. NMT02-T0771
Volume II · Page 771
serious criticism. I myself here attacked one point of this verdict with better witnesses and better evidence, that with regard to slave labor, for example, the International Military Tribunal based itself upon a wrong assumption. Nobody stated there that the U.S.S.R. had called off the Hague Convention of Land. Warfare. I checked up on those features of defense, and I found that all the time it was only talk that the U.S.S.R. had not become a partner of the convention. The statement of von Neurath revealed that notice of withdrawal was expressly given.
Here we not only pronounce penalty verdicts or judgment, but also political judgments, whether we want to or not. Especially in politics there is always some fluctuation. Every day new facts turn up, which throw different light upon things. The distance of time which always grows greater and greater and separates us from the irritating events of the past allows an ever clearer judgment. The man who returns from battle is always confused. The more he becomes calm the more he admits justice towards his enemy.
Honorable Judges of this Tribunal, when you judge please don't forget the whole personality of Milch. He always concerned himself as a good and noble man, and I am not only convinced of that as his counsel but also as a human being. The world would have a different outlook if his superiors had listened to his advice, which was intended to serve the people of this world, and the common will of the people, and peace. In his heart he always took the side of the fighter who fought for united Europe, which now has been joined also by his former enemy number one, Churchill. May this statement of Milch which has thrown new light upon things serve this aim. Poor and tortured Europe needs an enduring peace. May his statements also open the eyes of those among the German people who still cannot give up their misconceptions of many years, and show them what crime has been committed against them.
But you, Honorable Judges, must recognize from the attitude of the defendant Milch that he never became unfaithful to himself, and even if he had been perhaps under the spell of erroneous conception, he has always wanted the best for his and other people.
I have profound confidence in you, Honorable Judges, that you, equally detached from your own people, will find an independent, true and righteous judgment that corresponds to the truth. I shall consider it as an honor for my person if I have contributed to this through my painstaking labor.
