. NMT05-T0163
Volume V · Page 163
| the indictment, namely, the kidnaping of
alien children, taking, away infants of Eastern workers, and the plunder of
public and private property. With two of these specifications we have already
dealt. We now consider the charge concerning the kidnaping of alien children.
It is quite clear from the evidence that the Lebensborn Society, which existed long prior to the war, was a welfare institution, and primarily a maternity home. From the beginning, it cared for mothers, both married and unmarried, and children, both legitimate and illegitimate. The prosecution has failed to prove with the requisite certainty the participation of Lebensborn, and the defendants connected therewith, in the kidnaping program conducted by the Nazis. While the evidence has disclosed that thousands upon thousands of children were unquestionably kidnaped by other agencies or organizations and brought into Germany, the evidence has further disclosed that only a small percentage of the total number ever found their way into Lebensborn. And of this number only in isolated instances did Lebensborn take children who had a living parent. The majority of those children in any way connected with Lebensborn were orphans of ethnic Germans. As a matter of fact, it is quite clear from the evidence that Lebensborn sought to avoid taking into its homes, children who had family ties; and Lebensborn went to the extent of making extensive investigations where the records were inadequate, to establish the identity of a child and whether it had family ties. When it was discovered that the child had a living parent, Lebensborn did not proceed with an adoption, as in the case of orphans, but simply allowed the child to be placed in a German home after an investigation of the German family for the purpose of determining the good character of the family and the suitability of the family to care for and raise the child. Lebensborn made no practice of selecting and examining foreign children. In all instances where foreign children were handed over to Lebensborn by other organizations after a selection and examination the children were given the best of care and never ill-treated in any manner. It is quite clear from the evidence that of the numerous organizations operating in Germany who were connected with foreign children brought into Germany, Lebensborn was the one organization which did everything in its power to adequately provide for the children and protect the legal interests of the children placed in its care. Upon the evidence submitted, the defendant Sollmann is found not guilty on counts one and two of the indictment. |
