The other possibility of committing the acts at issue lies herein that the inhuman act serves the carrying out of a war crime or is connected with it.
Of the examples given by the Charter for violation of the rules of war, the following are, above all others,to be quoted in connection with deployment of labour: "Murder, illtreatments and deportation... committed on the civilian population." As shown by this enumeration, these war crimes which have been mentioned are not, how serious they may be, crimes against humanity by themselves.
Something aggravating which is necessary to give the net the character of inhumanity must be added.
As shown by the example of "extermination" and "enslavement" as an inhuman act, the acts in question must be objectively of a particular scale or particularly cruel. Subjectively however, an inhuman disposition of the culprit and the knowledte of the inhumanity of the act, i.e. the knowledge of the scale of the measure of the cruelty of its execution, must be added. How far those presuppositions apply to the defendant Sauckel must be investigated later on. A "regulated labor conscription", geordneter Arbeitseinsatz", allowed by international law never can be a crime against humanity in itself, but its execution can be carried out in such a way that it involves killings and ill-treatment, which for their part, may be war crimes.
Such an ill-treatment could be based on the regulation issued by the highest authority involved, which herewith takes responsibility. It can, however, be committed by subordinate offices acting on their own authority without knowledge or intention of the superior authorities. In this case, the head of the office which acts autonomously bears the responsibility. Finally, there may be the question of a purely individual act committed against the regulations in force. For such an act the acting individual is solely responsible.
It follows that the defendant Sauckel is responsible, to begin with, for such general orders and instructions only which he has given, but not, on the contrary, for autonomous acts of supreme authorities in the occupied territories or of supreme Reich authorities as Chief of SS and Police, which were not under his jurisdiction.
The orders and directions of the defendant Sauckel have been submitted and they must prove whether the deployment of labor ordered by him was in fact a regulated one or was tantamount to an "ill-treatment" of the population.
The deployment of labor took place, apart from the call for volunteers, of the basis of a service duty "Dienstverpflichtung" which, as a matter of principle, was legally ordered, according to Hitler's orders, by the territorial commanders. The authority to issue such laws transcended the powers of the defendant Sauckel, nor could he ask for the issue of any such laws.
But he has approved of them and has made them the basis of his work.
The contents of those laws were consistent with the fundamental ideas of the German laws concerning compulsory labor service. Those laws were enforced by coercion.
The use of coercive measures is not necessary as long as the legal authority of the occupying power is acknowledged by the population; they become necessary only when this authority gets lost.
In this sense, the defendant Sauckel has repeatedly asked for the maintenance of the so-called Executive by enterprises for the sweeping of territories held by partisans and for the over-powering of the resistance movement.
No legal objections can be raised against the fact for this purpose he demanded the use of the therto appropriated state funds. He is wrongly incriminated only by the words "SS and Police" which have been connected by the Prosecution with the conception of crime. Such an incrimination would only be justified if the criminal character of the police had been proven and if the defendant Sauckel at that time had had cognisance of the criminal activity then taking place.
That force may be used in case of resistance against orders of the occupation force, cannot be disputed. The question is where are the limits of force and whether or not there are legal and illegal, admissible and inadmissible measures of force.
If fundamental laws are not valid when a state of siege is declared within a state, then this thought is all the mere applicable to an occupying power during a state of war. Anyone who refuses to carry out the orders of the occupation-power, knowingly participates in the fight to which he is not entitled and he has to accept the consequences. Obedience is duty towards the occupying power and where patriotism and obedience are conflicting, the law decides against patriotism. The punishments which are dealt out are as such not subject to any limitations and the threats of punishment by an occupation power are for the effect of intimidation usually out of all proportion in severity.
The question is whether there exists a limit from the humane stand point which prohibits going unnecessarily beyond the purpose of the punishment and which, as beyond measure, appears to be unnecessary.
Orders like the burning of houses which had been issued by subordinate offices independently in the carrying out of utilisation of labor, must be examined from this point of view.
This question is not easy to answer, if one considers the special circumstances and realizes that the thing involved here is an open battle between the occupying power and the population, with official support from the enemy. In case of uprisings and organized general resistance one can no' reject the idea of the applicability of the military laws of the combattroops. Necessity alone can be the decisive factor in this case. International law has out only one limit to coercive measures in forbidding, in Article 50 of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare, punishment of an entire population for the deeds of individuals for which the population could not be hold responsible. Presupposition hereby is, that co-responsibility has been established through actual events and has not been construed through orders.
