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aggressive
war as charged under Count One or waging
aggressive war as charged under Count Two.
War
Crimes and Crimes against Humanity
The
evidence introduced against Speer under Counts
Three and Four relates entirely to his
participation in the slave labor program. Speer
himself had no direct administrative
responsibility for this program. Although he had
advocated the appointment of a General
Plenipotentiary for the Utilization of Labor
because he wanted one central authority with
whom he could deal on labor matters, he did not
obtain administrative control over Sauckel.
Sauckel was appointed directly by Hitler, under
the decree of 21 March 1942, which provided that
he should be directly responsible to Göring,
as Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan.
As
Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions and
General Plenipotentiary for Armaments under the
Four Year Plan, Speer had extensive authority
over production. His original authority was over
construction and production of arms for the OKW.
This was progressively expanded to include naval
armaments, civilian production and finally, on
1 August 1944, air armament. As the dominant
member of the Central Planning Board, which had
supreme authority for the scheduling of German
production and the allocation and development of
raw materials, Speer took the position that the
Board had authority to instruct Sauckel to
provide laborers for industries under its
control and succeeded in sustaining this
position over the objection of Sauckel. The
practice was developed under which Speer
transmitted to Sauckel an estimate of the total
number of workers needed. Sauckel obtained the
labor and allocated it to the various industries
in accordance with instructions supplied by
Speer.
Speer knew when he made his
demands on Sauckel that they would be supplied
by foreign laborers serving under compulsion. He
participated in conferences involving the
extension of the slave labor program for the
purpose of satisfying his demands. He was
present at a conference held during 10 and 12
August 1942 with Hitler and Sauckel, at which it
was agreed that Sauckel should bring laborers by
force from occupied territories where this was
necessary to satisfy the labor needs of the
industries under Speer's control. Speer also
attended a conference in Hitler's headquarters
on 4 January 1944, at which the decision was
made that Sauckel should obtain "at least 4
million new workers from occupied territories"
in order to satisfy the demands for labor made
by Speer, although Sauckel indicated that he
could do this only with help from Himmler.
Sauckel
continually informed Speer and his
representatives that foreign laborers were being
obtained by force. At a meeting of 1 March 1944
Speer's deputy questioned Sauckel very closely
about
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