I am now taking about Exhibit Number 61, and perhaps, witness, you will retain it for the moment.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. I shall now pass on to Gearing's testimony in NOKW 311. There it is stated that Hippke had been under you directly in his capacity as Inspector General and that Hippke had simultaneously been under the command of the General Staff. Is that correct in that form?
A. No, it is not correct in that form. During peace time Hippke was under my command. Sometime at the beginning of the war his subordination was altered. Later by error I had the view that he had immediately been transferred under the command of the General Staff, but that was not correct. This occurred only at the beginning of 1944 and applied only to his successor. During the war and at the time which is interesting in connection with these experiments, he was under the Air Chief, first of all, General Ruedl and later General Foerster.
Q. I should like you to find the last document in the book which you have before you. This is the second book of the Prosecution, and, please, will you look at NOKW 287, Exhibit Number 49. It is a letter dated 8 April 1943 which you are supposed to have written to Goering and Sauckel. It is on page 176, page 101 in the English document book.
A. I have found the letter.
Q. Will you define your attitude, please?
THE PRESIDENT: First, did he write the letter? Did you write the letter?
A. I consider that a possibility. I have no recollection of it, but I consider it a possibility that I signed it. According to the file reference, it comes from the Planning Office of the GL, and I have no reason to doubt that I signed it.
Q. Witness, you are saying, then, that you did not draft tho letter?
A. Well, naturally, this is a smaller department which, insofar as its work was concerned, had also to deal with the protection of industries.
Q. What are we concerned with is the case of this industry protection? Did that mean that that was in charge of the supervision of foreign workers and prisoners of war?
A. We called it "Plant protection", and it had nothing to do with it. These plants were naturally separated by a surrounding wall. You could get in through the entrance only. There had to be a guard at each entrance, and that guard used to examine passes of all those who entered, because certain secret articles were being manufactured in those plants, and you just couldn't walk in as you might into a public place or an ordinary house. That was one part of those people.
Then inside all these plants there wore other special departments needing protection, such places, for instance, as those which were carrying out new developments. They, in turn, wore once more separated from the rest of the plant. Everyone who was allowed to enter such a secret place had different passes, passes with a different color.
Now,for instance, if I visited a plant, then I was let through tho first gate very simply by virtue of the fact that one of the higher officials of the plant used to receive me, but if I wanted to enter the secret departments--and they were, of course, distributed over various parts of the plant--then I had to show special passes. I remember it in detail. It used to be a red pass. Only a limited number of them had been issued.
In certain plants there were even departments where not even I could enter, and that was my own industry. That was a special order which came from Hitler.
All these fences, or whatever they were,were guarded by sentries, just as we have a sergeant standing at the door here to examine the passes of the Americans,too, when they want to enter here.
These same people were also responsible for supplying the fire fighting squad of the plant, and that fire fighting squad, according to the number of air bombing attacks, was becoming more important and was being employed more frequently and had to be increased in numbers. likewise, every plant had air raid shelters, and those air raid shelters had to be taken care of. There was technical equipment in them, special ventilation equipment, heating equipment, and such like, and that question too, was taken care of by this plant protection squad. Those were the only purposes which they served.
Let me add that prisoners of war, if they were working in a plant, used to bring an officer from their camp and some arms, and according to instructions, an armed officer would have to be present when, theoretically speaking, only one prisoner of war was sent there to work. Only the army was concerned with that type of supervision. Foreign workers who were civilians were not guarded at all.
Q. Witness, you will remember that a French witness testified here and said that during transports and in various camps he had been guarded. He did admit later on that he wasn't.
A. The way I understood his testimony was that he was guarded during his transport and in the first camps he was in, which were under Sauckel's jurisdiction. That is before he was sent into plants.
At any rate, I do not know that a single civilian worker was guarded at any time, nor have I ever during a single visit to a plant seen anything like that.
