13 Dec.
45
MR. DODD: Yes, Sir; war industries, as we understand
it. It was referred to many times by these defendants as the component
parts of the plans.
I also would like to call the attention of the Tribunal again to the "Minutes
of the 36th Meeting of the Central Planning Board," Document R-124,
from which we read a number of excerpts yesterday, and remind the
Tribunal that in the report of the minutes of that meeting the Defendant
Speer stated that, "Ninety thousand Russian prisoners of war
employed in the whole of the armament industry are for the greater part
skilled men."
We should like, at this point, to turn to the special responsibility of
the Defendant Speer and to discuss the evidence of the various crimes
committed by Defendant Speer in planning and participating in the vast
program of forcible deportation of the citizens of occupied countries.
He was the Reich Minister of Armaments and Munitions and Chief of the
Organization Todt, both of which positions he acquired on the 15th of
February 1942; and by virtue of his later acquisition of control over
the armament offices of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and the
production offices of the Ministry of Economics, the Defendant Speer was
responsible for the entire war production of the Reich as well as for
the construction of fortifications and installations for the Wehrmacht.
Proof of the positions held by the Defendant Speer is supplied in his
own statement as contained in Document 2980-PS, which has already been
offered to the Tribunal and which bears Exhibit Number USA-18.
The industries under the Defendant Speer's control were really the most
important users of manpower in Germany; and thus, according to the
Defendant Sauckel, Speer's labor requirements received unconditional
priority over all other demands for labor. We refer to the transcript of
the interrogation of the Defendant Sauckel on the 22d of September 1945.
It is Exhibit USA-230. It is next to the last document in the document
book. I wish to refer to Page 1 of that document, Paragraph 4. It is a
brief reference, the last answer on the page. The question was asked of
the Defendant Sauckel:
"Q: Except for Speer, they would give
the requirements in general for the whole field; but in Speer's work
you would get them allocated by industry, and so on — is that
right?
"A: The others only got whatever was left. Because Speer told me
once in the presence of the Führer that I am here to work for
Speer and that, mainly, I am his man."
The Defendant Speer has admitted under oath that he participated in the
discussions during which the decision to use foreign forced labor was
made. He has also said that he concurred in the decision and that it was
the basis for the program of bringing foreign workers into Germany by
compulsion. I make reference to the