13 Dec.
45
I do not intend to read from the document again,
because I read from, it this morning to illustrate another point; but
the Tribunal will recall that it was at this meeting that the Defendant
Speer and others were discussing the so-called slackers, and the
conversation had to do with having drastic steps taken against these
workers who were not putting out sufficient work to please their
masters. Speer suggested that, "There is nothing to be said against
the SS and Police taking steps and putting those known as slackers into
concentration camp industries," and he used the words "concentration
camp industries." And he said, "Let it happen several times
and the news will soon get around."
Words spoken in this fashion, we say, sealed the fate of many victims.
As for getting the news around as suggested by the Defendant Speer, this
was not left to chance, as we shall presently show.
The deterrent effect of the concentration camps upon the public was a
carefully planned thing. To heighten the atmosphere of terror, these
camps were shrouded in secrecy. What went on in the barbed wire
enclosures was a matter of fearful conjecture in Germany and countries
under Nazi control; and this was the policy from the very beginning,
when the Nazis first came into power and set up this system of
concentration camps. We refer now to Document Number 778-PS, which bears
Exhibit Number USA-247. This document is an order issued on the 1st of
October 1933 by the camp commander of Dachau. The document prescribed a
program of floggings, solitary confinement, and executions for the
inmates for infractions of the rules.
Among the rules were those prescribing a rigid censorship concerning
conditions within the camp; and I refer to the first page of the English
text, paragraph numbered Article 11, and quoting:
"By virtue of the law on
revolutionaries, the following offenders considered as agitators, will
be hanged:
"Anyone who, for the purpose of agitating, does the following in
the camp, at work, in the quarters, in the kitchens and workshops,
toilets and places of rest: holds political or inciting speeches and
meetings, forms cliques, loiters around with others; who, for the
purpose of supplying the propaganda of the opposition with atrocity
stories, collects true or false information about the concentration
camp and its institution, receives such information, buries it, talks
about it to others, smuggles it cut of the camp into the hands of
foreign visitors or others by means of clandestine or other methods,
passes it on in writing or orally to released prisoners or prisoners
who are placed above them, conceals it in clothing or other