UNEQUAL JUDGMENT: ALBERT SPEER AND FRITZ SAUCKEL AT NUREMBERG COMPARED

Abstract

Defendants Albert Speer and Fritz Sauckel were charged at Nuremberg for special responsibility of using slave labour in the German war machine. As the man in charge of labour allocation, Sauckel had brought foreign workers into Germany through violent and forcible means. Speer, the Minister of armaments and munitions production, had used prisoners of war in his armaments industries, a clear breach of the Geneva Convention. Speer was arguably the most important man in the Third Reich as he directed the war economy and decided on priorities and the quantity of production. In order to maintain armaments production in the war industries Speer demanded from Sauckel, at least hundreds of thousands of workers. This is jarring with the judgments of Nuremberg, where Sauckel was condemned to death but Speer given twenty years imprisonment. This raises the question, why did Speer get off the hook with a lighter sentence, when he had exploited the labour he demanded from Sauckel, and pressured Sauckel to hand him quotas of workers? A myriad number of reasons offer the answers to this question. Speer was more astute, adaptable and contrite than Sauckel. By Mar 1946, the prosecution had lost its spark, and it showed on Speer's cross-examination for he was let off on vital points of the case. The evidence against Sauckel left little doubt for the tribunal in assessing his guilt. His unpalatable personality in contrast to Speer's intelligent and fascinating fa9ade made him less popular and respected in court, in part contributing to the reluctance of the tribunal to find mitigating factors for Sauckel. Speer's secret deal with the Americans suggests another reason as to how he saved his neck from the gallows.