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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 Mr. Raymond J. McMahon, Jr.
Mr. Maurice C. Myers

DEFENSE COUNSEL

Dr. Friedrich Bergold

Main Counsel
Dr. Werner Milch*
Assistant Counsel
*
Brother of the defendant Milch.
 I. INDICTMENT
The United States of America, by the undersigned Telford Taylor,
Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, duly appointed to represent said
Government in the prosecution of war criminals, charges the
defendant Erhard Milch with the commission of war crimes and
crimes against humanity as defined in Control Council Law No. 10,[62]
duly enacted by the Allied Control Council on 20 December 1945.
The defendant Milch between 1939 and 1945 was State Secretary in
the [Reich] Air Ministry (Staatssekretaer im Reichsluftfahrt
ministerium), Inspector General of the Air Force (Generalinspekteur
der Luftwaffe), Deputy to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force
(Stellvertreter des Oberbefehlshabers der Luftwaffe), and Member of
the Nazi Party (Mitglied der NSDAP). The defendant Milch was also
Field Marshal in the Luftwaffe (Generalfeldmarschall in der
Luftwaffe) 1940-45, Aircraft Master General (Generalluftzeugmeister)
1941-44, Member of the Central Planning Board (Mitglied der
“Zentralen Planung”) 1942-1945, and Chief of the Jaegerstab 1944-
1945. The war crimes and crimes against humanity charged herein
against the defendant Milch include deportation, enslavement and
mistreatment of millions of persons, participation in criminal medical
experiments upon human beings, and murders, brutalities, cruelties,
tortures, atrocities, and other inhumane acts.

COUNT ONE
1. Between September 1939 and May 1945 the defendant Milch
unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly committed war crimes as defined
by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that he was a principal
in, accessory to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and
was connected with plans and enterprises involving slave labor and
deportation to slave labor of the civilian populations of Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Italy, Hungary, and other countries and territories
occupied by the German Armed Forces, in the course of which
millions of persons were enslaved, deported, ill-treated, terrorized,
tortured, and murdered.

2. Between September 1939 and May 1945 the defendant Milch

unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly committed war crimes as defined
by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that he was a principal
in, accessory to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and
was connected with plans and enterprises involving the use of
prisoners of war in war operations and work having a direct relation
with war operations, including the manufacture and transportation of
arms and munitions, in the course of which murders, cruelties, ill-
treatment, and other inhumane acts were committed against
members of the armed forces of nations then at war with the
German Reich and who were in custody of the German Reich in the
exercise of belligerent control.

3. In the execution of the plans and enterprises charged in

paragraphs 1 and 2 of this count, millions of persons were unlawfully
subjected to forced labor under cruel and inhumane conditions
which resulted in widespread suffering. At least 5,000,000 workers
were deported to Germany. The conscription of labor was
accomplished in many cases by drastic and violent methods. Workers
destined for the Reich were sent under guard to Germany, often
packed in trains without adequate heat, food, clothing, or sanitary
facilities; other inhabitants of occupied countries were conscripted
and compelled to work in their own countries to assist the German
war economy and on fortifications and military installations. The
resources and needs of the occupied countries were completely
disregarded in the execution of the said plans and enterprises.
Prisoners of war were assigned to work directly related to war
operations, including work in munitions factories, loading bombers,
carrying ammunition, and manning antiaircraft guns. The treatment
of slave laborers and prisoners of war was based on the principle
that they should be fed, sheltered, and treated in such a way as to
exploit them to the greatest possible extent at the lowest
expenditure.
 4. The defendant Milch from 1942 to 1945 was a member of the
Central Planning Board which had supreme authority for the
scheduling of production and the allocation and development of raw
materials in the German war economy. The Central Planning Board
determined the labor requirements of industry, agriculture, and all
other phases of German war economy, and made requisitions for
and allocations of such labor. The defendant Milch had full
knowledge of the illegal manner in which foreign laborers were
conscripted and prisoners of war utilized to meet such requisitions,
and of the unlawful and inhumane conditions under which they were
exploited. He attended the meetings of the Central Planning Board,
participated in its decisions and in the formulation of basic policies
with reference to the exploitation of such labor, advocated the
increased use of forced labor and prisoners of war to expand war
production, and urged that cruel and repressive measures be utilized
to procure and exploit such labor.

