. NMT04-T0694
Volume IV · Page 694
| other peoples and nations. To the successful fulfillment of this program, all of the defendants in the dock devoted their untiring efforts and abilities. Each held a position of responsibility which was endowed with the power to decide the fate of men and to destroy all which interfered with their conception of a Germanic world. For their crimes we seek from this Tribunal a just restriction and a reaffirmation of man's right to live in peace and dignity under the law. |
| B. Opening Statement for Defendant Greifelt* |
| DR. CARL HAENSEL: The defendant Greifelt is
charged with having participated in genocide, having committed or instigated
atrocities which include, but not exclusively, murder, extermination, slavery,
deportation, and other inhuman actions. The events, which alone are the subject
of this trial according to international law, took place during the war from
1939 to 1945. We all experienced a terrible tragedy. The statistics tell us that during the time after 1 September 1939, nearly thirty million human beings have perished or suffered injury to their health. The statistics cannot register what immeasurable misery further millions of human beings, one can rightly say the whole of mankind, had to suffer. It was a time of war. "War is a rough and violent occupation", says the German poet Friedrich Schiller. Nevertheless, it is a recognized institution of international law. In all text books dealing with international law, the laws of war are treated. All the actions of mankind are divided and enigmatic. Mankind has acknowledged a condition which permits the killing of human beings, the taking away of their property, the depriving of their liberty. Therefore, there is not yet sufficient proof shown for a crime if an indictment describes the violation of life, liberty, and property of members of a state involved in war at this time and, on the other hand, states that a man, a member of another belligerent state, wore a uniform or issued orders which set in motion other wearers of uniforms, also not in the case of an aggressive war, which makes its instigators responsible according to the verdict of the IMT. Only these are personally responsible. For all others, soldiers as well as administrative officers, the fact of the outbreak of war is a protection against the charge of illegality, that is, for all violations of alien life or property caused by the exigencies of war. In the much discussed verdict of the Kiel Appellate Court of 21 March 1947, which, however, has also been recognized in principle by the occupation authorities, it says, and I quote — |
* Tr. pp. 1230-1255, 20 November 1947.