Q. When you were traveling through Berlin, did you observe that foreign workers were freely running about in the streets? Did not Eastern workers at one point wear special badges on their clothes? I mean the Ukrainians, the White Russians, and so on.
A. It is true that there were badges, colored badges, the colors of their national flag, I think it was. I think it said "East" on some of then at the beginning. I knew that they were going about freely. I saw it, and I know from my family that they wore sitting next to then in the pictures. I myself never wont to a cinema during the war, and, therefore, I can not give you an impression of my own.
Q. Witness, such guarding of plants where military arms were being produced, according to reports from your agents --was not that carried out in hostile foreign countries?
A. Yes, and as far as we were concerned, that eas the situation in peace time. I know such an institution from the British aircraft industry, and I do not believe that it was over handled differently in the States either. That is a. perfectly normal procedure -- that every plant has such protection as I have explained to you. It had to be. It would have boon a frightful omission on the part of some authority if such protection had not been applied, but that docs not apply only to military plants. It applies to every other typo. I know for instance, that a plant like the Siemens Works, which was manufacturing only civilian articles -- and there were lots of plants there -- was similarly surrounded by plant protection, as was any military plant.
Q Witness, I shall now review Exhibit No. 61. It is an authorization from Goering. It is a photostat copy.
A It is the same thing as this other one. You can not tell what, but actually I know of the affair as such. In this is this story.
Q Witness, will you let me have the envelope back again, will you please?
A Certainly, I don't want to keep it. Yesterday I told this Tribunal that on the 20 June 1941 I received the order in Goering's office that I should act as Udet's adviser to something about the supplying of the air armament production. During subsequent days by means of discussions with Udet, I gained a picture of the situation, and how the production situation was under Udet, which came from Udet's description. Udet was telling me of his objection, and he said that he was not getting enough material, and we considered the number of items in detail, that copper was placed in priority in the materials, and consequently he was complaining that he was not able to get a hold of the necessary labor for his factories. Everything, he said, has always been promised and nothing had been kept. Apart from that he said his armament had always been treated as in the last place, and that Hitler with the same principle had always been acting in favor of the Army and the Navy; or, that no one was taking care of the armament for the airforce; that Goering had not been informed as to individual problems, and, that, therefore, when he would bring that subject up with Hitler, he was and always had been told to keep quiet. Minister Todt was still alive at the time, and had much greater influence upon Hitler than Goering, and consequently any support was going through the Army and Navy channels, whereas, he to the best of his ability could not achieve what w as being asked from him. He went on to tell me he wanted to have some sort of authority, or some sort of authorization which would open their door. Consequently we met on 23 June 1941, when we were with Goering, and reported that what Udet had told us. In the end I claimed to Goering that either Udet or I, whoever he wanted, would have to have an authorization by means of which we could assert ourselves against the re-armament of the Army. Goering had bluntly stated, "Put such a paper before me and I will sign it for you."
I got ahold of a legal expert of good standing and asked him to produce an authorization, and I told him in that connection - in that authorization we must have so much that we do that I can arrest the Reichsmarshal himself any time I want to. He laughed at me but he got such a thing for me, and a few hours later it came, and then I put it before Goering. Goering did not read it but he signed it, and I went on to tell him the fact that I would have to be decent enough to point out to him that with that authorization I could not only arrest him but Hitler too, any time I felt like it. He looked at me, and now he read it, and that was the end of that authorization. This had been precisely on 23 June, when he allowed it, and I think it was the next day that he signed it when I put it before him. This authorization had never been, nor was ever meant seriously, because I myself would have probably been arrested if applied, if any one of the things had been tried by me by means of this authorization. This authorization went far beyond what Goering had in the way of power.
Q. Witness--
THE PRESIDENT: Just a minute. When the witness testified about the authorization, the date is not given, or are we to speculate it would have been 1944?
DR. BERGOLD: No.
THE WITNESS: 1941, Mr. President.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes.