5. During the years 1939-1945 the defendant Milch, as State

Secretary in the Air Ministry, Inspector General of the Air Force,
Deputy to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force, Field Marshal in
the Luftwaffe, Aircraft Master General, and Chief of the Jaegerstab,
had responsibility for the development and production of arms and
munitions for the German Air Force. The defendant Milch exploited
foreign laborers and prisoners of war in the arms, aircraft, and
munitions factories under his control, made requisitions for and
allocations of such labor within the aircraft industry, and personally
directed that cruel and repressive measures be adopted towards
such labor.

6. Pursuant to the order of the defendant Milch, prisoners of war

who had attempted escape were murdered on or about 15 February
1944.

7. The said war crimes constitute violations of international

conventions, particularly of Articles 4, 5, 6, 7, 46, and 52 of the
Hague Regulations, 1907, and of Articles 2, 3, 4, 6, and 31 of the
Prisoner-of-War Convention (Geneva, 1929), the laws and customs
of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the
criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the
countries in which such crimes were committed, and Article II of
Control Council Law No. 10.

COUNT TWO
8. Between March 1942 and May 1943 the defendant Milch
unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly committed war crimes as defined
in Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that he was a principal
in, accessory to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and
was connected with plans and enterprises involving medical
experiments without the subjects’ consent, upon members of the
armed forces and civilians of nations then at war with the German
Reich and who were in the custody of the German Reich in the
exercise of belligerent control, in the course of which experiments
the defendant Milch, together with divers other persons, committed
murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, and other inhumane acts.
Such experiments included, but were not limited to, the following:

(A) HIGH-ALTITUDE EXPERIMENTS. From about March 1942 to

about August 1942 experiments were conducted at the Dachau
concentration camp for the benefit of the German Air Force to
investigate the limits of human endurance and existence at
extremely high altitudes. The experiments were carried out in a low-
pressure chamber in which the atmospheric conditions and pressure
prevailing at high altitudes (up to 68,000 feet) could be duplicated.
The experimental subjects were placed in the low-pressure chamber
and thereafter the simulated altitude therein was raised. Many
victims died as a result of these experiments and others suffered
grave injury, torture, and ill-treatment.
(B) FREEZING EXPERIMENTS. From about August 1942 to about
May 1943 experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration
camp primarily for the benefit of the German Air Force to investigate
the most effective means of treating persons who had been severely
chilled or frozen. In one series of experiments the subjects were
forced to remain in a tank of ice water for periods up to 3 hours.
Extreme rigor developed in a short time. Numerous victims died in
the course of these experiments. After the survivors were severely
chilled, rewarming was attempted by various means. In another
series of experiments, the subjects were kept naked outdoors for
many hours at temperatures below freezing. The victims screamed
with pain as parts of their bodies froze.

9. The said war crimes constitute violations of international

conventions, particularly of Articles 4, 5, 6, 7, and 46 of the Hague
Regulations, 1907, and of Articles 2, 3, and 4 of the Prisoner-of-War
Convention (Geneva, 1929), the laws and customs of war, the
general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of
all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which
such crimes were committed, and of Article II, of Control Council
Law No. 10.

COUNT THREE
10. Between September 1939 and May 1945 the defendant Milch
unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly committed crimes against
humanity, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in
that he was a principal in, accessory to, ordered, abetted, took a
consenting part in, and was connected with plans and enterprises
involving slave labor and deportation to slave labor of German
nationals and nationals of other countries in the course of which
millions of persons were enslaved, deported, ill-treated, terrorized,
tortured, and murdered. The particulars of these crimes are set forth
in count one of this indictment and are incorporated herein by
reference.

11. Between March 1942 and May 1943 the defendant Milch
unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly committed crimes against
humanity as defined in Article II of Control Council Law No. 10 in
that he was principal in, accessory to, ordered, abetted, took a
consenting part in, and was connected with plans and enterprises
involving medical experiments, without the subjects’ consent, upon
German nationals and nationals of other countries, in the course of
which experiments the defendant Milch, together with divers other
persons, committed murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures,
atrocities, and other inhumane acts. The particulars of such
experiments are set forth in count two of this indictment and are
incorporated herein by reference.

