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"all
available manpower, including that of workers
recruited abroad, and of prisoners of war".
The Defendant Sauckel was directly
under the Defendant Göring as Commissioner
of the Four Year Plan, and a Göring decree
of 27 March 1942 transferred all his authority
over manpower to Sauckel. Sauckel's
instructions, too, were that foreign labor
should be recruited on a voluntary basis, but
also provided that "where, however, in the
occupied territories, the appeal for volunteers
does not suffice, obligatory service and
drafting must under all circumstances be
resorted to." Rules requiring labor service
in Germany were published in all the occupied
territories. The number of laborers to be
supplied was fixed by Sauckel, and the local
authorities were instructed to meet these
requirements by conscription if necessary. That
conscription was the rule rather than the
exception is shown by the statement of Sauckel
already quoted, on 1 March 1944.
The
Defendant Sauckel frequently asserted that the
workers belonging to foreign nations were
treated humanely, and that the conditions in
which they lived were good. But whatever the
intention of Sauckel may have been, and however
much he may have desired that foreign laborers
should be treated humanely, the evidence before
the Tribunal establishes the fact that the
conscription of labor was accomplished in many
cases by drastic and violent methods. The "mistakes
and blunders" were on a very great scale.
Man-hunts took place in the streets, at motion
picture houses, even at churches and at night in
private houses. Houses were sometimes burnt
down, and the families taken as hostages,
practices which were described by the Defendant
Rosenberg as having their origin "in the
blackest periods of the slave trade". The
methods used in obtaining forced labor from the
Ukraine appear from an order issued to SD
officers which stated:
"It will not be
possible always to refrain from using
force . . . . When searching villages,
especially when it has been necessary to
burn down a village, the whole
population will be put at the disposal
of the Commissioner by force . . . . As
a rule no more children will be shot . .
. . If we limit harsh measures through
the above orders for the time being, it
is only done for the following reason .
. . . The most important thing is the
recruitment of workers." The
resources and needs of the occupied countries
were completely disregarded in carrying out this
policy. The treatment of the laborers was
governed by Sauckel's instructions of 20 April
1942 to the effect that: "All the men must
be fed, sheltered and treated in such a way as
to exploit them to the highest possible extent,
at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure."
245
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