THE WITNESS: But it was not dated, you see, because it did not come into force. I don't know where this particular edition of this authorization might be coming from because everything was destroyed at the time. It is only possible that the legal man who wrote it took a copy. Never at any time did this authorization become valid, and, therefore, it was never employed, and I believe the legal expert will understand it better when I say that it would have been an impossibility that any man in Germany could have been given such an authorization.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, what you want to say is that the authorization had been some "gag" similar to the one which the lieutenants used to play on their captains when they had them sign a death sentence against themselves?
A. Yes, and I know of such a case. What is more, I can give you another example here of a Battalion commander was dismissed one tine and his paymaster was put in a prison for six months. The paymaster had made a bet to the effect that his commanding officer would sign everything for him without reading it. It was a very high bet on it, and this paymaster did win it. It said in the letter "Dear Sir: That I have not read this letter, that if I had read it I would have not have understood it. Signed, Major - " of the Battalion commander. It really had happened, Your Honor.
I would like to add that I was going to write Goering in this connection because he had new to give my authorization. He said, "Now you got my authorization, now you can do everything you want," and we would not have had a moment's peace, either, by showing him that authorization, which could not have had a chance of success, as it could not have been issued by him at all since he could not give such an authorization which went far beyond his own powers. That is the reason why it was destroyed at once. But Goering had his different instructions to the effect that an authorization from him would not be questioned at all for purposes of air re-armament, something which he had been stating before. His strength of poorer at that time was not so strong, although he was at the time acting on his glory, ad arbitrium, that he could stand up against the armament program, or the other branches of the armed forces. In 1944 it had been stated by the prosecution, I should like to remind them that on 20 June 1944 I had been excluded from all armament questions, and that it could hardly be assumed that during those last twenty days one might be given any such an authorization as that.
Q We shall cone to the differences which you had with Goering, which lead to your breach with him, we will come to this later. Witness, I shall have to ask you now in relation to Document No. 1297-PS, Exhibit No. 63, a letter from Sauckel to Lammers, dated March 9th, telling about the recruitment of labor. Do you mind if I have your book. It is page 65 of the Document Book 2-B in English. It is merely a report dealing with labor, which ho applied between 3rd of January and March 1944, totaling three hundred thousand. Did that letter come to your knowledge?
A No. What that is connected with is the Hitler conference on 14 January 1944 and the Central Planning Board meeting after the middle of February up to the 3rd of March, but I did not get knowledge of that letter.
Q Then we have a report from Sauckel, dated 7 July 1944, Exhibit No. 65, Document No. 208-PS. That is again dealing with the labor supply description. Did it come to your knowledge?
A No, I had resigned from that work at the time. I was not there.
Q You were not there and do not know anything about it?
A No.
Q You had nothing to do with the labor question?
A No, I did not have anything to do with the labor question. Even before when I was there, that is, I knew what they were speaking of, I still say no.
Q Then the same applies to Document No. 3819-PS, Exhibit No. 86, and Document No. FA-24, Exhibit No. 87, the one dated 11 July 1944, and other dated 26 July 1944; one is a record by Lammers recording the discussion with Hitler, and the other one from Herr Kluge telling of the recruitment of labor there, but was, I think, after the time of your resignation?
A Yes, both are unknown to me.
Q Witness, I will now enter into the question of what did the Central Planning Board have to do with the labor questions at all?
A. The Central Planning Board had considerable toughness connected with the question of getting hold of raw materials, which was in turn to be distributed by them, and obtaining of raw materials. According to the original Ministry of Economy it went to Speer in the Armament Ministry. On such raw materials depended the armaments of the armament program.
The pacemaker among all these raw materials for the rearmament program was steel, but the pacemaker in turn for steel was coal or coke production. That was the biggest bottleneck, since, unfortunately, during the first years cf the war the youngest and strongest aged groups of miners had been called up for military service. Hitler had given us the order to develop a steel production program amounting to 3.2 million tons per month. This was to be done by Speer, and Speer had succeeded to reach the figure of 2.6 million tons, but that was the maximum. Hitler's armament program, however, had been based on the figure of 3.2 millions. Hitler had demanded these armament programs and the experts had calculated the amount of steel they needed for those programs.
