"all available manpower, including that of
workers recruited abroad, and of prisoners of war".
The Defendant Sauckel was directly under the Defendant
Göring as Commissioner of the Four Year Plan, and a Göring
decree of 27 March 1942 transferred all his authority over manpower
to Sauckel. Sauckel's instructions, too, were that foreign labor
should be recruited on a voluntary basis, but also provided that
"where, however, in the occupied territories, the appeal for
volunteers does not suffice, obligatory service and drafting must
under all circumstances be resorted to." Rules requiring labor
service in Germany were published in all the occupied territories.
The number of laborers to be supplied was fixed by Sauckel, and the
local authorities were instructed to meet these requirements by
conscription if necessary. That conscription was the rule rather than
the exception is shown by the statement of Sauckel already quoted, on
1 March 1944.
The Defendant Sauckel frequently asserted that the workers
belonging to foreign nations were treated humanely, and that the
conditions in which they lived were good. But whatever the intention
of Sauckel may have been, and however much he may have desired that
foreign laborers should be treated humanely, the evidence before the
Tribunal establishes the fact that the conscription of labor was
accomplished in many cases by drastic and violent methods. The
"mistakes and blunders" were on a very great scale.
Man-hunts took place in the streets, at motion picture houses, even
at churches and at night in private houses. Houses were sometimes
burnt down, and the families taken as hostages, practices which were
described by the Defendant Rosenberg as having their origin "in
the blackest periods of the slave trade". The methods used in
obtaining forced labor from the Ukraine appear from an order issued
to SD officers which stated:
"It will not be possible always
to refrain from using force . . . . When searching villages,
especially when it has been necessary to burn down a village, the
whole population will be put at the disposal of the Commissioner by
force . . . . As a rule no more children will be shot . . . . If we
limit harsh measures through the above orders for the time being, it
is only done for the following reason . . . . The most important
thing is the recruitment of workers."
The resources and needs of the occupied countries
were completely disregarded in carrying out this policy. The
treatment of the laborers was governed by Sauckel's instructions of
20 April 1942 to the effect that: "All the men must be fed,
sheltered and treated in such a way as to exploit them to the highest
possible extent, at the lowest conceivable degree of
expenditure."