Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-15/tgmwc-15-143.13
Last-Modified: 2000/03/27

Q. Do you say that you were advised by the Foreign Office,
that you were entitled, under International Law, to force
people to come from Russia to work in Germany?

A. The Foreign Office never told me anything to the
contrary, but the Foreign Office, I believe, was not
competent for questions concerning the East. I do not know.

Q. Whom did you ask for advice on the subject?

A. I found these regulations in existence before I took
office. These regulations had already been issued. The
Fuehrer expressly charged me to carry them out.

Q. Then, the answer is that you asked nobody? Is that right?

A. I did not ask anybody. I could not ask anybody because
all offices wanted these measures and accepted them. There
was never a discussion to the contrary.

                                                  [Page 225]

Q. And did you say that it was not the task of the police to
enforce recruiting for labour?

A. It was not the task of the police to carry out
recruitment.

Q. Well, why did you say at the conference on 4th January,
1944, which is reported in the Document 1292-PS, that you
would do everything in your power to furnish the requested
manpower in 1944, but whether it would succeed depended
primarily on what German enforcement agents would be made
available, and that your project could not be carried out
with domestic enforcement agents? Does that not mean that
the police would have to enforce your recruitment
programmes?

A. No, it means - the reproduction of these minutes is not
very exact - I explained to the Fuehrer that I probably
would not be able to carry out his programme because there
were very large partisan areas, and as long as these
partisan areas were not cleared up so that a regular
administration could be established there, no recruitment
could take place there either. First of all, therefore,
normal administrative conditions would have to be
established again. This could be done only by those organs
whose task it was.

Q. What did you mean by German enforcement agents?

A. By German enforcement agencies I meant the normal
administration as such, but in some territories that was too
weak.

Q. Well, then, why was it that the Reichsfuehrer SS
explained that the enforcement agents put at his disposal
were extremely few, if those enforcement agents were not
police agents?

A. I did not understand the question correctly in the first
place. The Reichsfuehrer, I believe, said, according to my
recollection, that for the pacification of these areas he
did not have troops enough because they were all at the
front. That did not refer to the recruitment and
administration, but to the re-establishment of normal
conditions in these areas.

Q. Well then, are you saying that it was not the task of the
police to help you in recruitment, but that it was the task
of the military?

A. That would greatly depend on the various regulations in
the territories. There were areas in which the military
commanders had the sole executive power, and there were
areas in which civilian authorities had the executive power
on the German side. There was a third kind of area, zones of
military operations with rear areas, in which the
commanders-in-chief of the army had the executive power.

Q. Well, then, either it was the police or it was the
military, or it was some other force which was going to
carry out your forcible recruiting, is that right?

A. Yes, but in these areas as well, the machinery of the
civilian administration was available, which was not
identical with the military or with the police but
represented within these Armed Forces organizations separate
branches of the administration under a special
administrative chief.

Q. Well, I do not understand then what you meant by saying
that your project could not be carried out with domestic
enforcement agents.

THE TRIBUNAL. (Mr. Biddle): That is all I have to ask. Then
the defendant can return to the dock.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Go on.

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, I am asking the Tribunal to
look at Document 3, which is a list of Sauckel's offices, to
see the position of the witness whom I am about to call.

Under Sauckel in the Reich Ministry of Labour there were
various departments, one of which, the department of the
witness Timm, was the so-called Europe Office, which had
three sub-departments, one for the West, one for the East,
and the third for the South and South-west.

With the permission of the Tribunal, I call the witness
Timm.

                                                  [Page 226]

MAX Timm, a witness, took the stand and testified as
follows:

BY THE PRESIDENT:

Will you state your full name.

A. Max Timm.

Q. Will you repeat this oath after me:

I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will
speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.

(The witness repeated the oath.)

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

DIRECT EXAMINATION

BY DR. SERVATIUS:

Q. Witness, you worked in the Reich Labour Ministry in the
department Labour Mobilization?

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. Were you already there when Sauckel took office?

A. Yes, and I had been in the labour administration several
years before that.

Q. What was the impression you had of your new superior when
Sauckel took over the office?

A. When Sauckel assumed office, I had the impression of a
very energetic, hard-working man, who was inclined to get
excited at times, even angry, no doubt, and who demanded
much of his co-workers, but also made great demands of
himself.

Q. How did he act in carrying out his measures?

A. When he assumed office there was a good deal of confusion
in the field of labour mobilization. Everybody had something
to do with labour mobilization.

Q. Was that the reason why that office was created?

A. The previous chiefs had not had enough force to push
their programme through against the opposition of various
offices, and Sauckel was the strong man, and particularly
the strong political figure, who should put things in order.

Q. How did Sauckel approach this new task? Did he adhere to
the administrative regulations or did he do it in his own
way, in - as one says - an unrestrained new manner?

A. He considered his task very much a political task, but he
always did his best to handle administrative matters in an
orderly way. He was generally known as a Gauleiter who was
friendly to the office workers. Also, in order to instruct
all the offices under his administration he held so-called
staff conferences at regular intervals, in which the most
important things were discussed.

Q. What was your position in that office?

A. In the department of Labour Mobilization I had first a
sub-department and later a department.

Q. What did that department deal with?

A. That department had to deal with all questions concerning
the assignment of labourers, particularly the classification
of skilled workers, training of workers, vocational advice
and employment agencies for apprentices.

Q. Was your office called the "Europe Office"?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you have an over-all view of what went on in the
office?