Wherein collective punishment may consist has not been stated. As limit must be considered the aforementioned: They must be the bounds of humanity, but in war this is a vague conception; necessity and suitableness of the means to the end must always have the preference.
Next to the way of recruiting labor the conditions of work can represent an ill treatment which can be looked upon as a war-crime. On principle there can be no question of ill treatment, in case the foreign workers are treated generally the same way as the workers of the homecountry. A different treatment is only permissible in case special circumstances justify it. Whereas this putting on the same basis was in general carried out, the so called eastern workers were put on worse conditions.
The most striking item was here the limitation of freedom. If this were arbitrary, it would be sufficient reason for declaring it an ill-treatment. But the reasons for this limitation of freedom were not arbitrary but were the needs of security of the state.
During wartime the stay of an enemy alien in the state-area always represents a danger and it is just for that reason that at first the bringing in of foreign workers had been renounced.
It was but when the needs demanded the deployment of foreign workers, that the need of security had to be satisfied simultaneously. What measures are to be tal depends upon the danger, which is different according to the attitude of the alien. Whereas the measures of policing were imperceptible with regard to t French, the eastern workers were, in the beginning, kept locked in camps.
The natural interest of the state goes in the direction of attaining security by winning the aliens over inwardly because their collaboration is desired. By depriving them of their freedom this is not to be achieved. As long as the attitude of the alien can not be clearly recognized, especial if he be -- as the citizen of the Soviet-Union is-schooled propagandistical more severe control may be necessary. But it should not develop into a permanent captivity, and should at most correspond to a sort of quarantine. To deprive people without guilt of their liberty for an extended period is not admissible, because it would correspond to a forbidden collective punish ment. The mere assumption of danger is not sufficient for the decreasing of such limitations; there must be, besides, acts which show that these foreign workers appear dangerous also under normal working conditions. The keeping in custody of eastern workers behind barbed wire and without permission to out for walks as ordered by Himmler, is to be regarded as an ill-treatment, if it is permanent.
The defendant Sauckel, guided by the feeling, that in this matter the limits of the permissible had been overstepped, immediately took steps again this and, in a tough fight against Himmler, demanded and obtained the withdrawal of barbed wires and the prohibition to go out for walks, to be seen from the following decrees, that is, Document Sauckel 10, Exhibit USA-206.
Where, in spite of the set regulations, the old methods were applied by the police, Sauckel always intervened when he heard of such occurences. Th has been confirmed repeatedly by witnesses, Exhibit Sauckel 10, the statement by the witness Goetz.
Another controversial point nets the earmarking by the badge "OST" which was maintained until the year 1944 and was then replaced by a country insigni This earmarking of the Eastern workers who could move freely among the popula tion was necessary for police security measures. This cannot be considered ill treatment. The rejection of this sign by the Eastern workers was based the first place on the defamation of this badge by propaganda, and the defend ant Sauckel always tried to change this insignia and to replace it by a nationality insignia as the other workers were it voluntarily. He finally prevailed here also against Himmler, successfully, Document RF-819, page 12.
There must on principle also be equality between own and foreign worker with regard to the rules concerning maintenance of discipline.
With all belligerent states the war has raised the sane problem as how deal with such workers who do not live up to their duty of work; that means slackers, shirkers and saboteurs. The practice of discharge, common in peac time, is ineffective during war; but deserters from work cannot be tolerated today by any belligerent. In cases amounting to sabotage, police and penal measures had therefore to be taken, the most important of which was the short transfer to a labor camps in special extreme cases imprisonment in a concentration camp was inflicted.
The document 1063-PS/RF-345 shows the similarity in the execution of the regulations towards Germans and Foreigners.
Such police measures which are caused by the disloyal conduct of the worker are justified measures. The Wartburg document RF-810 show in the rep of the reporting official Dr. Sturm that such measures were carried out in a very moderate manner, and that only 0.1 to 0.2 per thousand were thus punish Hence it follows that issuing of regulations concerning the maintenance of discipline is in itself not yet an "ill treatment" which could be the has for a crime against humanity.
Such an ill treatment however can consist of excesses which occured out side the competence of the defendant Sauckel. He can only be held responsible for those if the subjective facts of the case are fulfilled, and if he knew of such excesses and approved of them although he could have prevented them.
In summing up one can say that the "regulated utilization of labor" is permissible in international law and that restrictions imposed on workers within the limits of necessities must be permitted for reasons of state security.
On the other hand, excesses in carrying out the regulations have to be regarded as ill treatment and could mean crimes against humanity. For those he is responsible who has instigated them or who, within the sphere of his competence, did not prevent them.
