Fritz Sauckel

German Nazi politician and convicted war criminal (1894-1946) · Germany · Politicians · Died at 51

Fritz Sauckel is read about 708 times a day, in 45 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.

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He ran the machinery that fed German factories with slave labor. As Hitler's labor czar from 1942, Fritz Sauckel deported five million people from occupied Europe into forced work - by coercion, by quota, by whatever it took to keep the war machine running.

Politicians Politician Politics Germany Europe 20th Century

A life in dates

1946Died16 October 1946“What would you do if your country's welfare depended on labor? When a ship is in a storm it requires one captain.”In their words9 February 1946To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004 - Page 209.Read the whole statement

“Himmler, Bormann, and Goebbels, they were probably bad fellows.”In their words9 February 1946To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.Read the whole statement

“Only Communists and Social Democrats who acted against the state were incarcerated. Most of the Communists and Social Democrats I had known became Nazis later.”In their words9 February 1946To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.Read the whole statement

“I never burned down synagogues. It was a revolution, and Russians burned churches during their revolution.”In their words9 February 1946To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.Read the whole statement

“You must understand that the meaning of the word 'unemployed' in Germany is different than in America.”In their words9 February 1946To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.Read the whole statement

1943“Slaves who are underfed, diseased, resentful, despairing, and filled with hate will never yield that maximum of output which they might achieve under normal conditions.”In their wordsMarch 14, 1943 speech to Gauleiters. Quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 513 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997.Read the whole statement

1894Born27 October 1894

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Fritz Sauckel2

1931 Nazi Party event rally salute (cropped)

Leipzig International Fair 1937

Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-357-1885-13A, Paris, Breker-Ausstellung, Eröffnung

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J30388, Überführung italienischer Kriegsinternierter in Zivilarbeiterverhältnis

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-V01057-3, Nürnberger Prozess, Angeklagte

Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg Trials

German War Crimes Trials. Nuernberg & Dachau - NARA - 292601

In their own words 10

Fritz Sauckel

10 statements, newest first

What would you do if your country's welfare depended on labor? When a ship is in a storm it requires one captain.
Feb 9, 1946, To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004 - Page 209., Own words
Himmler, Bormann, and Goebbels, they were probably bad fellows.
Feb 9, 1946, To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004., Own words
I had nothing to do with concentration camps - Himmler's work. There was a labor minister, Ley, whose position is like your John Lewis in America.
Feb 9, 1946, To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004., Own words

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Awards

Golden Party Badge

Nazi Party Long Service Award

About this person

Born in Bavaria in 1894, Sauckel worked as a seaman and spent the First World War interned in France. He joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and built the organization in Thuringia, becoming Gauleiter there in 1927 and Reichsstatthalter in 1933 when Hitler took power. In March 1942 he was named General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment under Göring's Four Year Plan, a role that put him in charge of extracting workers from conquered territories to meet Germany's industrial demands. Over the next three years he oversaw the deportation of some five million people into forced labor, often through brutal coercion, and authorized the use of prisoners of war to fill the gaps. American troops arrested him in Salzburg in May 1945. At Nuremberg he was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, sentenced to death, and hanged on 16 October 1946.

Country

Germany