20 Dec. 45
Speer recognized that the SS was motivated by the
desire for further profits when he suggested to Hitler that the SS
receive a share of the war equipment produced by concentration camp
labor in ratio to the working hours of the prisoners. I refer to our
Document R-124, at Page 36, which was read into evidence by Mr. Dodd as
Exhibit Number USA-179. The Führer agreed that a 3 to 5 percent
share should satisfy the SS commanders. Himmler himself frankly admitted
his intention to derive profits for SS purposes from the camp in his
Metz speech to the officers of the SS Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler,"
our Document 1918-PS, Exhibit Number USA-304 — the passage in
question being found at the top of Page 3 of the English translation and
on Page 10 of the original German, 7 lines from the bottom. The passage
begins:
"The apartment-building program,
which is the prerequisite for a healthy and social basis of the entire
SS, as well as of the entire leadership corps, can be carried out only
when I get the money for it from somewhere. Nobody is going to give me
the money. It must be earned, and it will be earned by forcing the
scum of mankind, the prisoners, the professional criminals, to do
positive work. The man guarding those prisoners serves harder than the
one on close-order drill. The one who does this and stands near these
utterly negative people will learn within 3 to 4 months — and we
shall see. In peacetime, I shall form guard battalions and put them on
duty for 3 months only. They will learn to fight the inferior beings;
and this will not be a boring guard duty, but if the officers handle
it right, it will be the best indoctrination on inferior beings and
inferior races. This activity is necessary, as I said, 1) to eliminate
these negative people from the German people; 2) make them work once
more for the great national community by having them break stones and
bake bricks, so that the Führer can again erect his grand
buildings; and 3) to in turn invest the money, earned soberly this
way, in houses, in ground, in settlements, so that our men can have
houses in which to raise large families and have many children. This
in turn is necessary because we stand or die with this leading blood
of Germany; and if the good blood is not reproduced, we will not be
able to rule the world."
One
final aspect of SS control over concentration camps remains to be
mentioned. That is its direction of the program of biological
experiments on human beings, which was carried on in the camps. Just a
few days ago another military tribunal passed judgment on some of those
who participated in the experiments at Dachau.
THE PRESIDENT: There is no date on that document you just read, is
there?