Should the extensive scale of the charges brought against defen-
dant Sauckel proceed from the above stated legal considerations, it is necessary first of all to single out those fields in which the evidence reveals him to be absolutely clear of any responsibility.
In the first place, it is not proved that defendant Sauckel can be connected with the biological extermination of the population. His whole interest in fact has proved to have been just the opposite, since his purpose was to obtain people as laborers. With the migration measures and methods used in this respect, he had nothing to do.
Work in concentration camps was just as far removed from defendant Sauckel's responsibility. Himmler's Posen speech in October 1943 (Document 1919 PS, page 21) reveals that the SS had erected gigantic armament plants of their own. We know that Himmler covered his extensive labor requirements by despotic, arbitrary arrest or persons in occupied territories. In Germany itself, he had workers engaged in regular employment arrested on insignificant pretexts and brought into concentration camps fraudulently vis-a-vis the regular labor offices. This is clearly shown in Document 1063 PS, that is a letter dated 17 December 1942 as well as a letter dated 25 June 1943, in which alone a requirement of 35,000 prisoners is signified. Moreover, any correspondence exchanged with reference to concentration camp labor never passes through Sauckel's services. As an example, I refer to Document 1584 PS containing some correspondence with Himmler's Department. Defendant Sauckel's name is never mentioned with reference to a conscription of prisoners, and the witnesses have unanimously stated that defendant Sauckel had no connection with these matters. This is also confirmed by the statement of the Director of the ministry Armament's Labor Office. Schmelter, who received the required prisoners direct iron Himmler.
Another subject which must be cleared is the conscription of Jews for labor. This labor conscription is a pert of labor con scription of concentration camp prisoners; it was Himmler's own personal secret kingdom.
This is revealed, for instance by Document R 91 in which Himmler's service orders the arrest of 45,000 Jews in the "Jewish Sector" as concentration camp prisoners.
By the production of a document, L 61, the Prosecution has attempted to convict Sauckel of a share of guilt in this department This document is a letter dated 26 November 1942 from Sauckel's office to the President of the National Labor Office, to the effect that, in agreement with the Chief of the Security police and Security Department, Jewish workers remaining in the plants must be withdrawn and evacuated to Poland. As a matter of fact, this letter actually confirms that Sauckel had nothing to do with Jewish labor in the concentration camps, since Jewish workers were actually withdrawn from his department under the false pretence of evacuation. The measure is indeed solely concerned with the purely technical purpose of releasing the Jewish laborers and replacing them by Poles, an operation which could not have been carried out without the participation of Sauckel's office.
This letter is the sequel to a correspondence which can be traced back to the period prior to Sauckel's assumption of office, and Document L 156 is subsequently concerned with the same technical operation. The unimportant character of the matter is attested by the fact that these letters were not composed at defendant Sauckel's headquarters in the "Thueringenhaus" but in an auxiliary office in the Saarlandstrasse. Defendant Sauckel disclaims knowledge of these operations and points out that the letters do not bear his original signature but were, according to the routine of his service, made out in his name precisely because they were of minor importance. The fact that the letters begin with the routine business term of "in agreement with", and not "in accordance with" (the orders of) the Chief of Police SP and SD, does not mean that they refer to a connivence but merely to orders received from the authoritative headquarters.
Next, reference has been made to extermination by labor.
But Documents 682 PS dated September 1942 unmistakably show that a secret maneuvre of Himmler and Goebbels in cooperation with Reich Minister of Justice Thierack is here involved. Defendant Sauckel is not concerned.
Neither was the conscription of workers in the framework of the Organization Todt under Sauckel's responsibility. The accusations proceeding from document UK-58 in this respect, bearing upon labor conscription methods in the Channel Islands, do not therefore concern him.
The documents do net show that defendant Sauckel was aware of those proceedings or that he could have prevented them.
This separation between defendant Sauckel's labor jurisdiction and the organization Todt is confirmed in Document L-191, i.e., the report of the International Labor Office inMontreal.
ASpecial department is the apprehension of labor forces by civil and military departments. This was to a certain extent run as brutal conscription and kept secret from defendant Sauckel because he opposed it and wished to prevent it by every means. To acertain extent his objections were dismissed by higher authority.
Under this category comes the labor conscription by the SS, Railway, Air Force Building Batallions, Speer's Transport and Traffic Units, certification and Engineering staffs and other services.
