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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
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