Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 3, p. 509
		13 Dec. 45 I do not intend to read from the document again, because I read from, it this morning to illustrate another point; but the Tribunal will recall that it was at this meeting that the Defendant Speer and others were discussing the so-called slackers, and the conversation had to do with having drastic steps taken against these workers who were not putting out sufficient work to please their masters. Speer suggested that, "There is nothing to be said against the SS and Police taking steps and putting those known as slackers into concentration camp industries," and he used the words "concentration camp industries." And he said, "Let it happen several times and the news will soon get around." Words spoken in this fashion, we say, sealed the fate of many victims. As for getting the news around as suggested by the Defendant Speer, this was not left to chance, as we shall presently show. The deterrent effect of the concentration camps upon the public was a carefully planned thing. To heighten the atmosphere of terror, these camps were shrouded in secrecy. What went on in the barbed wire enclosures was a matter of fearful conjecture in Germany and countries under Nazi control; and this was the policy from the very beginning, when the Nazis first came into power and set up this system of concentration camps. We refer now to Document Number 778-PS, which bears Exhibit Number USA-247. This document is an order issued on the 1st of October 1933 by the camp commander of Dachau. The document prescribed a program of floggings, solitary confinement, and executions for the inmates for infractions of the rules. Among the rules were those prescribing a rigid censorship concerning conditions within the camp; and I refer to the first page of the English text, paragraph numbered Article 11, and quoting: "By virtue of the law on revolutionaries, the following offenders considered as agitators, will be hanged: "Anyone who, for the purpose of agitating, does the following in the camp, at work, in the quarters, in the kitchens and workshops, toilets and places of rest: holds political or inciting speeches and meetings, forms cliques, loiters around with others; who, for the purpose of supplying the propaganda of the opposition with atrocity stories, collects true or false information about the concentration camp and its institution, receives such information, buries it, talks about it to others, smuggles it cut of the camp into the hands of foreign visitors or others by means of clandestine or other methods, passes it on in writing or orally to released prisoners or prisoners who are placed above them, conceals it in clothing or other 509
		Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 3, p. 509     Last modified: October 10, 1998 Copyright © 1998 The Mazal Library and The Holocaust History Project. All rights reserved. Technical/administrative contact: webmaster@holocaust-history.org Find a typo? Let us know.