The exclusion of these contingencies from the scale of accusations must especially exculpate Sauckel, since in these cases Sauckel's orders were not authoritative.
Document 204-PS illustrates in this respect the circumstances in which transport assistants were procured in White Russia.
Document 334-PS shows the same with regard to the execution of an independent drive for Air Force Assistants, which can cast no guilt upon Sauckel. The commitment of adolescents, which is known as "Houaktion" under document 031-PS of 14 June 1944 as a point of the charge, lies outside of Sauckel's jurisdiction and activities, as it is shown specifically by this document. The IXth Army together with the East Ministry were the originators.
A letter of the co-defendant Rosenberg to Reich Minister Lammers of 20 July 1944 (document 345-PS) refers falsely to the consent of the General Plenipotentiary for Labor Commit ment; it states, however, that the defendant Sauckel was not connected with an SS-Helper Action and that he refused cooperation in this affair.
According to this, as stated by document 1137-PS of 19 October 1944, on individual office in the Resenberg Ministry takes care of the seizure youth and accomplishes the take with its own personnel.
Excluding the defendant Sauckel's agency, labor is supplied directly here to the armament industry.
Circumventing defendant Sauckel's agency, measures also took place which Hitler induced directly by orders to the local offices of the Wehrmacht and of the Civil administration; it was so, for the labor commitment ordered in the occupied territories for the fortification of the Crimes; this is shown by document UK-68.
The seizure of labor in Holland which was carried out by the Wehrmacht under protest of the labor service offices, is another one of these cases; this is shown in document 3003-PS, in Lt. Haupt's report and the defendant Seyss-Inquart has confirmed it.
An important subject, which is beyond the defendant Sauckel's responsibil ity, refers to all the actions executed as punitive measures against partisans and resistance groups. Those are independent measures of the police; I already spoke about their judicial evaluation. Whether they were admissible and could be approved, depends on the circumstances. For example, measures against the resistance movement in France as described in document UK-78 (French Government Report) are excluded here. Therefore, a direct responsibility of defendant Sauckel ceases to exist.
Therefore, the very incriminating events which are enumerated in count III, paragraph VIII of the Indictment under deportation, the destinations of which were the concentration camps, are not within the responsibility of the defendant Sauckel.
Furthermore, the deportations for political and racial reasons which also end under VIII B of the Indictment as the deportation of Frenchmen into concentration camps, are also not within the responsibility of the defendant Sauckel. Furthermore, the resettlements of Slovenes and Yugoslavs described under B (2), also must be excluded.
According to the Indictment, under VIII, H 2, only a part of the addition ally mentioned approximate 5 million Soviet citizens are mentioned as having been seized by labor commitment, the others were removed by other means to which the regulations of the defendant Sauckel did not apply.
This separation is not of importance on account of the number of people, but because the presumed bad conditions could have token place just in that sector, since greater danger of improper treatment existed there.
THE PRESIDENT:Would that be a convenient time to break off?
(A recess was taken.)
The prisoners of war also are exempted from the field of responsibility of the defendant Sauckel.
Those labor forces did not have to be conscripted but were only directed.
This was done by means of special labor offices, which were separated from the other procedure with the prisoner camps and collaborated exclusively with the armed forces. The task consisted only of using the prisoners of war where they were needed.
The defendant Sauckel could only request the transfer of the prisoners of war. Such a possibility is referred to by the Prosecution document 1296-PS of 27 July 1943, which refers under III to the increase in the use of prisoners of war in collaboration with the Army High Command.
The assignment of prisoners of war to plants took place only under the supervision of the Wehrmacht. The Wehrmacht controlled compliance with the Geneva Convention. Sauckel is not in any way connected with the death of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war of the Soviet Union in 1941 of whom Himmler speaks in his Posnania speech, 1919-PS, and for whose replacement workers had to be brought in.
If, in spite of this, in Document USSR-415, -- the official Soviet report about the Lamsdorf Comp -- the defendant Sauckel is connected with the claimed ill treatment of prisoners, then this is done only on the basis of the claim that the number of personnel in the camp was reported to him in a purely businesslike manner. The charge cannot be maintained. The document at that does not certain a sufficient listing of time after the year 1941.
The defendant Sauckel, although he personally was not responsible, intervened in excess of his official duties for the care of the prisoners of war because he was interested in their willingness to work. He issued general decrees. In this way Document 39 shows that he demanded the same working hours as for German workers; he also pointed out here the prohibition of disciplinary punishment by the plants.
