. NMT05-T0991
Volume V · Page 991
| As will be observed, OSTI was simply another
manifestation of the policy of slave labor and appropriation of private
property. Linked with Action Reinhardt, it was the consummation of the Reich
plan to leave the occupied Eastern countries as vast stretches of scorched
earth. In the OSTI phase of this plan, Pohl had even a more direct connection
than he had with Action Reinhardt. Here he was the directing head and the chief
executive of the project. As an original incorporator, he was in it from its
inception and he actively participated in every phase of it until its
liquidation. This being true, he was guilty of war crimes and crimes against
humanity. Under a plan which was perhaps devised to give some semblance of legality to this inherently lawless plan, Pohl was designated as a trustee of the properties seized in the East and operated by OSTI. This was a strange species of trusteeship. All of the interests of the trustee were violently opposed to those of the cestius qui trustent. The recognized concept of a trustee is that he stands in the shoes of his beneficiaries and acts for their benefit and in opposition to any encroachment on their rights. Here, however, the trustee was in the service of adverse interests and acted at all times under an impelling motive to serve those interests at the expense of his beneficiaries. Actually, the trusteeship was pure fiction. It cannot be believed that it was ever the plan of the Reich to return any of the confiscated property to its former Jewish owners, most of whom had fled and disappeared, or had been exterminated. The only probative value of this fictitious trusteeship is to furnish another cord to bind Pohl closer to OSTI's criminal purposes. In an attempt at partial exculpation, Pohl has submitted in evidence (Pohl 3, Pohl Ex. 2) a decree, dated 28 February 1933, signed by Reich President von Hindenburg and Chancellor Hitler, suspending the provisions of the Weimar Constitution, which guaranteed personal freedom, freedom of speech and of the press, the right of assembly, privacy of communication, and immunity from search. The Secret State Police were given almost unlimited power over persons and property, independent of any obligations and free from restraint or review. They became the supreme authority of the land. This tyrannical agency was the partner of WVHA in the administration of the concentration camps. Upon the promulgation of this decree, Germany became a police state and the liberty and lives of all German citizens were dependent upon the whims of men like Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner. It is to be assumed that if this is the kind of national government the people of Germany preferred, they were entitled to it. If they consented to surrender their human liberties to a police force, that was their |