12. The said crimes against humanity constitute violations of

international conventions, the laws and customs of war, the general
principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all
civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which
such crimes were committed, and Article II of Control Council Law
No. 10.

WHEREFORE, this indictment is filed with the Secretary General

of the Military Tribunals and the charges herein made against the
above-named defendant are hereby presented to the Military
Tribunals.

Telford Taylor
Brigadier General, USA
Chief of Counsel for War Crimes
Acting on Behalf of the United States of America

Nuernberg, 13 November 1946

[62]
See vol. I, this series, pref. pp. III thru XXVIII for basic
papers.
 II. ARRAIGNMENT[63]
The Marshal: Military Tribunal No. 2 is now in session. God save
the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.
Presiding Judge Toms: The Marshal will ascertain whether the
defendant, Erhard Milch, is present in Court.
The Marshal: May it please your Honors, the defendant is present
in the Court.
Presiding Judge Toms: Is counsel for the defendant, Dr. Bergold,
also present?
The Marshal: Dr. Bergold is also present in the courtroom.
Presiding Judge Toms: Prosecution may proceed with the
arraignment by reading the indictment.

[At this point Mr. Clark Denney read the indictment. See p. 360.]

Presiding Judge Toms: The defendant will stand. You have heard
the indictment just read?
Erhard Milch: Yes.
Presiding Judge Toms: And it has been translated into the German
language which you understand?
Erhard Milch: Yes.
Presiding Judge Toms: For more than 30 days you have had in your
possession a copy of this indictment translated into the German
language?
Erhard Milch: Yes.
Presiding Judge Toms: You have also had the benefit of Dr.
Bergold’s counsel for at least 30 days?
Erhard Milch: Yes.
Presiding Judge Toms: Now then to this indictment how do you
plead, guilty or not guilty?
Erhard Milch: Not guilty.
Presiding Judge Toms: The Secretary General will enter upon the
records of the Court the defendant’s plea of not guilty. You may be
seated.
The Tribunal has set Thursday, the second day of January 1947
for the commencement of the trial of this action. Will the United
States be ready on that date?
Mr. Denney: The Government will be ready at that time, your
Honor.
Presiding Judge Toms: Dr. Bergold, will you be ready to proceed
with the trial on the second of January?
Dr. Bergold: Yes.