A further separation of the accusations raised must be made after the time of the incidents. The defendant Sauckel took over his office only on 21 March 1942. His measures, therefore, could have had an affect only some time later.
How conditions were previous to that can be seen from some documents from the year 1941.
In Document 1206-PS, subsistence through horse and cat-meat is suggested by leading authorities, and in Document USSR-177 the production of broad of a very inferior quality is suggested. Just a short time before the defendant Sauckel's taking office, Himmler in a sharp decree orders the confinement of the workers behind barbed wire. It can be said that a low point in the treatment of the foreign workers, who at that time were in the Reich had been reached. The idea which one has of the simplicity and the efficiency of the Russians is tragic.
With the taking over of office of the defendant Sauckel, a fundamental change has taken place here, which led to a constantly increasing improvement of the situation. The credit for having established a change here falls, according to the following documents, solely to the defendant Sauckel. This is shown in particular by Document EC-313, which represents a record of 15 April 1942 about the first meeting of the defendant Sauckel with Reich Minister Soldte and his specialist staff on the occasion of his taking office. It has been recorded there that it was the defendant Sauckel who made the taking over of his office dependent on the condition that the subsistence of the foreigners must be the same as for the Germans and that the fulfillment of his demand was assured him by Hitler, Goering, the Food Minister Darce, and his Secretary of State, Backe. It furthermore has been recorded there that the defendant Sauckel demanded the removal of the barbed wire and succeeded in this, and finally that he immediately took steps against the low wages of the Eastern workers.
The execution of his fundamental demands was then also immediately employed by the defendant Sauckel and followed through with tenacity against the resistance of all authorities.
The Program of the labor-commitment of 20 April 1942 -- Document 016-PS -- accordingly takes immediate stops against cruelties and chicaneries and demands that foreign workers be humanely treated; the hope is even expressed that a propaganda effect must surely achieved by the way in which the laborcommitment was carried out. This thought was frequently reiterated later.
An economical commitment of workers was required in order to counteract the waste which was occurring on the part of influential agencies.
A year later, on 20 April 1943 the defendant Sauckel again addressed a declaration of program to all persons concerned in labor-commitment. This is the repeatedly mentioned "Manifest of Labor Commitment", Sauckel Document No. 84, which was issued as a warning and a call to battle, addressed to all agencies which opposed the serious responsibility of the defendant Sauckel. Goebbels opposed it under the pretence that the title was too assuming and the propaganda feature of the document essentially too weak, Other agencies just disregarded the copies sent to them and did not forward them, whereupon copies were sent directly to the industries concerned. How this message was handled by the reluctant agencies is shown by its description "notorious manifesto" which was unanimously adopted for it in a session of the Control Planning board on 1 March 1944, Document R -124, page 1779a.
Defendant Sauckel was reproached for having been "too good". I refer to a remark made by General Milch who was interrogated before the Tribunal. in whichhe refers to theCentral Planning Board and criticizes the ostensibly too lenient treatment of loafers and declares that if anything was undertaken against them, agencies were immediately to be found in Germany which would protect the poor man and would intercede for the human rights of others. This is Document R-124, 53 Session, Page 1913.
The attitude of defendant Sauckel was generally known and has been confirmed by various documents; thus agencies addressed him because of complaints and deficiencies, not in order to make the defendant Sauckel responsible for them but to solicit his help, because everybody know how seriously and eagerly he advocated improvements.
Thus Document 0'4-PS, which is a report of Dr. Gutkelch of the Central Agency for Eastern People of the Rosenberg Ministry dated 30 September 1942, emphasizes in various parts the influence of defendant Sauckel and recommends getting into closer touch with him.
Co-defendant Rosenberg also is pointing at Sauckel's strenuous efforts in document 194-PS, page 6, a letter of 14 December 1942 to Koch, Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine.
Co-defendant Frank likewise on 21 November 1943 asked defendant Sauckel in Document 908-PS for a basic change of the legal position of Poles inside the Reich.
To what extent do real events correspond with that which has been stated?
The first question to be dealt with is seizure, which is practically identical with deportation.
It is connected with the examination of the treatment of workers which is designed by the words "slave labor".
The evidence has refuted the error according to which defendant Sauckel on his own responsibility carried out the commitment and seizure of foreign workers through his own organization. It has been established that the supreme agencies of the occupied territories executed the laws regarding compulsory work, which they had received on Hitler's orders. All those agencies had their own administrative system and guarded their departments against the intrusion of others.