We, in the Central Planning Board discussed the possibilities of getting up to 3.2 million tons of steel, and Speer being the man for that part of the production, ordered the men from the steel manufacturers' union to come and see him in a conference in which all steel problems, through his administration of the industry, were being dealt with. Speer was in agreement with me, this is an aside which I must add, to the effect it was a mistake to direct industry through the state, but that industry ought to govern itself through committees of their own, coming from their own ranks, and then, cf course, these main committees and rings which we have talked about must be understood.
These gentlemen from the Reich's Union, Iron stated that the possibilities existed that 3.2 million tons cf steel could be manufactured, subject to certain conditions. In that connection the main prerequisite was a very much larger allocation of coke. Apart from that they wanted certain additional matters for their own production, some labor too.
I remember the question of smelters which was submitted at the time. I am not an expert, but at that time I did gather that we were concerned with specialists with very considerable ability and knowledge, since otherwise a few handsful of men wouldn't have 1871 a been brought into our conversation.
At any rate, the main problem was coal.
Speer, anyhow, during one of our conferences, sent for the men representing the coal industry. Such a Reich Union, Coal, had existed for some considerable time. These people stated that there was enough coal in the mines but that human manpower was lacking to bring it up. Speer now asked them to tell him in writing in his capacity as armament minister as to what was needed. Now, these men apparently reported the figures regarding workers they had, and it was during those conferences with the coal representatives, always, of course, with reference to the question of steel. It was also stated that all efforts on the part of the Armament Ministry would have to fall down because of the labor shortage.
Speer, as he told me, mentioned this to Hitler dozens of times. It was here for the first time that various controversies arose between Speer and Sauckel.
DR. BERGOLD: Witness, I think it is going to take sometime in what you have to say. Perhaps at the point where you turned to Sauckel we can have the recess of the Tribunal.
THE MARSHALL: This Tribunal is in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal Number 2 is again in session.
Q. Witness, will you now continue to explain to the Tribunal what the Central Planning Board had to do with the labor question? You just stopped at Sauckel.
A. The first difficulties arose with Speer as armament minister and Sauckel. Speer said, "I'm short of workers." Sauckel said, "I have fulfilled all your demands", and as proof he submitted his figures. Between the figures which Speer had and those which Sauckel had no comparison was ever possible. They were based on different suppositions. Speer was unable to obtain the basis for the figures which were at Sauckel's disposal. In their conflict Hitler took the side of Sauckel. He wished to exercise pressure on Speer, thereby to increase armament. Speer was unable to do so because he did not have the workers who ha.d to produce coal.
This struggle went on through the years. At first Speer still hoped that Sauckel would still bring the workers into his factories until in the summer of 1943 he gave up this hope. In the Central Planning Board this, of course, was discussed, and it was also discussed how much steel we could obtain for the next three months and haw we could, distribute it. The contrast between the figures Hitler wishes to have 3.2 million tons of steely we can only distribute 2.6 millions because Speer is quite unable to produce more. The consequence was.again that Hitler reproached Speer for not producing more steel although Sauckel had supplied the workers. The Central Planning Board was not responsible for the quantity at his disposal. Speer asked me to give him my support in this question. I did so quite frequently in the meetings and also when I reported to Goering because we wished to convince Goering that we did not have the workers so that Goering would intervene with Hitler in that sense.
