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Volume II · Page 798
2. That if they did not come voluntarily they were treated humanely, considerately, and were not subjected to any ill-treatment either in transportation or while actively employed for the Reich.
3. That if ill-treatment, fatal or otherwise, of foreign workmen occurred, the defendant was in no way responsible for such ill-treatment.
To the charges of responsibility for fatal medical experiments inflicted on involuntary subjects, the defendant replies substantially
1. That the high-altitude and freezing experiments were not painful to the subjects, nor did any illegal deaths result therefrom.
2. That if fatalities did occur, they were suffered by those already condemned to death, or were caused by persons over whom the defendant had no control.
3. That in any event, Milch was in no way officially connected with the illegal and fatal experiments.
The defense has affirmatively asserted that there was no slave labor in Germany during the war, or that if it did exist, its scope was negligible. The Tribunal finds that this assertion is not supported by the testimony in the case. It concludes, on the contrary, from the evidence presented at this trial that the German Reich during World War II did actively and plenarily employ slave labor. It further is of the opinion that the Third Reich used and abused slave labor to an extent and in a manner hitherto unknown in either modern or ancient history. The exploitation of human beings by Germany during the years of the war must take its place, in point of cruelty and inhumaneness, with the most iniquitous slave practices of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians. The building of the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of. Babylon, and other ancient landmarks under whip and lash have their modern counterpart in the German building of. the Western Wall, the Gothic Line, military fortifications, concentration camps, and munitions factories. The guilt of the German Reich is greater than that of the ancient empires because in that area of antiquity the immorality of human bondage was not universally accepted, whereas in 1939 no country in the sisterhood
