gestapo as the result of a private conversation. It is unbelievable that a field marshal could not, and did not, exercise the same power.