thinking in terms of generations, is not
to be regretted, but is now deplorable by reason of the loss of
labor, is that the prisoners died in tens and hundreds of thousands
of exhaustion and hunger."
The general policy underlying the mobilization of
slave labor was stated by Sauckel on 20 April 1942. He said:
"The aim of this new gigantic
labor mobilization is to use all the rich and tremendous sources
conquered and secured for us by our fighting Armed Forces under the
leadership of Adolf Hitler, for the armament of the Armed Forces, and
also for the nutrition of the Homeland. The raw materials, as well as
the fertility of the conquered territories and their human labor
power, are to be used completely and conscientiously to the profit of
Germany and her allies . . . . All prisoners of war from the
territories of the West, as well as the East, actually in Germany,
must be completely incorporated into the German armament and
nutrition industries . . . . Consequently it is an immediate
necessity to use the human reserves of the conquered Soviet territory
to the fullest extent. Should we not succeed in obtaining the
necessary amount of labor on a voluntary basis, we must immediately
institute conscription or forced labor.... The complete employment of
all prisoners of war, as well as the use of a gigantic number of new
foreign civilian workers, men and women, has become an indisputable
necessity for the solution of the mobilization of the labor program
in this war."
Reference should also be made to the policy which was
in existence in Germany by the summer of 1940, under which all aged,
insane, and incurable people, "useless eaters," were
transferred to special institutions where they were killed, and their
relatives informed that they had died from natural causes. The
victims were not confined to German citizens, but included foreign
laborers, who were no longer able to work, and were therefore useless
to the German war machine. It has been estimated that at least some
275,000 people were killed in this manner in nursing homes, hospitals
and asylums, which were under the jurisdiction of the Defendant
Frick, in his capacity as Minister of the Interior. How many foreign
workers were included in this total it has been quite impossible to
determine.
Persecution of the Jews
The persecution of the Jews at the hands of the
Nazi Government has been proved in the greatest detail before the
Tribunal. It is a record of consistent and systematic inhumanity on
the greatest scale. Ohlendorf, Chief of Amt III in the RSHA from 1939
to 1943, and who was in command of one of the Einsatz groups in the
campaign