greatest regret that for the first time I was not in a position to guarantee delivery of the grand total of 4,050,000 men then calE culated in the Fuehrer's Headquarters for the year 1944. In the presence of the Fuehrer I emphasized this several times. In the previous years I was able to satisfy the demands, at least with regard to the number of laborers, but this year I am no longer able to guarantee them in advance. In case I can deliver only a small number, I should be glad if those arriving would be distributed by percentage within the framework of your program. Of course I shall readily agree if I am now told by the Board: Now we have to change the program; now this or that is more urgent. It goes without saying that we will satisfy the demands whatever they may be, to the best of our ability, with due regard to the war situation. So much about figures!

31

E

We have no reason to contest the figures as such, for we ask nothing for ourselves. We are not even able to do anything with the laborers we collect; we only put them at the disposal of industry. I only wish to make some general statements and ask for your indulgence.

In autumn of last year the supply program, inasmuch as it concerns supply from abroad was frustrated to a very great extent; I need not give the reasons in this circle; we have talked enough about them, but I have to state: The program has been smashed. People in France, Belgium, and Holland thought that labor was no longer to be directed from these countries to Germany because the work now had to be done within these countries themselves. For months-sometimes I visited these countries twice within a month I have been called a fool who against all reason travelled around in these countries in order to extract labor. This went so far, I assure you, that all prefectures in France had general orders not to satisfy my demands since even the German authorities quarreled over whether or not Sauckel was a fool.

If one's work is smashed in such a way, repair is very very difficult. Now for the first time I have been reproached by officers stationed in the East, which was very hard on me, that it was the Plenipotentiary for Labor who did not extract enough men from the East during the last year and thus was responsible if now our soldiers had to fight against the same men whom I should have taken away; for these had become an essential part of the Russian divisions. Thus I have been reproached several times by front officers; and I wish to protest here and now. For the East last year was barred to me. In large areas I was forbidden to take anything from agriculture. I was told: You don't get any

men since we have to organize agriculture here, the Donets ares too was barred to me, and I was not allowed to extract anything. I had to struggle hard for every individual man whom I wished to extract from the East. Therefore I wish to state expressly here and now that the reproaches made by the front that the men whom I did not extract now fight on the side of the enemy are unjust, since I was entirely kept out of these areas. Such was the situation at the end of the year.

At that time I was very much concerned: we discovered a decrease in the amount of labor employed. Today I am able to report that we stopped that decrease. According to most accurate statistics, which I had ordered, we have today again including foreign workers and prisoners of war, the same number of 29.1 millions which we had in September. But we have added nothing since that time. Thus we dispatched to the Reich in those two months no more than 4,500 Frenchmen which amounts to nothing. From Italy only 7,000 civilians arrived. This, although from 1.12 until today I have had no hour, no Sunday, and no night for myself. I have visited all these countries and travelled through the whole Reich. My work was terribly difficult, but not for the reason that no more workers are to be found. I wish to state expressly, in France and in Italy there are still men galore. The situation in Italy is nothing but a European scandal, the same applies to a certain extent to France. Gentlemen, the French work badly and support themselves at the expense of the work done by the German soldier and laborer, even at the expense of the German food supply, and the same applies to Italy. I found out during my last stay that the food supply of the northern Italians cannot suffer any comparison with that of the southern Italians. The northern Italians, viz. as far to the south as Rome are so well nourished that they need not work; they are nourished quite differently from the German nation by their Father in Heaven without having to work for their bread. The labor reserves exist but the means of touching them have been smashed.

The most abominable point made by my adversaries is their claim that no executive had been provided within these areas in order to recruit in a sensible manner the Frenchmen, Belgians, and Italians and to dispatch them to work. Thereupon I even proceeded to employ and train a whole batch of French male and female agents who for good pay just as was done in olden times for "shanghaiing" went hunting for men and made them drunk by using liquor as well as words, in order to dispatch them to Germany. Moreover I charged some able men with founding a

special labor supply executive of our own, and this they did by' training and arming with the help of the Higher SS & Police Fuehrer a number of natives, but I still have to ask the Munitions Ministry for arms for the use of these men. For during last year alone several dozens of very able labor executive officers have been shot dead. All these means I have to apply, grotesque as it sounds, to refute the allegation there was no executive to bring labor to Germany from these countries.

Í have to tell you, Field Marshal, after repeated inquiry: There is no longer a genuine German direction of labor. I have just issued the well known proclamation which the Fuehrer himself had inspired, corrected, and adapted concerning voluntary honorary service. What success this step will have, I don't know yet; it will be very little. But I shall enlarge this voluntary honorary service. The Fuehrer wishes it to be administered exclusively by the Women's Service. Therefore I shall go tomorrow and see the Women's Service and the Women District Leaders of the Women's Service of Germany, in order to insist on the most extensive recruitment by the Women's Service of women above the ages of 45 and 50 years. Something will be attained in that way. There are quite good beginnings in some of the districts. But recruitment must be continuous and uninterrupted, and such things need some time before they run smoothly. Out of the German labor reservoir, however, 60,000 new laborers have been found in the first two months of the year, and the start as a whole has functioned better than I expected. The grand total so far is 262,000. Of these from the East alone there are 112,000. Thus the satisfactory statement can be made that the authorities in charge of what remains of the occupied areas have acknowledged the fact that better results are expected if the available labor is used in Germany than if it is used abroad. The supply of these 112,000 new Eastern workers, mainly men, has made it possible for us to hope for the arrival within the first two months of 262,000 workers.

