. NMT05-T0276
Volume V · Page 276
| [organiza…] tion by verdict
of the International Military Tribunal. In the presentation of evidence on this
count, opportunity will be given to observe the career of the defendant, and to
show the reasons which induced him as a paymaster official in the navy, to
become a member of the National Socialist Party, and what circumstances led him
to leave the navy in 1934 and to take over a high office for the purpose of
building up the SS administration. Your Honor, I would like to add at this time that the main point of defense in the case of Oswald Pohl is based on the examination of the defendant Oswald Pohl himself at the witness stand. That, furthermore, I would like to start presentation of evidence in the examination of the defendant Oswald Pohl, and I would also like to call a few other witnesses with permission of this Tribunal after his examination. |
| C. Opening Statement for Defendant Georg Loerner* |
| LEGAL ASPECTS |
| DR. HAENSEL : I consider it my duty to show
you in a few brief words the trend to be adhered to in the defense of Georg
Loerner. The greatest essayist, Lord Macaulay was of the opinion that the
history of the world was a trial, in which the past is brought to trial before
the present. The Nuernberg trials, beginning with the war crimes trial before
the International Military Tribunal, are not intended to be trials in this
sense, but real criminal proceedings, because they sentence people to
punishment. The proceedings and the manner in which the law is applied, should
therefore be no different from that of a normal case, where the particular deed
of one or several people is to be judged by the laws recognized as legally
binding for all. "Some 20 broken men are sitting in the dock", said Robert H. Jackson, Chief Prosecutor for the United States in his opening speech on 21 November 1945. "Taken individually, their fate is of little account. But as the defendants represent the evil forces which for a long time to come will linger in the world, even when they have become dust, this trial is therefore of much importance." As in the case of the IMT trial, the following results from the reasons and the evidence submitted by the prosecution: More has been submitted than is perhaps necessary for a direct basis for a verdict of guilt for the individual defendants, because the "evil forces" are behind the defendants, and their ominous actions must be revealed and rendered harmless together with the defendants. |
* Opening statement is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 14 May 1947, pp. 1178-1184.