[63]
Tr. p. 7.
 III. OPENING STATEMENTS

A. Opening Statement for the Prosecution[64]

Mr. Denney: May it please your Honors, this defendant is Erhard
Milch, Field Marshal in the Luftwaffe, Inspector General of the
Luftwaffe, State Secretary in the Air Ministry, Generalluftzeugmeister,
sole representative of the Wehrmacht on the Central Planning Board,
Chief of the Jaegerstab,[65] and member of the Nazi Party.
This man is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity
in that he took part in the program for the enslavement and ill-
treatment of the civilian population of vast territories conquered by
the armed forces of Germany and in the employment of prisoners of
war in tasks forbidden by the laws and customs of war. He is also
accused of the torture and murder of concentration camp inmates
and prisoners of war who were made the unwilling subjects of
savage and fatal medical experiments.
The life of Erhard Milch is a story of personal and professional
betrayal. A man of high intelligence, of great executive ability, he
misused these talents to dedicate them to a scheme for conquest
and a plan for the enslavement of the world. The 10 years of military
service of the defendant from the age of 18 to 28 which took him
through the First World War were a perfect preparation for the tasks
to come. From 1915 to 1919, Milch was a scout, observer, adjutant
and squadron leader in the German Air Force. At the very infancy of
military aviation, the defendant began an association which was to
last through his entire public career. It was at this time that he
learned the needs and the problems of flying men, a knowledge
which was to stand him in such good stead in his work as the
founder of the Luftwaffe.
The defendant never dissociated himself from the aims and ideals
of German militarism. He became one of the silent army of men who
remembered, hated, and hoped; but unlike many others, this man
did not sit idly by. He did not wait passively for Germany to rise
again, he devoted his best efforts towards that end. In 1921, only 1
year after his discharge from the army, we find him working as chief
of air operations [flights] in the new business of commercial aviation.
There is no necessity to fill out in detail the successive steps in
the defendant’s rise in civilian air transportation—a few broad
strokes suffice. The next significant event in his career came in 1925
when he joined the state-sponsored Lufthansa which within 3 years
he was to form into the nucleus of a new air force. It is no
euphemism that he was called the Father of German Air
Transportation.
When Hitler came into power in 1933, Milch acceded to the
requests of both Goering and Hitler and assumed the additional duty
of State Secretary in the Air Ministry. It was understood from the
start, and it was confirmed in 1937, that Milch would succeed
Goering as Chief of the German Air Force in the event of the latter’s
death or withdrawal. By the time the new Luftwaffe had publicly
emerged from such embryos as the Air Sport League, the Air
Defense League, and the Flying [Flieger] Hitler Youth, the defendant
had become a Generalleutnant (the equivalent of the American
major general). The honors which followed: field marshal in the
Luftwaffe in 1940, which was gained from 2 months’ participation in
the invasion of Norway; Generalluft-Zeugmeister in 1941; member of
the Central Planning Board in 1942; Chief of the Jaegerstab in 1944,
were proof alike of the evil genius of Erhard Milch and of his
complete compatibility with the Nazi ambitions and methods.
This defendant became a member of the Nazi Party in May 1933.
His work in the Party was important. He was indeed one of the little
group of specialists of whom Mr. Justice Jackson, in his closing
address before the International Military Tribunal, aptly said:
“It is doubtful whether the Nazi master plan could have
succeeded without their specialized intelligence which they
so willingly put at its command. They (speaking of Goering,
Keitel, Jodl, and the rest) did so with knowledge of its
announced aims and methods and continued their services
 after practice had confirmed the direction in which they
were tending. Their superiority to the average run of Nazi
mediocrity is not their excuse. It is their condemnation.”[66]
Various Germans allowed themselves to be absorbed into the
Nazi Party for a variety of reasons. Depression, financial and