A. Not completely, due to the fact that Gauleiter Sauckel at
the same time remained Gauleiter in Thuringia, and that he
worked in Berlin in the Thuringia House, whereas the special
departments put at his disposal remained in the Ministry of
Labour.

Q. No, you did not understand my question. The question was
whether you, from your office, had an over-all view of what
went on in labour mobilization without regard to Sauckel's
activity.

                                                  [Page 227]

A. Yes, but not entirely because we were not informed about
all events, due to the separation of the offices.

Q. What were the staff conferences? Who took part in them
and of what kind of people were they composed?

A. For the most part the liaison men of the various branches
were called to staff conferences.

Q. What kind of people were they?

A. There were various kinds of people, civil servants, but
also economists and the like.

Q. But you should tell us from what offices these people
came, or were they people who were in Sauckel's office?

A. They were mostly people from other branches, as, for
instance, a representative of the Trustee for the Four-Year
Plan, the representatives of the Armament Ministry, of the
Ministry for Eastern Affairs and of other departments.

Q. Was that the so-called specialist labour staff?

A. That was the specialist labour staff.

Q. About how many people were in it?

A. In my estimate there were probably about fifteen to
twenty people.

Q. Besides that, Sauckel had a personal labour staff. What
kind of people were in that?

A. The personal labour staff consisted mostly of men whom
Sauckel had brought with him from Weimar, men of his own
immediate circle.

Q. Did he also have specialists? Who were these?

A. He had two personal specialists, County Counsellor Berg
and Ministerial Counsellor Stothfang.

Q. And what position did Dr. Didier hold?

A. Dr. Didier, as far as I remember, was the Press official.

Q. How were these staff conferences carried on? What was
discussed?

A. At those staff conferences all matters of labour
mobilization, that is, the entire German labour mobilization
programme, were discussed, and the sessions were generally
opened with a complete report by Herr Sauckel, in which he
explained his plans for the future.

Q. Were questions of recruitment in occupied territories
also discussed, and, what is most important here, the
difficulties which existed there, the methods of which we
have heard? What was reported about that?

A. Questions of recruitment were generally not discussed
there so much; rather questions concerning the Reich.

A. I asked you first about the Occupied Territories. Was,
for instance, that case discussed which has been submitted
here, the surrounding of a cinema and the seizing of people
there, and similar cases?

A. Yes, the case of the cinema is known to me.

Q. That was discussed?

A. Yes, that was discussed.

Q. And what was done about it?

A. Sauckel at once charged several gentlemen - I do not
remember whom - with making all possible investigations in
order to clarify the case.

Q. Were other cases reported?

A. There were no other cases which could be compared in
seriousness with that case which has just been described.

Q. Was there also discussion about the question of labour
conditions in Germany for foreign workers?

A. There were discussions in the staff conferences about
labour conditions.

Q. And was it not reported there that conditions existed in
individual camps or industries which were objectionable?

A. Cases of that kind were discussed. In general, they
concerned clothing, nutrition, and similar things.

                                                  [Page 228]

Q. How did these reports come to the staff conferences? Who
conveyed them? From what source did one find out about them?

A. Herr Sauckel always attached importance to having these
things examined on the spot and he maintained an extensive
system of inspection in order to get an accurate picture of
these questions, and these inspection reports were then
discussed in detail in the staff conferences.

THE PRESIDENT: I have an announcement to make.

Upon consideration of the motion of the prosecution, dated
21st May, and the memorandum of the defence counsel in reply
thereto, dated 29th May, the Tribunal makes the following
order:

The motion of the prosecution that arguments as to the guilt
or innocence of the individual defendants be heard at the
conclusion of the evidence relating to the individual
defendants and before the introduction of evidence relating
to the accused organizations, is granted. The Tribunal,
however, will not decide the question of the guilt or
innocence of any defendant until after all the evidence has
been heard; and, if any of the evidence relating to the
accused organizations is thought by counsel for any
defendant to support his defence, he may ask to be heard
further with regard thereto. The Tribunal, at the conclusion
of the evidence relating to the individual defendants, will
accordingly hear first the argument in their behalf and then
the summing up of the prosecution. The statements of each of
the defendants in his own behalf will be heard at the
conclusion of the trial before judgement.

The Tribunal is of opinion that the argument relating to the
guilt or innocence of the individual defendants will be more
helpful if heard immediately at the conclusion of the
evidence bearing thereon, and before the Tribunal has
departed from this and goes into the branch of the case
relating to the organizations. This arrangement,
furthermore, will give the Commissioners who are taking the
evidence as to the organizations further time in which to
complete their work. The defendants will not be prejudiced
in any way by this arrangement; for, apart from the fact
that their cases are essentially different from the cases of
the organizations, they will be allowed to call to the
attention of the Tribunal any circumstance developed on the
hearing of the organizations which is thought to be helpful
to their defence. The Tribunal finds nothing in the Charter
which forbids this procedure, and Article 9 leaves to the
discretion of the Tribunal the manner of hearing evidence in
behalf of the accused organizations.

Counsel for the individual defendants will not be permitted
to cross-examine the witnesses called by counsel on behalf
of the organizations or to take part in such proceedings
save when specially authorized to do so by the Tribunal.

That is all.

The Tribunal will sit tomorrow at ten o'clock in open
session until one o'clock.

(The Tribunal adjourned until 1st June, 1946, at 1000
hours.)

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