12 Dec. 45

we have offered — consist of complaints by functionaries of the Defendant Rosenberg's Ministry, or by others, concerning the conditions under which foreign workers were recruited and lived. I think it is appropriate to say that these documents have been presented by the Prosecution really for two purposes, or for a dual purpose; to establish, first, the facts recited therein, of course, but also to show that these conspirators had knowledge of these conditions and that notwithstanding their knowledge of these conditions, these conspirators continued to countenance and assist in this enslavement program of a vast number of citizens of occupied countries.

Once within Germany, slave laborers were subjected to almost unbelievable brutality and degradation by their captors; and the character of this treatment was in part made plain by the conspirators' own statements, as in Document Number 016-PS, which is in evidence as Exhibit USA-168; and I refer to Page 12, Paragraph 2 of the English text. In the German text it appears at Page 17, Paragraph 4. Quoting directly:

"All the men must be fed, sheltered, and treated in such a way that they produce to the highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure."

Force and brutality as instruments of production found a ready adherent in the Defendant Speer who, in the presence of the Defendant Sauckel, said at a meeting of the Central Planning Board — and I refer to Document Number R-124, which is already in evidence and which has been referred to previously. It bears the Exhibit Number USA-179. I refer particularly to Page 42 of that Document R-124, and Paragraph 2 of that Page 42. The Defendant Speer, speaking at that meeting, stated:

"We must also discuss the slackers. Ley has ascertained that the sick list decreased at once to one-fourth or one-fifth in factories where doctors are on the staff who examine the sick men. There is nothing to be said against SS and police taking drastic steps and putting those known as slackers into concentration camps. There is no alternative. Let it happen several times and the news will soon go around."

At a later meeting of the Central Planning Board, Field Marshal Milch agreed that so far as workers were concerned-and again I refer to Document Number R-124 and to Page 26, Paragraph 2, in the English text, and in the German text at Page 17, Paragraph 1. Field Marshal Milch, speaking at a meeting of the Central Planning Board when the Defendant Speer was present, stated; and I am quoting directly:

" The list of the shirkers should be entrusted to Himmler . . . "