Then some words about the question of women's labor. I have asked one of my assistants to give you later a survey comparing the English regulations on the national service of women with the German ones. It is perfectly correct to state that England, even if we take into account the difference in the total number available, does not use as many of her women as we do. One ought to abstain therefore from the reproach which is still made against me, that we didn't do enough with regard to the use of women's labor. On January 4th I told the Fuehrer expressly and repeat

edly; if he gave me the power to recruit laborers a la Stalin, I should be able to put at his disposal perhaps a million more women. The Fuehrer brusquely and repeatedly refused this. He used the expression that our German long-legged slender women could not be compared with the "kurz-stampfeten" [Austrian dialect term for short-legged, used in a derogatory sense] and healthy Russian women. I for my part also wish to warn against setting too much hope on the usefulness of these women. But I wish to ask you to be sure that I am doing everything in order to put to work everybody who is fit for work, as far as I am able to do within the framework of the Fuehrer's permission, and this by exercising some soft moral pressure as well. In the same way I have directed all my assistants to examine continuously the results of the action of January of last year concerning the duty to register and to make sure that the labor exchanges continuously find out and call up the women whose children grow beyond the age in question, and the girls who reach the age groups in question. Thus we do everything possible.

In order to enable me to reach these numbers, two conditions must be fulfilled. First it is indispensable that all authorities which administer the occupied countries must recognize the necessity of fulfilling the demand for labor in the Reich. This so far is not the case everywhere. Especially the protected factories in the occupied countries make my work very difficult. According to reports received within the last days these protected factories are to a great part filled to capacity, and still labor is sucked up into these areas. This strong suction very much obstructs our desire to dispatch labor to the Reich. I wish to emphasize that I never opposed the use of French labor in factories which had been transferred from Germany to France. I am still sound of mind, and as recently as last summer I charged Mr. Hildebrandt with an inquiry in France which had the following result: It would be easy to extract from French medium and small factories (80% of all French factories are small enterprises with only 36-40 working hours)-1 million laborers for use in the transferred factories, and 1 million more for dispatch to Germany. To use 1 million within France should be quite possible unless the protected factories in France artificially suck up the labor completely and unless their number is continually increased, as happens according to my reports especially in Belgium, and unless new categories of works are continually declared protected, so that finally no labor is left which I may use in Germany. I wish here and now to repeat my thesis: A French workman, if treated in the right way, does double the amount of work in Germany that he

would do in France, and he has here twice the value he has in France.

I want to state clearly and fearlessly: The exaggerated use of the idea of protected factories in connection with the labor supply from France in my submission implies a grave danger for the German labor supply. If we cannot come to the decision that my assistants, together with the armament authorities, are to combout every factory, this fountain of labor too in the future will remain blocked for the use of Germany, and in this case the program described to me by the Fuehrer may well be frustrated. The same applies to Italy. In either country there are enough laborers, even enough skilled workers; only we must have enough courage to step into the French plants. What really happens in France, I do not know. That a smaller amount of work is done during enemy operations in France, like in every occupied country, than is done in Germany seems to me evident. If I am to fulfill the demands which you present to me, you must be prepared to agree with me and my assistants, that the term "protected factory" is to be restricted in France to what is really necessary and feasible by reasonable men, and the protected factories are not, as the Frenchmen think, protected against any extraction of labor from them for use in Germany. It is indeed very difficult for me to be presented to French eyes as a German of whom they may say: Sauckel is here stopped from acting for German armament! The term "protected factory" means in France nothing but that the factory is protected against Sauckel! This is what the Frenchmen think, and they cannot be blamed for it; for they are Frenchmen and before their eyes the Germans disagree in their opinions and actions. To what degree the creation of protected works is expedient and necessary at all is not for me to decide. I can only state how the effect of creating them touches the work expected to be done by me. On the other hand, I have grounds for hoping that I shall be just able to wriggle through, first by using my old corps of agents and my labor executive, and secondly by relying upon the measures which I was lucky enough to succeed in obtaining from the French Government. In a discussion lasting 5-6 hours I have exerted from M. Laval the concession that the death penalty will be threatened for officials endeavoring to sabotage the flow of labor supply and certain other measures. Believe me, this was very difficult. It required a hard struggle to get this through. But I succeeded and now in France Germans ought to take really severe measures, in case the French Government does not do so. Don't take it amiss, I and my assistants in fact have sometimes seen things happen in France that I