SAUCKEL ANGRY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 195, 31 May 1946, Page 3

SAUCKEL ANGRY

CONFESSION READ IN COURT SIGNED UNDER DURESS IS CLAIM (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 9.30) NUREMBERG, May 30. Glaring angrily, Fritz Sauckel, Nazi slave labour chief, told the War Crimes Tribunal that the document in which he confessed 100 per cent, belief and blind support for Hitler’s- plan of race mastery for Europe was obtained from him under duress. “I was told that if I hesitated too long in signing I would be turned over to the Russians and my family transferred to Russian territory,” he said. “Thinking of my 10 children, I signed the document. I now dispute every sentence of it.” It was a Polish or Russian officer who made the threat, Sauckel said. He was forced to sign the statement before two American officers before he had time to study it. Sauckel looked furious whe*n his statement was read, fidgeting and grimacing in his impatience to explain. He said: “I meant I was 100 per cent, for a social programme for the German people. All the sentences are wrong and do not read in the way I would read them.”