. NMT05-T0970
Volume V · Page 970
| to the Nazi ideology and wrote, "Sauckel says
that Eastern laborers cannot be furnished now, but that there should be no
difficulty after the war." The SS economic leaders carried on extended
negotiations over what they euphemistically called "prisoners’ wages."
Elaborate sliding wage scales were drafted and published. But in fact all this
had nothing to do with wages. Not one mark was paid to the wage earners. The
peons who wore the convicts’ garb and carried the heavy stones up to the
hill from the quarry at Mauthausen received only potato soup and a pallet of
straw for their work. "Wages" referred to the amount the SS and other
industries should pay per hour to the German Reich, the owner of the slaves. It
seems to have been taken for granted by the Nazi leaders and the SS that mass
deportation to enforced labor was a natural and legitimate concomitant of
successful invasion, and that the civilian population was merely a part of the
victor's spoils. Slavery may exist even without torture. Slaves may be well fed, well clothed, and comfortably housed, but they are still slaves if without lawful process they are deprived of their freedom by forceful restraint. We might eliminate all proof of ill-treatment, overlook the starvation, beatings, and other barbarous acts, but the admitted fact of slavery — compulsory uncompensated labor — would still remain. There is no such thing as benevolent slavery. Involuntary servitude, even if tempered by humane treatment, is still slavery. The extent of the deportation of Eastern civilian laborers and the ruthless manner in which they were seized and abducted has been related in detail in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal (pp. 243-247, Official Edition). To repeat the shocking story in the judgment in this case would serve no useful purpose. It is sufficient simply to state that it has been repeatedly and conclusively proved before this and other Tribunals that about 5,000,000 men, women, and children were violently seized and forcibly deported as slaves. As to the systematic extermination of the Jews, the International Military Tribunal has found (pp. 247-252, Official Edition) that, in pursuance of a fanatical public policy, it was deliberately decided to exterminate an entire race of human beings. There is no way to determine the total number of Jews who were killed, but in testimony before the International Military Tribunal it was stated that one military group operating in the East killed 90,000 people in one year, and another group killed 135,000 Jews and Communists in the first four months of the program. With these findings of fact by the International Military Tribunal this Court is in full accord and adopts them as found facts in the present case. |