business betterment, ambition, discouragement with the previous
political situation, and human weakness in the face of terrorism, all
played their part in the recruitment of the Nazi machine. There were
few cases in which a man made as clear, as deliberate, and as
discreditable a choice of Nazism as did Milch.
The high esteem in which the defendant was held by Hitler and
his position within the inner circle of Nazi militarists can be seen
from the fact that he was one of a party of fourteen of Hitler’s
highest and most trusted officers who attended a conference in the
new Reich Chancellory on 23 May 1939, at which Hitler made known
to his military chiefs his plans and objectives. (L-79.)
All in all, two points stand out in even a quick survey of Milch’s
career: First, he never accepted the defeat of Germany in the First
World War; his life between the wars was devoted to the work of
placing Germany in a position to challenge the world in the matter of
air supremacy; and second, he was a man who was unlikely to allow
either difficulty or honor to stand in the way of the accomplishment
of his purpose—the objectives of the Nazi Party. If these
characteristics are borne in mind, much of the defendant’s fanaticism
and the unbelievable savagery with which he adhered to the Nazi
plan for conquest at the expense of all values of human decency
may be seen as the natural consequences of the acts of a man with
his criminal philosophy.
We have then, at the outbreak of the war this man, already
within the inner circle, already devoted to the Nazi scheme of things
and quite essential to their fulfillment, with a record of organization
and with the work of preparation behind him—poised with his
companions for the kill. We see the air armadas, which were the
labor of his love, helping to shatter Poland within 18 days, helping to
reduce the Lowlands to smoking ruins within a few days’ time,
assisting in the subjugation of the French military machine and in
driving the British from the continent in a period of a few weeks. We
see the hordes of the Fatherland racing on and on with the air arm
always overhead, preparing the way, until Germany had overrun a
territory from the Normandy Coast to Moscow, and from the North
Sea to El Alamein.
Then began the occupation, the next step in the plan of the Third
Reich—an empire which was to last a thousand years. Over an entire
continent there spread the deadly rigor of a “Pax Germanica” in
which there was to be one citizen class, one race of supermen, and
the balance, one class of slaves. At first the occupation overlords
maintained the appearance of legality. They gave receipts for the
property they plundered, they offered inducements to the laborers
they shanghaied, they went through the mockery of signing
contracts which were both illusory and fraudulent. But even this
sham disappeared as the war went on, and as early as 1942, the
German occupation appeared in public as the ugly thing it was,
complete with armed recruiters, military escorts on deportation
trains and prison camps for the workers brought into Germany. Mr.
Justice Jackson, in his opening address on behalf of the United
States of America before the International Military Tribunal,[67] vividly
described the character and extent of the slave-labor program in the
following words:
“Perhaps the deportation to slave labor was the most
horrible and extensive slaving operation in history. On few
other subjects is our evidence so abundant and so
damaging. In a speech made on 25 January 1944 the
defendant Frank, Governor General of Poland, boasted, ‘I
have sent 1,300,000 Polish workers into the Reich.’ (059-
PS, p. 2.) The defendant Sauckel reported that ‘out of the 5
million foreign workers who arrived in Germany not even
200,000 came voluntarily.’ * * * Children of 10 to 14 years
were impressed into service * * *.
“When enough labor was not forthcoming, prisoners of
war were forced into war work in flagrant violation of
 international conventions (016-PS). Slave labor came from
France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, and the East. Methods of
recruitment were violent (R-124, 018-PS, 204-PS). The
treatment of these slave laborers was stated in general
terms, not difficult to translate into concrete deprivations, in
a letter to the defendant Rosenberg from the defendant
Sauckel, which stated:

