“In this connection it could be stated that on visiting the
mines, it appeared that nearly 10 percent of the Polish workers
went to work underground with only dry bread, or raw potatoes
cut in slices which they warmed afterwards on a stove.”
The institute began its “scientific calculations” with a comparison of
the calories received by the Poles in Upper Silesia and the calories
received by the German population.
I shall not quote large excerpts from the document, but will limit
myself to short facts only. I start on Page 63 of this report, which
corresponds to Page 102, last paragraph of the document book:
“Comparison of the number of calories received by the Poles in
Upper Silesia with the number of calories allocated to the
German population indicates that the Poles receive 24 percent
less than the Germans. This difference reaches 26 percent on
food ration cards of nonworking Poles. For youths from 14 to 20,
the difference in rations allocated to Germans and to Poles
reached almost 33 percent. However, it must be stressed that
this only applies to working youths over 14.
“The difference between what Polish and German children from 10
to 14 receive is even more striking. The difference here is not
less than 65 percent. The looks of these underfed youths already
testify to this. In a similar way Polish children under 10
receive up to 60 percent less than German children.
“If on the other hand the doctors state that the food conditions
of the babies are not so unfavorable, it is only an imaginary
contradiction. As long as a mother nurses her child, the child
gets everything from that source. The consequences of the
underfeeding are felt in this period not by the child but by the
mother. Her health and working capacity are impaired
considerably from the undernourishment.”
I continue on Page 178 of the original which corresponds to Page 103,
Paragraph 2 in the second document book:
“In all categories the Polish youth in comparison with the
German is more wretched. The difference in rations of the Poles
and Germans reaches 60 percent.”
Extracts from the report of the German Labor Front cited in this
investigation also offer some interest. Particularly on Page 76 are
quoted excerpts from the report of the German Labor Front, dated 10
October 1941, after a visit to one of the coal mines in Poland:
“It was established that daily in various villages Polish miners
fall from exhaustion. . . . As the workers constantly complained
of stomach pains, doctors were consulted, who answered that this
was a symptom of undernourishment.”
I would conclude the description of the Polish workers’ physical
condition drawn by the German criminals themselves, and, what is more,
by the “learned” criminals, by a short quotation from the same report
which the Tribunal will find on Page 106, Paragraph 6 of the document
book:
“The management of the factories constantly stresses that it is
no longer possible by threats of deportation to concentration
camps to incite to work underfed people incapable of physical
effort. Sooner or later there comes a day when the weakened body
can no longer work.”
There is also in this document a descriptive sketch of the legal status
of the Polish worker during the German occupation which bears no
possibility of double interpretation. This descriptive sketch is all the
more valuable because, as was already stressed above, the authors of the
investigation report expressly emphasized that “all humanitarian
tendencies whatsoever were alien to them.”
I begin the quotation of the produced document on Page 127 which
corresponds to Page 110, second paragraph of the document book:
“The law does not recognize any legal claim of any member of the
Polish nation in any sphere of life. Whatever is granted a Pole
is done voluntarily by the German masters. This legal situation
is perhaps most clearly mirrored in ‘the Pole’s lack of
possession in the eyes of the law.’ In the administration of
justice Poles are not permitted to conduct their cases before a
court. In criminal procedure the viewpoint of obedience
dominates. The execution of legal regulations is in the first
place the task of the police, who can decide at their discretion
or refer individual cases to the courts.”
According to an order, dated 26 August 1942 Polish as well as German
workers were obliged to take out insurance against illness, accidents,
and disability. The deductions from the wages for this purpose were
larger for the Poles than for the German. However, the German workers
profited by this insurance, whereas, in actuality, the Poles were
deprived of it.
As proof of this I shall present to the Tribunal two short excerpts from
the same investigation report which Your Honors will find on Page 111 in
the document book, Paragraph 4. It corresponds to Page 134 of the
original text of the investigation report quoted above:
“Insurance against accidents, which is incumbent on the trade
unions, involved particularly stringent measures for the Poles.
The recognition of disability caused by an accident is much more
limited than in the case of Germans. Disability for the loss of
an eye is 30 percent for a German and 25 percent for a Pole. The
payment of a subvention depends on 33⅓ percent disability.”
I continue my quotation on Page 135 of the original document, that is to
say, on Page 111, last paragraph of the document book:
“The most stringent measures are provided for the dependents of
fatally injured persons. The maximum a widow can receive is half
of that granted by the insurance to Germans—and this only in
case she has to support four children under 15 years of age, or
is herself an invalid.
“The restriction on the rights of Poles is illustrated by an
example: A German widow with three children receives 80 percent
of the yearly salary of her fatally injured husband; from an
annual income of 2,000 marks she receives 1,600 marks per year,
but a Pole in a similar situation would receive nothing.”
The major German fascist war criminals not only sent into the
temporarily occupied Eastern territories soldiers and the SS, but
specially appointed fascist “scientists,” “consultants in economic
problems,” and all sorts of “investigators” followed after. Some of them
were detached from Ribbentrop’s office; some others were sent by
Rosenberg.
I beg the Tribunal to enter into the record as evidence one of these
documents. I submit it under Document Number USSR-218. I mean the report
of the representative attached by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the
command of the 17th Army, Captain Pfleiderer, and addressed to his
colleague Von Rantzau from the information service of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. These documents were discovered by units of the Red
Army on the Dirksen estate in Upper Silesia.
On the basis of a reading of these documents, it can be concluded that
in 1941-42 Pfleiderer made a trip covering the following route through
the occupied territories on the route Yaroslavl in the Ukraine, Lvov,
Tarnopol, Proskurov, Vinnitza, Uman, Kirovograd, Alexandria, and
Krementshoug on the Dnieper.
The purpose of this trip was to study economic and political conditions
in the occupied territories of the Ukraine. That the author of this
document was also completely free of so-called humanitarian tendencies,
can be seen from the short excerpt from his report dated 28 October
1941, where Pfleiderer writes—the Tribunal will find this quotation on
Page 113, second paragraph of the document book. I quote only one line:
“. . . there is the urgent necessity to press out of the country
everything to secure the food supply of Germany.”
But even with such proclivity to cruelty and rapacity, Pfleiderer
evidently was abashed by the conduct of his compatriots to the extent
that he deemed it necessary to bring it to the attention of the highest
authorities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I quote the report of
Pfleiderer which is entitled:
“Conditions for the Guarantee of Supply and for Producing the
Largest Possible Food Surplus in the Ukraine.
“. . . 3) Frame of mind and living conditions of the population
by the end of October 1941.”
The Tribunal will find this part on Page 114, third paragraph of the
document book:
“The frame of mind of the population generally became worse a
few weeks after the occupation of the territory by our troops.
The reason for it? We display . . . inner hostility and even
hatred toward this country, and arrogance toward the
people. . . . The third year of war and the necessity of
wintering in an unfriendly country causes many difficulties, but
they must be surmounted with courage and self-discipline. We
must not work off our discontent over this country on the
population. . . . How often it happened that, acting against the
rules of psychology and committing mistakes that we could easily
have avoided, we lost all sympathy of the population. The people
cannot understand the shooting of exhausted prisoners of war in
villages and larger localities and the leaving of their bodies
there. As the troops are entrusted with a broad authority for
self-provisioning, the _kolkhozes_ along the main roads and near
the larger towns for the most part lack pedigree cattle, seeds,
seed potatoes (Poltava). Evidently, the supplying of our own
troops stands first; however, the system of supply in itself is
not immaterial: Psychologically, requisitioning the last hen is
as unreasonable as it is economically unreasonable to kill the
last pig or the last calf.”