But I was unable to obtain Goering's support. Goering took Hitler's side, and he said, "The workers are there." All we could do now was i.e. Speer above all and we ourselves secondly in order to help him to attack Sauckel. Sauckel escaped all meetings for a long time. Sometimes he sent a representative, and in some cases he himself appeared.
but he and his representative pursued the some policy by giving us a lot of figures and alleging "we had fulfilled everything". Our doubts in these figures increased. Hitler became more and more impatient and the reproaches for Speer towards the end of 1943 became insufferable. Whereas Hitler supported Speer until roughly the middle of 1943 and regarded him as one of the first collaborators, the relations became much more cool later on, and I explained that mainly through this conflict I myself had the same annoyance both with Goering and with Hitler, who maintained vis a vis of myself; that I had been, given all of the workers.
Our mood wasn't very nice about this, obviously because although we had no personal ambition we did not wish to be blamed for something that we were not responsible for, bad armament, and for the reasons of bad armament the war had been lost. That reproach, of course, we could foresee, and it was obvious that we fought against it with every means within our disposal. We felt ourselves to be quite innocent in this field, but in order to prove our innocence, we were without one link in the chain. That was to show beyond doubt that Sauckel's figures were untrue. They were not wrong by accident; they were deliberately forged in cur opinion because Sauckel wished to impress Hitler with his own efficiency as he was able to fulfill all the demands of Hitler in the sphere of labor.
Sauckel pursued that policy up to 4 January 1944. Only when there was a conference with Hitler on 4 January 1944, of which I was a participant, did. he there say for the first time to Hitler, "Up to now I always fulfilled all your demands, my Fuehrer. Whether that will still be possible with the new demands of four million workers I can no longer guarantee."
Q. Witness, we will come later to this conference. Now, I ask you to go back and to answer the question. Did the Central Planning Board have authority to request labor and. to distribute it?
A. A clear "no" to both questions. That request was only debated in the interest of Speer in the Central Planning Board because Speer needed help because he knew I would always give him my support. I had similar worries myself and because it was only possible even for Speer who, of course, had frequent discussions with Sauckel otherwise but Sauckel stated before this committee, that is, the Central Planning Board, in order to aid the iron association, and the coal association at times -- had them give us information. Speer could, as well as I could myself, answer to all of these sections but whether there was sufficient labor for coal for instance, the Reich Association Coal could tell us on the basis of their evidence down to the last man and that is how in these so-called -- those people of the Reich Association Coal or Iron.
Q. Could you give us a few names?
A. Herr Pleiger and Herr Reichling. The first coal and the second for iron and their staff. That's how these people spoke. These gentlemen were in a position after the meeting to inform Speer what Sauckel had misfigured.
Q. Witness, during these conferences, however, mention was made of agriculture and labor and we need so many workers for the mining industry and will you use prisoners-of-war for this job. This gives us the impression of the Central Planning Board after all had some decision -- made some decision with regard to labor especially in the direction of how many workers were to be distributed into the basic sectors. That is, agriculture, coal and mining industries.
A. By that I had to say that naturally it was very difficult for one man who had several tasks to look after to confine himself to one sphere only at all times if all his spheres of tasks are involved in one question and that is how Speer very frequently during the meetings of the Central Planning Board in his capacity as essential planner, he transformed himself into the armament Ministry or the Four-Year Plan and for Armament industry and then he transferred himself back into the Central Planner. Hardly at all and I don't think it is said anywhere even I put the armament demands of the Luftwaffe only in order to better understand matters I gave several impressions from my experience on those conferences for everybody's benefit.
