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Volume V · Page 1173
| [oppor…] tunity to cross-examine the affiants or submit counter affidavits its or other impeaching proof. The Tribunal has clearly stated that it would review the record as it stood on 22 September 1947 when the prosecution and the defense rested their cases. |
| POHL |
| An elaborate and complex operation, such as the deportation and extermination of the Jews and the appropriation of all their property, is obviously a task for more than one man. Launching or promulgating such a program may originate in the mind of one man or a group of men. Working out the details of the plan may fall to another. Procurement of personnel and the issuing actual operational orders may fall to others. The actual execution of the plan in the field involves the operation of another, or it may be several other persons or groups. Marshaling and distributing the loot, or allocating the victims, is another phase of the operation which may be entrusted to an individual or a group far removed from the original planners. As may be expected, we find the various participants in the program tossing the shuttle-cock of responsibility from one to the other. The originator says: "It is true that I thought of the program, but I did not carry it out." The next in line says: "It is true I laid the plan out on paper and designated the modus operandi, but it was not my plan, and I did not actually carry it out." The third in line says: "It is true I shot people, but I was merely carrying out orders from above." The next in line says: "It is true that I received the loot from this program and inventoried it and disposed of it, but I did not steal it nor kill the owners of it. I was only carrying out orders from a higher level." To invoke a parallelism, let us assume that four men are charged with robbing a bank. The first makes a preliminary observation, draws a ground sketch of the bank and of the best means of escape. The second drives the others to the bank at the time of the robbery and spirits them away after its completion. The third actually enters the bank and at the point of a gun steals the money. The fourth undertakes to hide or dispose of the loot, with knowledge of its origin. Under these circumstances, the acts of any one of the four, within the scope of the over-all plan, become the acts of all the others. Control Council Law No. 10 recognizes this principle of confederacy when it provides in Article II paragraph 2 "any person * * * is deemed to have committed a crime as defined in paragraph 1 of this Article,, if he was (a) a principal or (b) was an accessory to the commission of any such crime or ordered or abetted the same or (c) took a consenting part therein or (d) was connected with plans |
