industrial capacity became inadequate, to meet the
German requirements, the system of deporting laborers to Germany was
put into force. By the middle of April 1940 compulsory deportation of
laborers to Germany had been ordered in the' Government General; and
a similar procedure was followed in other eastern territories as they
were occupied. A description of this compulsory deportation from
Poland was given by Himmler. In an address to SS officers he recalled
how in weather 40 degrees below zero they had to "haul away
thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands". On a later
occasion Himmler stated:
"Whether ten thousand Russian
females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch
interests me only insofar as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is
finished . . . . We must realize that we have 6-7 million foreigners
in Germany . . . . They are none of them dangerous so long as we take
severe measures at the merest trifles."
During the first two years of the German occupation
of France, Belgium, Holland, and Norway, however, an attempt was made
to obtain the necessary workers on a voluntary basis. How
unsuccessful this was may be seen from the report of the meeting of
the Central Planning Board on 1 March 1944. The representative of the
Defendant Speer, one Koehrl, speaking of the situation in France,
said: "During all this time a great number of Frenchmen was
recruited, and voluntarily went to Germany."
He was interrupted by the Defendant Sauckel: "Not only
voluntary, some were recruited forcibly."
To which Koehrl replied: "The calling up started after the
recruitment no longer yielded enough results."
To which the Defendant Sauckel replied: "Out of the five
million workers who arrived in Germany, not even 200,000 came
voluntarily", and Koehrl rejoined: "Let us forget for the
moment whether or not some slight pressure was used. Formally, at
least, they were volunteers."
Committees were set up to encourage recruiting, and a vigorous
propaganda campaign was begun to induce workers to volunteer for
service in Germany. This propaganda campaign included, for example,
the promise that a prisoner off war would be returned for every
laborer who volunteered to go to Germany. In some cases it was
supplemented by withdrawing the ration cards of laborers who refused
to go to Germany, or by discharging them from their jobs and denying
them unemployment benefit or an opportunity to work elsewhere. In
some cases workers and their families were threatened with reprisals
by the police if they refused to go to Germany. It was on 21 March
1942 that the Defendant Sauckel was appointed Plenipotentiary-General
for the Utilization of Labor, with authority over