The demands and the wishes which we had were only brought forward to support Speer and they are exclusively concerned with increasing steel production. The majority of the people requested were concerned with coal, whereas certain individuals especially were concerned with iron. It is, of course, obvious that I in my position and with the general survey which we had I insisted in a strong manner to increase the production. I had to concern myself with that; that Germany would emerge from this war as well as possible and my philosophy there was to a large extent armament. As a Field Marshal I could not confine myself to declare; I am not interested how raw materials are being obtained; I am only interested how they are being distributed. I did not regard myself as a waiter who tells the guest; "I am sorry. This is not my table." After all, a little more could be expected from me. The question that agriculture came into this had several reasons. Just before the agriculture was mentioned at all at the conference the extremely efficient Mr. Backe, who well knew his business, to find out together with him whether the workers who were to work in Germany could be looked after from the point of view of food because it would have been irresponsible to recruit workers who afterwards could not be fed properly in Germany. Secondly, agriculture had to surrender a great many people to the army. Perhaps the highest percentage of all after perhaps the forest economy. Conditions in agriculture from the point of view, of food, are always better in towns than in the cities. That applied also to German workers. Of course, the result was that we were very keen for agriculture to feed as many workers of the industry as possible. The workers did not have the opportunity to make up for lack of food from former times, even by high rations, of course taking into consideration that the food is always better than in the town, this applies also definately to the German worker in the industry and I know that Russian prisoners-of-war when they arrived in Germany, all this happened in 1941 - the summer of 1941 - went through a very bad period of eating. These men had persisted in their bunkers up to the last moment. They did not surrender one moment before it was no longer possible to fight back. These bunkers in cut-off areas arc very often without food for very long periods and once they are taken prisoners difficulties to supply them with sufficient food arose.
As prisoners-of-war they are taken in such quantities and the army had not been prepared for that. I myself went through the same thing; when the big numbers of German prisoners-of-war arrived in 1945 it was not possible for about ten days to give us any food at all and I know that wasn't due to bad-will but we at that time had not been tried by the bunkers. Therefore, these ton days of privation didn't finish us off but the Russians arrived in a starved condition out of the bunker battles and they needed a period of recovery so to speak, and that would only have been possible by employing them in agriculture. For that reason we contacted Backe in order to see whether we couldn't have Germans in exchange. Unfortunately, that wasn't arrived at but agriculture every now and then helped out a little bit especially in the winter of 1943 and 1944 because during the winter agriculture is not so much dependent upon people at all. Although the agriculture Ad not Ash to part with the people. They wished to feed their own people during the winter in order to have them back in the Spring. On those occasions Backe, at our request, would give us a general report on the European nutrition system. It was very interesting to all of us because that was always one of the more important points. If production had broken down that alone would have lead to the conclusion of the war as it did in 1918. That was the only reason why Backe turned up at the Central Planning Board meeting but Backe as far as those visits were concerned joined, so to speak, at his own. wishes, as he had not obtained enough steel. Too much bad been taken away from him for the armament program. If I recalled right he needed per month 40,000 tons of steel for his agriculture machines as a minimum stipulation. In all of the time ho had. never complained his agriculture didn't receive enough artificial fertilizer. The question of sufficient fertilizing on German soil -you elevate 30% more or less under the same conditions, Hitler's orders were to the effect to take the necessary material for fertilizer into the manufacture of 1877 explosives and as the demand for explosives went up the weight of fertilizer in agriculture become smaller and smaller and Backe, who held his own responsibilities strongly, that made him feel very dependent and so he tried to got us to support him as well as we could in the fertilizing problem.
As we ourselves were all armament people as the second profession, so to speak, such as myself, we asked State Secretary Koerner to look after the agricultural concerns when Backe wasn't there himself, which was usually the case. That, perhaps, was the only function which Koerner fulfilled, that he always reminded us, "don't forget agriculture", for Koerner was not concerned with any questions of armament.
I understand that through these conferences we did not always remain on the strict basis of the Central Planning Board, but everybody who was there with us, who knew about these things, could quite follow the proceedings. Nobody ever had any doubts as to what the Central Planning Board had to do and what it didn't have to do. Everybody understood also that these worries of Speer's, which we shared, all of us, had to be balanced off against each other somehow.
Q Witness, perhaps in this connection we could, in order to clarify the situation, explain what the GL -- that is, the Air Ordnance master General -- had to do with the question of labor, in order to get a picture of your special sector and to show how the Central Planning Board was connected with it. How did you, coming from the GL, have the task to work on labor questions? Did you make requests, or did you only supervise the distribution of labor?
