"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."
The evidence shows that Sauckel was in charge of a
program which involved deportation for slave labor of more than
5,000,000 human beings, many of them under terrible conditions of
cruelty and suffering.
Conclusion
The Tribunal finds that Sauckel is not guilty on
Counts One and Two. He is guilty under Counts Three and Four.
JODL
Jodl is indicted on all four Counts. From 1935 to
1938 he was Chief of the National Defense Section in the High
Command. After a year in command of troops, in August 1939 he
returned to become Chief of the Operations Staff of the High Command
of the Armed Forces. Although his immediate superior was Defendant
Keitel he reported directly to Hitler on operational matters. In the
strict military sense, Jodl was the actual planner of the war and
responsible in large measure for the strategy and conduct of
operations.
Jodl defends himself on the ground he was a soldier sworn to
obedience, and not a politician; and that his staff and planning work
left him no time for other matters. He said that when he signed or
initialed orders, memoranda, and letters, he did so for Hitler and
often in the absence of Keitel. Though he claims that as a soldier he
had to obey Hitler, he says that he often tried to obstruct certain
measures by delay, which occasionally proved successful as when he
resisted Hitler's demand that a directive be issued to lynch Allied
"terror fliers".
Crimes against Peace
Entries in Jodl's diary of 13 and 14 February
1938 show Hitler instructed both him and Keitel to keep up military
pressure against Austria begun at the Schuschnigg conference by
simulating military measures, and that these achieved their purpose.
When Hitler decided "not to tolerate" Schuschnigg's
plebiscite, Jodl brought to the conference the "old draft",
the existing staff plan. His diary for 10 March shows Hitler then
ordered the preparation of "Case Otto", and the directive
was initialed by Jodl. Jodl issued supplementary instructions on 11
March, and initialed Hitler's order for the invasion on the same
date.
In planning the attack on Czechoslovakia, Jodl was very active,
according to the Schmundt Notes. He initialed items 14, 17, 24, 36,
and 37 in the Notes. Jodl admits he agreed with OKH that the
"incident" to provide German intervention must occur at the
latest