“ ‘All the men’ (prisoners of war and foreign

civilian workers) ‘must be fed, sheltered, and
treated in such a way as to exploit them to the
highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable
degree of expenditure * * *’ (016-PS)”.
Working as we do every day with crimes of unbelievable
enormity, we are apt to become quite deadened to the hideous
nature of specific crimes. It is, therefore, well to stop and consider
the particular offenses with which this man stands charged.
Crimes are best evaluated in terms of the rights they violate. The
evil, slavery, which is the deprivation of another’s liberty, is best
judged through a consideration of its opposite good, freedom.
Freedom is, to an extent, properly regarded as the symbol of human
progress, the measure of civilization. Much of man’s history can be
expressed in terms of his fight for freedom. Man’s personal freedom
is his most precious prerogative, the exercise of his free will is his
distinctive function. The building of a legal structure to protect the
freedom of the individual is the basic purpose of good government.
Men have lived for freedom, worked for it, fought for it, and died for
it.
It is precisely because of their destructive effects on the freedom
of the individual that governments such as the Nazi German State
are so hatefully and essentially evil. The Nazi rise to power is a story
of duress which ripened into slavery, first for the people within
Germany and then for those in the lands she conquered. The
enforced labor program was no expedient forced upon Germany by
the exigencies of war. It was a basic concept of the Nazi scheme and
the permanent destiny of those who would come under the German
yoke.
It is most natural, therefore, that Control Council Law No. 10,
which was enacted for the guidance of this and other tribunals which
are set up for the trial of the principals in the crime of Nazi Germany,
should deal in very severe terms with that most Nazi of all crimes—
slavery. Article II, paragraph 1 (sec. b) specifically names among the
enumerated war crimes the ill-treatment or deportation to slave
labor of civilian populations from occupied territory and the murder
or ill-treatment of prisoners of war. Paragraph 1 (sec. c) specifies as
a crime against humanity, deportation of civilian populations. Article
II, paragraphs 2 and 3 proclaim that anyone taking a principal or
consenting part in these crimes, or belonging to a plan or enterprise
for the commission of these crimes, is guilty of an offense for which
the death penalty may be prescribed.
The prosecution will prove that Milch was a principal in the
deportation into slave labor of civilian populations from occupied
territories. It will show that he was involved in the murder and ill-
treatment of prisoners of war. Evidence will be presented which will
prove that he was engaged in plans and enterprises which directly
involved the use of slave labor. We will show that this man was as
much concerned with the employment of slave labor as was any
man in Germany. In his positions as a member of the Central
Planning Board, as Generalluftzeugmeister, and as Chief of the
Jaegerstab, he had full opportunity to hear all the grim details of the
exploitation of slave labor. He participated in decisions and
formulated basic policies with reference to its use, and over and
above all this he showed his personal animosity and his gratuitous
fanaticism in constantly urging the most repressive and cruel
measures in the procurement and exploitation of foreign workers.
During the course of this trial, an attempt will be made to
distinguish among that which this defendant did as
Generalluftzeugmeister, as Chief of the Jaegerstab, as State
Secretary for Air, and as a member of the Central Planning Board. At
times it will be difficult, if not impossible, to state in just which
capacity he was acting at a particular time. We must emphasize now
that it is not essential to the proof of this case that we should be
able always to specify the exact capacity in which the defendant
acted. The multiplicity of his connection with the slave-labor
program is his greatest condemnation, and it is because he knew so
much and did so much that there can be no excuse for him.
Erhard Milch operated at a policy level high in the chain of
command above the work boss and the concentration camp guard.
We need not show him driving the workers to their tasks or
crowding them into the hovels in which they lived. We are not
primarily concerned with the minute details of the slave-labor
program which were carried out by minions who obeyed men like
the defendant. We were dealing with a planner of a great crime, and
it has not been difficult for the law to seek out and punish those who
plan as well as those who obey. The law would indeed be derelict if
only those were punished who pulled the trigger to kill, or,
comparably speaking, ran a slave camp in which people worked an
84-hour week and dragged out a miserable existence under
conditions from which death was welcome relief.
This defendant cannot plead in truth that he did not know that
the use of slave labor was wrong. He cannot use even the technical
excuse, so common among the Nazis, that this was not illegal
because the Nazi law authorized it. Official sanction of slavery would
have been a law so evil that even the Nazi masters dared not
proclaim it. A search through the mass of decrees and
pronouncements which passed for law during the regime of Adolf
Hitler fails to reveal sanction for slavery of foreign laborers. On the
other hand, certain prohibitory laws survived from a more
respectable day.
Paragraph 234 of the German Criminal Law (published in 1942 in
Munich and Berlin, pp. 364-365) provides that “whoever seizes
another by ruse, threat or force in order to expose him in a state of
helplessness, or to deliver him into slavery, bondage, or a foreign
military or naval service shall be punished for kidnapping by
confinement in a penitentiary.” This law was in force during the Nazi
regime and was published in the most recent edition of German
Criminal Law which we have been able to find.
 That maltreatment was commonplace in the course of the
enforced labor program in Germany is well known; that starvation,
murder, and all types of personal abuses took place is notorious. All
of this was found as a fact in the decision of the International
