12 Dec.
45
or who have broken contracts and who do
not belong to allied, friendly, or neutral states . . . are to be
brought by the quickest means to the nearest concentration camps . . .
.
"(2) The commanders and the commandants of the Security Police
and the Security Service, and the chiefs of the state police
headquarters will check immediately on the basis of a close and strict
rule: (a) the prisons, and (b) the labor reformatory camps.
"All prisoners fit for work, if it is practically and humanly
possible, will be committed at once to the nearest concentration camp,
according to the following instructions, even for example, those who
are about to be brought to trial. Only such prisoners can be left
there who, in the interest of further investigations, are to remain
absolutely in solitary confinement.
"Every single laborer counts!"
Measures were also adopted to insure that this extermination through
work was practiced with maximum efficiency. Subsidiary concentration
camps were established near important war plants. The Defendant Speer
has admitted that he personally toured Upper Austria and selected sites
for concentration camps near various munitions factories in the area. I
am about to refer to the transcript of an interrogation under oath of
the Defendant Albert Speer.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, do you understand the last document you read,
1063-PS, to refer to prisoners of war, or prisoners in ordinary prisons,
or what?
MR. DODD: We understood it to refer to prisoners in ordinary prisons.
In view of the Tribunal's ruling this morning, I think I should state
that, with respect to this interrogation of Defendant Speer, we had
provided the defendants' counsel with the entire text in German. It
happens to be a brief interrogation, and so we were able to complete
that translation, and it has been placed in their Information Center.
DR. HANS FLÄCHSNER (Counsel for Defendant Speer): In reference to
the transcript of the interrogation, the reading of which the prosecutor
has just announced, I should like to say the following: It is true that
we have received the German transcript of the English protocol, if one
may call it a protocol. A comparison of the English text with the German
transcript shows that there are, both in the English text and in the
German transcript, mistakes which change the meaning and which I believe
are to be attributed to misunderstandings on the part of the certifying
interpreter. I