A communication of the Rosenberg Ministry of theEast to Koch the Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine, dated 14 December 1942, Document 194-PS, page 71, in which co-defendant Rosenberg particularly refers to the prevailing right of sovereignty questions of Labor commitment, proves that this administrative system had not broken through. These supreme agencies had their own labor offices, which were organized in detal from the Ministry down to the local office. See Document 3012-PS. Ordinance of the Supreme Command of the Army dealing with compulsory work in operationalsector East of 6 February 1943. Document RF-15, Ordinance of 6 October 1942.
Only with these agencies could defendant Sauckel place requests for the number of workers he was ordered to send to Germany and only with them give departmental instructions. These were his limitations and he never went beyond them. He took note of the right of execution, as opposed to the right of instruction. For this task a deputy was appointed for each territory, who in accordance with the ordinance of September 1942, USA Exhibit 510, was directly subordinate to defendant Sauckel but did not belong to his agency, as he belonged to the territorial agencies. This was expressly confirmed by the witness Bail who had been appointed by co-defendant Rosenberg expressly for the most important deputy in the East, the Reich Councillor Peukert, who belonged to the Staff of the ministry of the Ministry East.
This Reich Councillor Peukert was at the same time consultant for the Economic Staff East of the rear Army Territory, which was close to the field of the civil administration; in addition to his duties he acted as deputy of the defendant Sauckel in the Personnel Union. This is proved by Document 3012-PS, which is a note on this document dealing with a conversation of 10 March 1943 concerning labor commitment, in which the position of Peukert is noted in the membership list. By this Personnel Union, created in the interest of the territorial authorities, all unauthorized interference of defendant Sauckel was made impossible.
When co-defendant Rosenberg complains about the methods of labor mobilization in the East as per document 018-PS, that is in the letter to defendant Sauckel dated 21 December 1942, this is to be considered as the complaint of a minister who does not consider himself in a position to be successful against his subordinate, and thus addresses the presumable source of the difficulties which had been made for him.
It is true that these difficulties could be removed immediately when defendant Sauckel would desist from the execution of his order. But execution was just his job, which according to the decree of appointment, had to be executed under all circumstances, especially against just such opposition as occurred here on the part of co-defendant Rosenberg.
Defendant Sauckel had to fight against opposition arising from weakness and from departmental egotism, and had to see to it that local agencies would not fail to supply the required manpower due to need for rest, or that other offices would hold it back from selfish interests. "With all means" and "ruthless" are recurring expressions which are employed in the fight against these aspects.
General Falkenhausen, the Military Commander in Belgium and Norther France, during his hearing mistakenly declared in document RF-15 that defendant Sauckel forced him to execute the commitment of labor and accomplished it through his own organization. But he had to admit that this opinion was incorrect when the order signed by him about the introduction of compulsory labor service was put before him This presentation is confirmed by the statements of the witness Timm and Stothfang.
In France seizure was made by the French administration. The German office above it was not the office of defendant Sauckel but of the Military Commander in France, where Sauckel had only a deputy.
The negotiations which defendant Sauckel conducted in Paris and which were the subject of the evidence lie outside of this activity; they are negotiations of a diplomatic nature between the German and French Governments in which Sauckel participated. They were held in the German Embassy.
Circumstances in the other spheres were accordingly.
Also the Recruiting-Commissions which corresponded to the labor commitment staffs in the rear army districts and in operational districts, were by no means offices of the defendant Sauckel, as co-defendant Rosenberg assumes.
These re-
cruiting commissions stood nearer to defendant Sauckel only because they were composed of experts who came from the German labor offices, which belonged to Sauckel's Department, They received specialised directives only through their superior office in order to Guarantee a uniform handling of all recruiting regulations. Regulation No 4 in Sauckel document No 15 is authoritative on this point.
This stipulation already issued on 7 May 1942, namely before the nomination of the deputies on 30 September 1942, provides for the sole responsibility of the military and civil authorities of the occupied territories. The deputies mentioned there to whom were assigned the same functions, are the deputies at the German missions in friendly foreign countries.
This was misunderstood by the Prosectution and therefore wrong conclusions were arrived at to the disadvantage of the defendant Sauckel about the responsibility for recruiting and transport. Also the interpretation of the provision that "all technical and administrative procedures of the Labor Commitment were exclusivley within the competence and responsibilty" of defendant Sauckel is incorrect for the occupied territory.
This Stipulation refers solely to the functions in the Reich and lays the basis for the competence of the General Plenipotentiary for labor commitment, of the district labor offices and labor offices; this can be seen from document 016Ps (last paragraph).