The defendant was a member of the Central Planning Board which was established and organized in April 1942, and said organization served as a means of consolidating in a single agency all controls over German war production. The Central Planning Board held regular meetings, and the defendant presided over and was present at a majority of such meetings. The Central Planning Board at each meeting kept full minutes, and a great number of said minutes have been submitted to the Tribunal and reflect the fact that the defendant had a dominant role in the meetings of said board. The scope and authority of the Central Planning Board is contained in the minutes of a meeting held on 27 April 1942, and the duties and responsibilities of the board, according to said minutes, were announced as follows:
“The Central Planning in the Four Year Plan (Decree of the Reich Marshal of Greater Germany of 22 April 1942) is a task for leaders. It encompasses only principles and executive matters. It makes unequivocal decisions and supervises the execution of its directives. The Central Planning does not rely on anonymous institutions difficult to control but always on individuals and fully responsible persons who are free in the selection of their work methods and their collaboration as far as there are no directives issued by the Central Planning.”
On 20 October 1942, the statutes of the Central Planning Board were published and distributed, a portion of which are as follows:
“The Central Planning Board, created by the Fuehrer and the Reich Marshal in order to unify armament and war economy, deals only with the decision of basic questions. Professional questions remain the task of the competent departments, which in their field remain responsible within the framework of the decisions made by the Central Planning Board.”
The Central Planning Board was superior to “the highest Reich authority, the Reich protector, the Governor General, and the executive authorities in the occupied countries.”
The International Military Tribunal found that the Central Planning Board “had supreme authority for the scheduling of German production and the allocation and development of raw materials.” The International Tribunal found further in its opinion, in the case of United States vs. Goering and others, “that the Central Planning Board requisitioned labor from Sauckel with full knowledge that the demands could be supplied only by foreign forced labor and that the board determined the basic allocation of this labor within the German war economy.” The International Military Tribunal found further in its opinion the following:
“In the fall of 1943 Funk (who was then indicted before said Tribunal in regard to deportation and the use of foreign forced labor in the German Reich) was a member of the Central Planning Board which determined the total number of laborers needed for German industry, and required Sauckel to produce them, usually by deportation from occupied territories * * * but Funk was aware that the board of which he was a member was demanding the importation of slave laborers, and allocating them to the various industries under his control.”
The prosecution offered evidence which tended to show that Albert Speer was the Plenipotentiary for Armament and was the nominal head of the Central Planning Board and that the defendant was a member of said board and was, by the order of Hitler, assigned to assist Speer as the head of said board. During much of the time of the existence of said board Speer was ill and unable to attend the meetings and look after the duties of the board and during this time the defendant was the acting head of said board and presided over its meetings as chairman.
Fritz Sauckel was Plenipotentiary for Labor and was directly responsible for the procurement and allocation of labor to the various war industries. However, the Tribunal finds as a fact that although Sauckel had the primary duty of procuring and allocating labor, the Central Planning Board on many occasions, as the minutes of the meetings of said board show, called Milch into conference with the members of the Central Planning Board and in such conferences labor was assigned and allocated by the Central Planning Board and Sauckel. The minutes of the Central Planning Board, as introduced by the prosecution, show that the members of the Central Planning Board knew and discussed the fact that labor was being deported from occupied countries against their will and were being used in various factories manufacturing armaments, airplanes, and other articles essential and necessary to the war effort, that such foreign workers were being forcibly taken from their homes without knowledge of their destination, and by force and against their will, crowded into box cars without food or water or toilet facilities, transported great distances, and forced to work in factories manufacturing war materials and other necessary items for the prosecution of the war as slave laborers.
I find as a fact that the defendant Milch had knowledge of the way and manner in which such labor was procured and the work that they were forced to do, and that he aided, abetted, counseled, advised, and assisted in the deportation, allocation, and work of said slave laborers.