. NMT05-T0263
Volume V · Page 263
| with regard to its period of
initiation and its purpose. The indictment is restricted essentially to legal
arguments in general the center of which is the Economic and Administrative
Main Office under the defendant Oswald Pohl. The indictment itself contains no reference to the legal provisions on which, in count one of the indictment, the maintained common plan has its legal basis. Therefore, the question as to whether the Control Council Law No. 10 can provide legal reasoning for this count of the indictment must be examined. In consideration of the fact that in Control Council Law No. 10 of 20 December 1945, paragraph 1, the London Agreement, dated 8 August 1945, relating to the prosecution and punishment of major war criminals of the European Axis powers, has been incorporated as an inseparable part of this law, the statute for the International Military Tribunal must also be referred to when examining this question, since this statute on the other hand, represents an essential part of the London Agreement of 8 August 1945. Just as in the present trial, the prosecutors of the four signatory powers of the London Agreement, in the trial against Hermann Goering and others, have regarded the "common plan or the conspiracy" as an independent count of the indictment and as a major count in the center of the indictment. The indictment described the purpose of this common plan as not only a preparation for a war of aggression but also the planning of war crimes against humanity. The prosecution is opposed to this, and the International Military Tribunal also has decided in its verdict of 20 September 1946, that the statute does not warrant an extension of the common plan of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The International Military Tribunal, in its verdict has stated the following: |
"Count one of the indictment covers not only the conspiracy for the purpose of conducting aggressive warfare, but also the conspiracy for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Apart from the conspiracy of conducting aggressive warfare, the statute does not describe any kind of conspiracy as an especial crime. Article 6 of the statute provides for: |
