“I demand if the people refuse to work they immediately be placed against the wall and shot before all the other workers.” (T-2107.)
Further—
“I ask you to get in touch with the Reich Fuehrer SS [Himmler] and to ask him to discuss the matter with the Fuehrer. Now is the right time; unless we do something effective now, the others will become bothersome. I ask that their being sent to concentration camps be taken into consideration too. I will tell you afterwards how you should act in such a matter.” (T-2107.)
Later, on 7 July 1942, he indicated a willingness to try more peaceable methods, but if they did not succeed, then—
“I intend to fill the new Heinkel Plant in the East entirely with Frenchmen brought down there by force. If they don’t work in France, they may work as prisoners in Poland. After all, we have to remember that it is we and not the French who have won the war.” (T-2116.)
On 28 July 1942 we find him again complaining about French production—
“At the present time we receive six to nine planes from the French. I could well imagine that they would get out 45 for themselves. I shall close up the shop with a single stroke and have the workers and the machines come to Germany. If it does not work on a voluntary basis, then we do it by compulsory contracts. Perhaps I shall first give them a week to think it over. It is a fact that, on the whole, these people work in silent opposition. One cannot blame them for it either, it is true, but they should not have started the war.” (T-2117.)
In this outburst we discover two strange utterances. One, “compulsory contracts”, and the other the statement that the French started the war. Since the word “contract” means a willing agreement between two or more people, a “compulsory contract” is, of course, meaningless because one cannot be forced into a contract. If there is any compulsion, then the operation becomes a matter of outright coercion. With regard to the French starting the war, the defendant had the grace to state during the trial that he now knows that France did not initiate hostilities, although he believed to the contrary at the time.
The defendant has declared repeatedly that he had no connection with, or even knowledge of, concentration camps. He only visited one of them (Dachau) in 1935. At the end of the war he was aware of the existence of but two concentration camps, although 200 were flourishing in all their ghastliness at the time. Yet despite this blissful ignorance of concentration camps the phrase rippled easily from his tongue. At the same meeting above-mentioned he stated that if two certain individuals, Schneider and Bergen, “make difficulties” he would put them into a concentration camp for the duration of the war (T-2118.)
When one Petersen, on 30 November 1942, spoke of obtaining 500 men from a concentration camp, Milch said, “For this purpose we should come to an agreement with Himmler.” (T-2148.)