“We must write off these areas in France completely, and above all the factories which are situated further into the country towards the south and west. For when the invasion begins, the guarding neither of a stretch of land, nor of a line will be possible, nor will anything function because of sabotage * * *. No Frenchman will work when the invasion begins. I am of the opinion that the French should be brought over again by force, as prisoners.”
Saur: “I should prefer to do it sooner.”
Lange: “We have machines there too, in particular the presses.”
Milch: “Everything must come out; machines and men.” (T-358.)
The Jaegerstab functioned from 1 March 1944 to 1 August 1944 and then it expanded into the Ruestungsstab. When the Jaegerstab concluded its efforts a report was made to the Fuehrer, which declared that Jaegerstab had, in spite of air attacks, doubled its aircraft production. (T-360.)
(c) Generalluftzeugmeister
In his capacity as Generalluftzeugmeister, Milch held periodical meetings and conferences in connection with the Luftwaffe armament production. Labor, its procurement, disposition, and treatment, was inevitably a subject for frequent discussion, and in these discussions Milch portrayed himself an intransigent, implacable taskmaster, uninhibited neither by law nor custom, and unrestrained by moderation or regard for the helpless vanquished.
At one of these meetings on 5 May 1942, presided over by the defendant, one Fridag reported—
“The French become worse and worse. I threw out 80 of them who will be sent to concentration camps in Russia. They refused to work. The French say at 4 o’clock: ‘I won’t work another hour’, and you cannot make them work another hour. This happened four weeks ago all of a sudden when the first bombing attack on Paris took place, while before that the French were the best people.” (T-2106.)
The fact that the bombardment of the beloved Paris of these Frenchmen would naturally emotionally disturb them was not weighed or considered by the defendant in spite of the fact that Frydag had reported that prior to the bombardment they had been excellent workers. Implacable and unyielding as some story book pagan god, the defendant turns to von Gablenz, Chief of the Planning Office, and declares—