Has the fact that industry, which had to carry out Hitler’s construction program, employed foreign workers, prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates, been caused by the defendant? Industry had employed these people before the beginning of Milch’s tenure; it employed them because Hitler had ordered through Sauckel that industry had to employ these people—not in order to obtain slave labor for slave labor’s sake—but only for the reason to be able to throw still more Germans into the greedy jaws of the fiendish war and thus surely causing disaster for Germans as well as for other peoples.
As far as the GL is concerned—the least reproach can be cast upon Milch, of all the reproaches that can be cast upon him. It only consists in that he passed orders on to the air armament industry (and where did this not occur during the war?), and that he saw to it that no exaggerated requests for material and manpower were made.
The prosecution has proved nothing which could contradict these statements. But Milch has—and this, too, has been proved—not only curtailed exaggerated labor requests of industry by means of his statistics, thus preventing the increase of foreign labor, but in addition to that, as was stated by the witnesses Brauchitsch, Pendele, Hertel, Vorwald, and others, he always endeavored seriously and successfully to maintain the German workers in the factories; and in doing so he even saved German workers who should have been drafted, at least to the amount of 70,000 for the air armament factories, keeping thus on a lower level further requests for foreign workers and their assignment. A man who, as the prosecution means, is keen on slave labor does not act in that way.
Finally, there is another point to be mentioned in this connection. The International Military Tribunal—which, by the way, states expressly in its verdict against Sauckel that there is no doubt of Sauckel having had the over-all responsibility for the slave labor program—that Tribunal stated in its verdict against Speer that it has to be considered as a mitigating circumstance in his favor, that by setting up protected factories Speer had kept many workers in their homelands. Your Honors will remember the depositions of Hertel, Vorwald, and Milch, of which it results that as early as 1941 Milch, first together with Udet and later on alone, had factories working in France on the basis of a free agreement with the French plants in order to employ French workers in their home country. These agreements were, as has been testified to by Foerster, completely free, because in 1941 the industry of that part of France which at that time had not yet been occupied had concluded them. Therefore, Milch was the inventor of the idea to have labor employed on the spot in foreign countries. It was not only in France that he, being the first, carried that out. You have heard that this occurred also in Holland and in Hungary. Now, if the International Military Tribunal counted this circumstance as a mitigating one for Speer, it must all the more be credited to the defendant who acted that way not merely from 1943 onward, as did Speer according to his own statement in this trial, but already as early as 1941, and was the first to do so. In this instance again the defendant proved to be a man who endeavored to mitigate as much as possible the difficulties which had arisen from the prevailing emergency. That much as far as the defendant’s activity as GL is concerned.
When I come to consider in how far Milch’s activity on the Central Planning Board could be charged against him, I am aware that some of the minutes of the Central Planning Board could, in themselves, be interpreted as a charge against Milch. But if your Honors consider that out of sixty meetings of the Central Planning Board the prosecution could only list fifteen meetings in which labor questions were discussed—this being done in some instances in a perfunctory and casual way—it results from this fact already that the Central Planning Board, as to its aim, was not charged with the guiding of manpower, which at that time was the focal point of many schemes in all countries and, above all, in Germany.
