voiced his opinion that many slave laborers who
claimed to be sick were malingerers and stated: "There is
nothing to be said against SS and police taking drastic steps and
putting those known as slackers into concentration camps."
Speer, however, insisted that the slave laborers be given adequate
food and working conditions so that they could work efficiently.
In mitigation it must be recognized that Speer's establishment of
blocked industries did keep many laborers in their homes and that in
the closing stages of the war he was one of the few men who had the
courage to tell Hitler that the war was lost and to take steps to
prevent the senseless destruction of production facilities, both in
occupied territories and in Germany. He carried out his opposition to
Hitler's scorched earth program in some of the Western countries and
in Germany by deliberately sabotaging it at considerable personal
risk.
Conclusion
The Tribunal finds that Speer is not guilty on
Counts One and Two, but is guilty under Counts Three and Four.
VON NEURATH
Von Neurath is indicted under all four Counts.
He is a professional diplomat who served as German Ambassador to
Great Britain from 1930 to 1932. On 2 June 1932 he was appointed
Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Von Papen Cabinet, a position
which he held under the Cabinets of Von Schleicher and Hitler. Von
Neurath resigned as Minister of Foreign Affairs on 4 February 1938,
and was made Reich Minister without Portfolio, President of the
Secret Cabinet Council, and a member of the Reich Defense Council. On
18 March 1939 he was appointed Reich Protector for Bohemia and
Moravia, and served in this capacity until 27 September 1941. He held
the formal rank of Obergruppenführer in the SS.
Crimes against Peace
As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Von Neurath
advised Hitler in connection with the withdrawal from the Disarmament
Conference and the League of Nations on 14 October 1933, the
institution of rearmament, the passage on 16 March 1935 of the law
for universal military service, and the passage on 21 May 1935 of the
secret Reich Defense Law. He was a key figure in the negotiation of
the Naval Accord entered into between Germany and England on 18 June
1935. He played an important part in Hitler's decision to reoccupy
the Rhineland on 7 March 1936, and predicted that the occupation
could be carried through without any reprisals from the French. On 18
May 1936 he told the American Ambassador to France that it