Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-06/tgmwc-06-54.13
Last-Modified: 1998/01/02

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                (c) Deportation into Slavery
                              
Outstanding in the long chain of vile crimes committed by
the German Fascist invaders is the forced deportation to
Germany of peaceful citizens -- men, women, and children --
for slave and forced labour.

Documentary evidence proves the fact the Hitlerite
Government and the German Supreme Command carried out the
deportation of Soviet citizens into German slavery by
deceit, threats and force. Soviet citizens were sold into
slavery by the Fascist invaders to concerns and private
individuals in Germany. These slaves were doomed to hunger,
brutal treatment, and, in the end, to an agonizing death. I
shall dwell later on the inhuman and barbarous directives,
edicts, and orders of the Hitlerite Government and the
Supreme Command, which were issued for the purpose of
effecting the deportation of Soviet persons to German
slavery, and for which the defendants now being prosecuted
are responsible, particularly Goering, Keitel, Rosenberg,
Sauckel, and others. Documents at the disposal of the Soviet
prosecution, captured by the Red Army from the staffs of the
smashed German Fascist armies, expose the defendants as
perpetrators of these crimes.

In a report read at a meeting of the German Labor Front in
11/1942, Rosenberg presented facts and figures confirming
the vast scale of the deportation of Soviet citizens to
slave and serf labour in Germany which were organised by
Sauckel.

On 7th November, 1941 a secret conference took place in
Berlin, at which Goering gave directives to his officials
concerning the utilisation of Soviet citizens for forced
labour.

These directives came to our knowledge from a document which
is Secret Circular No. 42006/41 of the Economic Staff of the
German Command in the East, dated 4th December, 1941. This
is how these directives run:

     "(1) Russians must be used chiefly for road and railway
     construction, cleaning-up operations, de-mining and
     airfield construction. German construction battalions
     must be disbanded (e.g., those of the Air Force).
     Skilled German workers must work on war production;
     they must not dig and break stones -- the Russian is
     there for that purpose.
     
     (2) It is essential to utilise the Russian primarily
     for the following types of work: mining, road
     construction, war production (tanks, guns, aircraft
     equipment), agriculture, building, in large workshops
     (shoe-making) and in special detachments for urgent
     unforeseen jobs.
     
     (3) In taking measures to keep order, the decisive
     considerations are speed and severity. Only the
     following types of punishment, without any intermediate
     punitive sanctions, will be imposed: deprivation of
     food, or death by sentence of court martial."
     
The Defendant Fritz Sauckel was appointed General
Plenipotentiary for the Employment of Labor by Hitler's
order of 21st March, 1942.

On 20th April, 1942, Sauckel sent to the Government and
military organs his "Program of the General Plenipotentiary
for the Employment of Labor" (top secret), which is no less
foul than the circular referred to above. This is what is
said in the "Programme":

     "It is extremely necessary fully to utilise the human
     reserves available in occupied Soviet territories. If
     attempts to attract the necessary labour voluntarily do
     not succeed, it will be necessary to resort immediately
     to recruitment or to the compulsory signing of
     individual contracts.
     
     Besides the prisoners of war we already have, and who
     are located for the most part in the occupied
     territories, there is need for the mobilisation
     
                                                  [Page 190]
                                                            
     of skilled male and female civilian workers over 15
     years of age from the Soviet provinces for utilisation
     in Germany.
     
     In order that the burden on the overworked German
     peasant woman should be noticeably lightened, the
     Fuehrer has ordered me to bring 400,000 to 500,000
     selected, healthy and strong girls to Germany from the
     Eastern territories."
     
Yet another secret document concerning the utilisation of
women workers from the Eastern territories, for domestic
labour in Germany, has been presented to the Tribunal by the
prosecution. This document is composed of excerpts from the
report on a meeting held by Sauckel on 3rd September, 1942.
I quote some of these excerpts:

     "(1) The Fuehrer has ordered that between 400,000 and
     500,000 Ukrainian women, aged between 15 and 35, be
     brought immediately for domestic labour.
     
     (2) The Fuehrer has expressed categorically his desire
     that a large number of these girls be Germanised.
     
     (3) It is the Fuehrer's will that, in 100 years' time,
     250,000,000 German-speaking people should live in
     Europe.
     
     (4) To consider these women workers from the Ukraine as
     workers from the East, and to put the sign 'Ost' (East)
     on them.
     
     (5) Gauleiter Sauckel added that, apart from the
     introduction of women workers for domestic labour, it
     was intended to utilise an additional million workers
     from the East.
     
     (6) References to the difficulty of bringing stocks of
     grain to Germany from other countries did not worry
     him, Sauckel, at all. He would find ways and means to
     utilise Ukrainian grain and cattle by mobilising all
     the Jews in Europe and making of them a living chain of
     conveyors to get all the necessary boxes to the
     Ukraine."

Foreseeing the inevitability of the failure of existing
measures to recruit Soviet citizens by force for labour in
Germany, Sauckel ordered, in a secret directive of 31st
March, 1942, No. FA 578028/729:

     "The recruitments for which you are responsible must be
     enforced by all available means, including the severe
     application of the principle of compulsory labour."

Sauckel and his agents used all possible methods of pressure
and terror to carry out the plans of recruitment. They
starved the Soviet citizens condemned to this recruitment,
lured them to the stations under pretense of distribution of
bread, surrounded them with soldiers, loaded them into
trains under the threat of shooting them, and took them to
Germany. But even these coercive methods did not help. The
recruitment was not successful. Then Sauckel and his agents
had recourse to a quota system. This is testified to by an
order of a German commandant, captured by the Red Army
forces when the occupied part of the Province of Leningrad
was liberated. It runs as follows:

     "To the mayors of village communities .... Since a very
     small number of people have so far presented themselves
     for labour in Germany, every mayor of a village
     community must, in accord with the elders of the
     villages, provide 15 or more persons from each village
     community for labour in Germany. Healthy people aged
     between 15 and 50 must be provided."
     
The chief of the political police and of the Security
Service in Kharkov stated in his report on the situation in
the town of Kharkov, covering the period from 24th July to
9th September, 1942:

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     "The recruitment of labour is worrying the competent
     agencies, since an extremely antagonistic attitude to
     transportation for work in Germany is to be observed
     among the population. At present the situation is such
     that everyone tries by every available means to escape
     recruitment (malingering, escape into the forests,
     bribery of officials, etc.). As for working in Germany
     voluntarily, this has been out of the question for a
     long time past."
     
That citizens deported to German slavery were subjected to
the most brutal treatment is shown by a vast quantity of
complaints and statements collected by the Extraordinary
State Commission of the Soviet Union for the Investigation
of Crimes of the German Fascist invaders.

Polish, Czechoslovak and Yugoslav citizens deported to
German slavery suffered the same fate.

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