It is submitted in behalf of the defendant that foreign workers came to Germany of their own will. It is true that in the early stages of the European conflict, Germany offered such inducements in foreign countries as to persuade numbers of their subjects voluntarily to proceed to that country for remunerative employment. In those first days of Blitzkrieg when nation after nation fell helplessly under the invincible Nazi war machine, workers accepted employment in Germany not only because of promises made, but because exterior evidence to their bewildered minds seemed to portend that soon the frontiers of Germany would be coterminous with the boundaries of Europe itself. Thus, but small choice remained to them; whether they worked at home or in Germany the master was destined to be the same.

However, when the subjugated peoples perceived at Stalingrad that the unbeatable German army could be beaten, when they heard the roar of American propellers in the sky and the clank of British tanks returned once more to the battle, a light of hope gleamed that it might not be true, as Hitler had said, that his rule and order were to endure a thousand years, and then these people refused the coin and currency of the German Reich. From then on the feet of foreign workers were not turned willingly toward Germany. And in the face of this defiance, Sauckel, German Plenipotentiary for Labor, declared, “Should we not succeed in obtaining the necessary amount of labor on a voluntary basis, we must immediately institute conscription or forced labor.” (T-58.)[[160]]

There is no adding machine tape to which one can turn to determine the exact total number of foreign workers impressed into German industry, but Fritz Sauckel, Plenipotentiary General for Labor, declared, “Out of 5,000,000 workers who arrived in Germany, not even 200,000 came voluntarily.” (T-149.) Heinrich Himmler placed the number of foreign workers at from 6,000,000 to 7,000,000. (IMT 243)[[161]].

On 9 November 1941, Hitler declared in a speech—

“The territory which now works for us contains more than 250,000,000 men, but the territory which works indirectly for us includes now more than 350,000,000. In the measure in which it concerns German territory, the domain which we have taken under our administration, it is not doubtful that we shall succeed in harnessing the very last man to this work.”

Hitler was never quite able to achieve the fullness of this ambitious program, but it was not due to any relinquishment of efforts in that direction by himself or his criminal coadjutors. Of course, this program was in direct violation of Article 52 of the Hague Convention which declares—

“Requisition in kind and services shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants, except for the needs of the army of occupation. They shall be in proportion to the resources of the country, and of such a nature as not to involve the inhabitants in the obligation of taking part in military operations against their own country.”

In the very initial stages of the German invasions, the officiating agents phrased their demands for labor in language which gave the recruitment an aspect of voluntary action on the part of the workers. Thus, when the German forces entered Lithuania, male and female farm workers were called upon by the military administration to sign up for six months’ employment on large estates, but after the signatures were obtained the promises were not kept. (T-97.) And it was not long until all pretense at voluntary recruitment was abandoned and then Lithuanians, ordered to official agencies “only for registration”, were held there and taken away under military guards to the local barracks where they had neither the opportunity to bid their families good-by nor to put their most personal affairs in order. (T-97-98.)

There were other pacific methods to “persuade” foreign workers into employment for the Reich. Thus, Governor General Frank of Poland recommended that one way to force Polish workers into Germany was to withhold their unemployment insurance. (T-112.)

However, these genteel methods in Poland soon gave way to means more direct. Recruitment now degenerated into a fierce manhunt with unsuspecting victims being seized on the streets, in railroad stations, from their homes, even in churches. (T-83.)