Copy of document 3719-PS
EXCERPTS
Testimony of: Alfred Rosenberg taken at: Nurnberg, Germany. 1500-1700, 6 October 1945 by: Lt. Col. Thomas S. Hinkel, IGD, OUSCC. Also Present: Interpreter: 1st. Lt. Joachim Stenzel; Reporter: Pvt. Clair A. VanVleck.
[Page 3]
Q. Isn’t it a fact, that Sauckel would allocate to the
various areas under your jurisdiction, the number of persons
to be obtained for labor purposes?
A. Yes.
Q. And that thereafter, your agents would obtain that labor,
in order to meet the quota that had been given; isn’t that
right?
A. Sauckel, normally, had very far-reaching desires, which
one couldn’t fulfill unless one looked very closely into the
matter.
Q. Never mind about Sauckel’s desires being far-reaching or
not being far-reaching. That has nothing to do with it. You
were given quotas for the areas over which you had
jurisdiction, and it was up to you to meet that quota?
A. Yes; it was the responsibility of the administrative
officials to receive this quota and to distribute the
allotments over the districts in such a way, according to
number and according to the age groups, so they would be
most reasonably met.
Q. These administrative officials were part of your
organization; isn’t that right?
[Page 437]
A. They were functionaries or officials of the
Reichskommissar for the Ukraine, but, as such, they were
placed in their office by the Ministry for the Eastern
Occupied Territories.
Q. You recognized, did you not, that the quotas set by
Sauckel could not be filled by voluntary labor, and you
didn’t disapprove of the impressment of forced labor; isn’t
that right?
A. I regretted that the demands of Sauckel were so urgent
that they could not be met by a continuation of voluntary
recruitments and thus I submitted to the necessity of forced
impressment.
Q. Did you ever argue with Sauckel, that perhaps, in view of
the fact that the quotas could not be met by voluntary
labor, the labor recruiting program be abandoned except for
what recruits could be voluntarily enrolled?
A. I couldn’t do that, because the numbers or allotments
that Sauckel had received from the Fuehrer to meet, were
absolutely binding for him, and I couldn’t do anything about
that.
[Page 5]
Q. The letters that we have already seen between you and
Sauckel, do not indicate, do they, any disagreement on your
part with the principle of recruiting labor against their
will; they indicate, as I remember, that you were opposed to
the treatment that was later accorded these workers; that
you did not oppose their initial impressment.
A. That is right. In those letters I mostly discussed the
possibility of finding the least harsh methods of handling
the matter; whereas, in no way, I placed myself in
opposition to the orders that he was carrying out for the
Fuehrer.
[Page 7]
Q. Do you recall receiving a letter from Sauckel in March,
1943, wherein he stated that approximately 1,000,000 foreign
workers would be needed from the East, and that this
1,000,000 had to be transported within the space of four
months from the date of the letter?
A. That is perfectly possible. Sauckel, in the course of his
activities, as being specifically charged by the Fuehrer,
has at several times transmitted to the ministry quotas of
the men that had to be furnished.
Q. When these quotas were transmitted by Sauckel, did your
organization then parcel the quotas out in the various
places over which you had jurisdiction?
A. Normally, when such a request for a quota came in, there
would be meetings between representatives of Sauckel’s staff
and of my staff and, occasionally, of the staff of the
commissars,
[Page 438]
in which these matters were hashed over, and, normally, I
would say that, in view of the particular situation, it
would be absolutely impossible to meet that particular
number, but that we would try to see what could be done and
never would we meet the entire quota that was given to us.
Q. But you did your best to meet it, didn’t you?
A. It was their duty to do whatever they could.