In this trial there was much argument between the prosecution and the defense as to the significance and the essence of the Central Planning Board until, eventually, with the help of the key Document NOKW-245, Prosecution Exhibit 157, the argument was decided. There it says literally, “Speer and I (that is, Milch) are of the opinion that he (Sauckel) has to be incorporated somehow in the Central Planning Board in order to get the labor assignment, as well as the material, into our hands. At the present time we have no possibility to steer it.” These words were voiced on 23 February 1943 after the Central Planning Board had been in existence for already one year. These words were not voiced at that time for the purpose of ex post facto whitewashing, but they expressed the complete truth and have characterized the situation in quite simple and clear words for always and unmistakably. No decree has been submitted, nor order of Hitler has been proved, to show that this situation was changed. At no time, indeed at no time, was Sauckel a member of the Central Planning Board. If the prosecution wants to consider the wish Milch uttered at that occasion as incriminating, they are at liberty to do so. However, this is not a punishable deed, and nobody can tell what amount of good Milch could have done if he had factually been in charge of the labor assignment. His other deeds account for the assumption that he would certainly have stopped abuses and would have mitigated all that was necessary as far as possible. The members of this trial would not believe, at first, in the depositions of all the witnesses who have been heard here, including Koerner, stating that the Central Planning Board dealt with labor questions merely for reasons of information. The wording of the speeches seemed to contradict it. But, your Honors, the witnesses have also testified before you that the speeches could only be understood if they are read. Prosecution Exhibit 157 has put an end to all such doubts. Whoever wants to pronounce here the verdict with all the necessary seriousness cannot bypass this document. Nobody can contend any longer that the defendant has not told you the full truth. Therefore, his statement under oath is to be believed, which agrees with Speer’s statement in that the so-called labor assignment meetings were held with Sauckel always with the sole aim to obtain from Sauckel, who had reported so many false figures and was not scrupulous about telling the truth, eventually and for once, clear figures. Likewise, Document NOKW-195, Prosecution Exhibit 143, the report on the meeting of 28 October 1943, held at Goering’s place, shows a constant struggle with Sauckel in order to obtain true figures because Hitler would not believe that Sauckel’s figures were completely false. It has been proved that factually both Speer and Milch have been reproached because they did not fulfill the program made by Hitler, although many millions of workers had allegedly been at their disposal. Alone for air armament, according to Goering’s calculation based on Sauckel’s figures, five million workers should have been available—whereas the entire air armament employed a much lower total of people. As Hitler was a dangerous man and his reproaches could have disagreeable consequences, Speer and Milch cannot be blamed for wanting to get this subject clear; consequently, if they discussed this problem in detail—especially during the 53d and 54th meetings of the Central Planning Board—this has nothing to do at all with labor procurement. That these meetings have not been summoned by Milch—that they have been summoned by Speer and his ministry—has been proved. Milch presided over these meetings only because Speer was ill. But he only carried through the order of his friend Speer. But even these discussions do not alter the fact that the Central Planning Board as such had nothing to do with labor procurement. These very discussions were of a purely informative nature. By them the Central Planning Board did not obtain any influence on the carrying out of labor procurement nor on its distribution. How characteristic it is, however, for the personality of Milch that he used even this discussion about Sauckel’s figures in order to reduce the millions of new workers whom Hitler had ordered in January 1944 to quite a considerable extent.
In all the discussions submitted there is nowhere a word to be found, either to the effect that Milch had requested workers for his air armament. If the need for workers was under discussion, then always only, as the defendant himself confirmed, in regard to the basic industries—that is, mining and the iron industry and in regard to agriculture. It was always a question, as the records show, of the commitment of prisoners of war. But even according to the Geneva Convention prisoners of war may be employed in mining, in the production of iron, and in agriculture. These places of work are not actual armament industries.
That Milch did not have anything to do with the commitment of Russians in antiaircraft defense, which was not under him at all; that, on the contrary, he even opposed it, and that that part of the minutes of the 33d meeting of the Central Planning Board must be incorrect here, too, has been stated by the witnesses Hertel, Koenig, as well as others equally incontestably. It has now been proved that this order was issued by the OKW directly via Goering.
Thus Milch, in his capacity as member of the Central Planning Board, was neither perpetrator of, nor accomplice in, crimes; nor did the Central Planning Board have as its purpose the commission of such crimes. Its sole purpose was the distribution of raw materials—an activity which is not prohibited under any conditions.
The third activity of Milch which could bring him in connection with the so-called slave labor was the activity on the Jaegerstab. Were one to view this membership in the Jaegerstab from the point of view of the prosecution, one could perhaps maintain the previously formed opinion that this activity was limited to the increased use of slave labor. The testimony of Speer, Vorwald, and Milch, however, have shown that the Jaegerstab had two main aims, namely, first, to raise the production of fighter planes and, secondly, to facilitate Milch’s resignation from his office by transferring the entire air armament industry to the ministry of Speer.