“As the total result of the Sauckel Action 818,000 persons all
told, mostly men, went to Germany; 168,000 of them owing to the
compulsory service law. Of all these there were only 420,000
still there at the end of January 1944.”
As far as you can recollect, are these statements generally correct?
SAUCKEL: May I remark in this connection that the Envoy Hemmen at the
Embassy in Paris dealt with these questions there, and they are given
correctly. Finally, you meant to say 420,000 and not 420, did you not?
DR. SERVATIUS: Thousand.
SAUCKEL: The decisive point is that because of the short term of the
contracts, the French workers were changed every 6 months, thus only one
half could be here at a time.
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, you have already said that.
SAUCKEL: As an explanation I should like permission to tell the Tribunal
that while there was a ratio of 1 to 3—meaning that Germany gave back 1
prisoner-of-war in return for 3 workers—both the prisoner-of-war and
the French civilian workers who had replaced him for the most part had
returned to their own country after 1½ years, as each stayed for only 6
months.
It was very hard to win the Führer over to this regulation.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
[_A recess was taken._]
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will hear some supplementary applications
for witnesses and documents at 2 o’clock on Monday.
M. HERZOG: Mr. President, I should like to come back briefly to Document
D-565, that is to say, to the photographs showing, the Defendant Sauckel
at the Concentration Camp of Buchenwald.
The Prosecution has never claimed, and does not claim now, that these
photographs date from a period during the war. Quite the contrary, the
original, which has been shown to you, has the date of these photographs
and the year is 1938.
The defendant, when he was examined by his counsel, told us that he
visited Buchenwald in the company of Italian officers. I do not see a
single Italian officer in these photographs; I simply see the
Reichsführer SS Himmler.
However, I do not dispute, and I never claimed that these photographs
dated from a year other than 1938.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, I have one last question in connection
with Exhibit Sauckel-82 from Document Book Sauckel 3, Page 206 and
following. On Page 207 we find a statement under Number 3 which I should
like to put to the defendant again, because the prosecutor for the
Soviet Union has stated that Sauckel declared here that he gave no
protection against crime. I should like to read the sentence to the
defendant again and ask him for an explanation. I myself have already
quoted it once before; apparently there is a misunderstanding. It is a
very short sentence; it reads: “You can demand of me every protection in
your labor area, but no protection for crimes.”
Does that mean, Witness, that you did not grant protection against
crimes?
SAUCKEL: On the contrary, it can be seen very clearly from that document
that I did not tolerate any crime. I would not protect these people, who
were not subordinate to me, if they committed crimes there. They were
not to do that; that was what I prohibited...
DR. SERVATIUS: I believe that the German shows very clearly that this
explanation, as the defendant has just given it, is correct.