Military Tribunal. There can be no question of the responsibility of
the defendant for the murders and privations which were the
inevitable byproduct of the slave-labor program.
But we need not follow the crime of slave labor down to its last
detail in order to show the defendant as the murderer he was. We
can and will prove that he directly participated in crimes of which
murder was often the intended and on numerous occasions the
inevitable result.
The prosecution charges, and will prove, that he took an
important, responsible, and essential part in the practice of
experiments upon human beings carried out against their wills and
in callous disregard of the lives of its victims.
Cut then to bare essentials the charges set forth in paragraphs 8
and 9 of count two of the indictment and in paragraph 11 of count
three can be summarized by the statement that the defendant was
officially connected with and took a consenting part in enterprises in
which criminal medical experiments were performed upon
involuntary subjects.
The nature and extent of these experiments and the fact that
they were conducted for the specific benefit of the Luftwaffe will be
shown in some detail. We will prove that the defendant was the
responsible Luftwaffe officer with ultimate supervisory authority over
the experiments. The Court will see that throughout the duration of
these experiments, the defendant was constantly treated by all
concerned as the ultimate authority within the Luftwaffe in control of
the experimental equipment and in charge of certain personnel who
were actively engaged in them.
Evidence will be presented which will prove that the defendant
was thoroughly informed of the criminal activities of Dr. Rascher, the
experimenter, and his associates. We will prove that a conference
was held at the defendant’s office, that films were shown there, that
communications were sent to him from highest Nazi sources which
specifically referred to opposition on the part of “narrow-minded
doctors” to the experiments. A web of evidence will be adduced to
portray the defendant, as he really was, an active partner in crime.
We will show that the defendant authorized the initiation of freezing
experiments and that he ordered an extension of the high-altitude
experiments for a period of 2 months, during which extended period
a number of experimental subjects died.
At the conclusion of the evidence with respect to the medical
experiments upon human beings there will remain no doubt that
Erhard Milch was a knowing, willing, and active participant in
murder.
Throughout the trial the prosecution will place before the Court a
number of statements which will portray him as a man who believed
no tears should be shed for the victims of total war when German
soldiers every day were making the ultimate sacrifice for the
Fatherland. This man was not a hard-headed, single-minded
production chief whose only problem was to get things done and
whose rash statements were the impetuous remarks of an over-
worked executive. Milch will be shown as a man who boasted of his
responsibility in the hanging of prisoners of war, who urged that any
effort on the part of foreign workers to strike during enemy action
should be met with rifle fire, who offered protection to slave
supervisors who should mistreat their subjects. We will show that he
was not too busy to inform himself fully of everything with which he
was officially connected and that over and above this he went out of
his way to learn the most minute details of matters with which he
was very remotely connected.
And now a brief word about the type of evidence with which the
prosecution will prove its case. It must be borne in mind that we are
not concerned with a single localized incident or with a series of
such incidents. The proof which we must show cannot be brought
forth from the daily events of ordered society. It must be drawn from
the cold ashes of a broken nation. The documents which will be
brought into Court have been taken from all corners of a continent.
They have one common feature which elevates them in the
hierarchy of evidence to a place above the story of sincere but
fallible eyewitnesses. These documents are official German records,
some of them records of the defendant’s own organizations. In some
cases they bear the defendant’s signature or his handwritten initials.
In every case they are authentic records compiled by Germans,
accurate because there was no reason for falsification or
exaggeration, thorough because of a national fetish for attention to
detail, reliable because they were made at times when the German
fortunes of war were high and their scriveners had no reason to fear
that one day they would be confronted with their hand-made
records of criminality.
It would seem that at this point there should be some discussion
of the various organizations with which the defendant was
connected.
We are concerned principally with that part of the OKW
(Oberkommando der Wehrmacht), Supreme Command of the Armed
Forces, known as the OKL (Oberkommando der Luftwaffe), the High
Command of the German Air Force. The Chief of the OKL was Reich
Marshal Hermann Goering. His Inspector General and State
Secretary in the Air Ministry was the defendant Erhard Milch. As
such, from July 1940, he held the rank of field marshal (comparable
to the American rank of general of the armies).[68]
The other two branches of the OKW with which we are
incidentally concerned were the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres),
High Command of the Army, and the OKM (Oberkommando der
Marine), High Command of the Navy. The army was commanded by
Field Marshal von Brauchitsch until December 1941, at which time it
was taken over by Hitler. The navy was commanded by Grand
Admiral [Admiral of the Fleet] Raeder until 1943, thereafter by Grand
Admiral Doenitz.
The Luftwaffe Medical Service came under this defendant in his
capacity as Inspector General of the Luftwaffe. The Medical Service
was headed by Dr. Erich Hippke until January 1944; thereafter it was
headed by Dr. Oskar Schroeder.
There was an experimental institute in Berlin called the DVL
which was a technical research institution for aero-research. This
was subordinate to the defendant in his position as
Generalluftzeugmeister.
We now turn to the Central Planning Board. This was established
by a Goering decree, pursuant to a Hitler order of 22 April, 1942.