A The GL, already in peace-time, was in charge of statistics as to the number of workers within the aircraft industry or aviation industry. We needed that for several purposes, namely, in peace-time, to supervise balance sheets and accounts as to our demands to the industries. It was not always possible to quote fixed prices for new aircraft. For that reason, our contracts with industrial works, in all those cases where the prices were not quite fixed, were such as to make the industry submit all their costs and expenses to us. We then would tell the industry that we would guarantee, as far as the industry was concerned, profits and expenses.
In these accounts the wages were a very important point. In order to supervise that, there were trustee companies who were in charge of these things. We had to quote the figure of workers to those offices, because we were responsible for the tax money with which we paid for our armaments; and we had to exercise all possible controls, even when we had no suspicions that our industry would give us wrong figures.
However, I think that is probably the same in all countries.
This department looked after, so to speak, statistical figures in peace-time, and that was a part of the armament industry which went far beyond the expenses incurred by the aviation industry. In that time there was no Minister of Armaments; there was no Central Office in Charge of Armament. Therefore, the OKW had all factories on one list which were producing or would produce armament material at some time. That list consisted, in peace-time, of roughly just over five million workers. The OKW did not have any department for armament, apart from a higher staff; the OKW distributed these workers to the three branches of the Wehrmacht. I believe the Army got about two million and a half; the Navy about half a million or three-quarters of a million; and the Luftwaffe received two million. Many of the factories were involved in this which had never had anything to do with the Luftwaffe.
Now, in a very stupid manner, this figure was carried on all the time and was revised month after month. As this had been ordered by the OKW and I was not very interested in the matter, I did not change this, but I always found it interesting to get the figure once a month to see whether it had become bigger or not. Throughout the period in which I was in GL, from peace-time onwards, the figures always kept to the two million limit and, if anything, it became less, or more. That was statistical fluctuation which one could supervise quite easily.
I may add here, perhaps, that the whole of the aviation industry, which was part of our command--to whom we gave commercial orders and with whom we made commercial contracts--the whole of that industry consisted at the most of five hundred thousand people, the actual figure in which we were interested. That figure could only be arrived at by special measures I took, and if I wanted to revise it from time to time I had to get going at a special statistical machine, although that was the figure in which I was interested.
We from the Luftwaffe gave the industries which worked for us contracts. We asked them, to give an example, whether they could, in their work, produce 200 aircraft of the type fighter 109 for a month. The industry answered back, perhaps, "No, not at the moment. The can, however, produce 150, but if we can build another factory which can be done in six months, then in a year from now we can easily produce 200." Then the price was discussed. When agreement had been reached there, the industry would say,"But of course we depend on the material, whether we can get it or not; and secondly, whether we can also get another 500 workers", to continue with my example, and so forth. "Then, as soon as the new construction is finished, we shall need another 2,000 new workers."
We told them that as far as the material was concerned we would make allocations in accordance with the requirements, however, we had found that for one aircraft they had asked for 1.5 tons of aluminum, but from our comparative figures we thought that that could be done with 1.1 tons. In other words, for 150 aircraft they would only be given 165 tons of aluminum and not 225, as they had asked for. The industry would object and they told us that. We said not one more word but, "Please go to the factory of so and so and just see how these people are working, and you will then be able to do it yourselves", and that was that.
As far as the workers were concerned, we told then that they sould go and see the labor offices about their demands and also the Inspectorate for Armaments. And we ourselves-as far as we had their figures and those of other factories-at the end of the month we would go to Speer's armament office, where the figures from factores were derived altogether. Once we had checked up their figures before-hand, there was no sense in asking for more than was really necessary. And it was eq ually wrong if up to now I had asked for 100 workers because I needed then but I only obtained 20, that next time when I needed 100 I would ask to 500 in order to say that I only get my workers in the proportion of one to five.