The Board consisted of Albert Speer, Erhard Milch, and Paul Koerner.
Later, by a supplementary Goering decree, in September 1943,
Walter Funk was added to the Board. Speer and Milch were the
dominant members, and Koerner and Funk played comparatively
minor roles. The Central Planning Board was, in effect, a
consolidation of all controls over German war production. The Board
was found by the International Military Tribunal to have “had
supreme authority for the scheduling of German production and the
allocation and development of raw materials. * * *”[69] Hand in hand
with this goes the corollary of the procurement and allocation of
labor. Reich Marshal Goering, in his decree of 22 April, 1942, stated
in part——“It (the Central Planning Board) encompasses that which
is fundamental and vital. It makes unequivocal decisions and
supervises the execution of its directives”. The Central Planning
Board requisitioned labor from Sauckel with full knowledge that the
demands would be supplied by foreign forced labor, and the Board
determined the basic allocation of this labor within the German war
economy. Sauckel was the servant of the Central Planning Board in
the procurement of slave labor. There are records of some 50-odd
meetings of the Board between the time of its establishment in
1942, and 1945. The defendant was present at all but a few of these
meetings and on occasion his was the dominant voice. The
International Military Tribunal found that the Central Planning Board
determined the total number of laborers needed for German
industry, and required Sauckel to produce them, usually by
deportation from occupied territories.
It is worthy of note that Speer was appointed Reich Minister for
Armaments and Munitions on 2 February 1942, Sauckel was
appointed Plenipotentiary General for Labor Allocation on 21 March
1942, and the Central Planning Board was created on 22 April 1942.
 Turning now to the defendant’s position as Chief of the
Jaegerstab. The Jaegerstab was formed pursuant to a Speer decree
of 1 March 1944, for the purpose of increasing the production of
German fighter aircraft, which, because of effective and heavy raids
by strategic air forces of Great Britain and America, had suffered a
production decrease to a figure below 1,000 planes a month.
Because of this reduced production of fighter planes, Milch had
requested Speer to establish a commission to deal with this most
vital problem. The commission was created and Speer and Milch
were joint chiefs. The Jaegerstab was actually a group of experts,
drawn from the various phases of German industry and
supplemented by representatives of the various Ministries
concerned, such as Labor, Supply, Transportation, Power and Energy,
Raw Materials, Health, Repairs, and so forth.
Meetings were held almost daily, in the beginning at the Air
Ministry in Berlin and later at Tempelhof airfield in the same city. The
Jaegerstab functions were these: the quick repair of plants damaged
in bombing or strafing operations, the dispersal of German aircraft
plants, and the construction of underground factories for aircraft
production.
As it was with the Central Planning Board, so it was with the
Jaegerstab, a major problem was the procurement of slave labor.
The workers for the Jaegerstab were procured from the Sauckel
Ministry, from occupied countries, and from the SS, who supplied
concentration camp inmates and Hungarian Jews.
So successful was the work of the Jaegerstab that Speer decided
to enlarge its functions to include other phases of armament and
munitions production. Accordingly, on 1 August 1944, he issued a
decree expanding the functions of the Jaegerstab and changing its
name to Ruestungsstab.
The position of Generalluftzeugmeister was taken over by the
defendant in 1941, following the death of Colonel General Ernst
Udet. In this post the defendant was in charge of all technical
research in the Luftwaffe and his was the over-all responsibility for
all aircraft production. As such he spoke for the Luftwaffe in the
meetings of the Central Planning Board and in conferences with
Hitler. It is obvious that here again the procurement of labor was a
primary consideration for one who had the complete responsibility
for keeping the Luftwaffe in the air.
In the trial before the International Military Tribunal, it was
determined that 5,000,000 laborers were deported to Germany. Of
these, 4,800,000 did not come voluntarily.
The evidence will show that the defendant’s responsibility was as
great, if not greater, than was Sauckel’s. Erhard Milch raised his
voice in demanding that foreign labor be procured by any methods
and in advocating that cruel and repressive measures be taken by
those in charge of these laborers. There is no record of any
utterance by him, which can be offered as a mitigating circumstance
to his complete complicity in the criminality of the slave-labor
program.
The evidence on the altitude and freezing experiments will reveal
him as a man completely without concern for the welfare and lives
of the wretched, unwilling victims of the criminal tortures conducted
for the benefit of the Luftwaffe.
The series of trials, of which this is one, if it is to serve its
purpose in exposing and punishing the abuses of Nazidom, must
strike hard at the cores of savage German militarism and its
technical counterpart, industry for war. Erhard Milch is the foremost
example of the union between German militarism and German heavy
industry. What useful purpose is served by condemning these two
and allowing their sponsors, men like Milch, to go unpunished?
We take it as a fundamental proposition that man is not the
helpless product of his environment. Civilization is a lengthy
chronicle of men who triumphed over difficulty. Its survival depends
on the moral fibre of individuals who can use circumstance, not be
determined by it. If society must answer for the actions of men, and
not men for the course of society, then, indeed, governments are
our masters and not our servants; then, indeed, law dictates but
does not express justice. Erhard Milch lived during years of violence
and in an evil environment but he was a man well able to overcome
these factors and become a force for good. It was by his own free
choice that he followed the line of least resistance and became one
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