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Volume V · Page 1231
in Croatia and again place him at the disposal of Gau Wartheland. |
| Volk would have the world believe that he knew nothing about concentration camps. On 12 January 1942, he wrote a memorandum on the Stutthof concentration camp project. The memo contained the following paragraph: |
"The Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe G.m.b.H. get from the forestry administration the ground which is necessary for building the concentration camp. The square meter for this, according to the preliminary negotiations, shall cost 0.15 RM. As soon as the Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe has obtained the ground they sell the entire concentration camp — insofar as it is built by this time — to the Reich at the estimated price." |
| No intelligent person could fail to know in
1942 that concentration camps under the Reich were places where people were not
only denied their liberty but subjected to cruel and degrading treatment,
perilous to health, limb, and life. Defense counsel argues that Volk contracted with the DWB for his services because otherwise he would have had to do military service. But when it became evident to him that DWB was engaged in a criminal enterprise, he could at any time have denounced his contract and entered the military service. He cannot absolve himself from criminal responsibility by complaining that if he had not taken the civilian work he would have had to join the colors. Many of his countrymen were themselves being called to the military service. In time of war no one's life is a bed of roses, but one can at least keep one's conscience clean and avoid the stigma of war crime by declining to participate in obvious crimes against humanity. Defense counsel argues: |
"If he had been an important man in Amtsgruppe W, as the reasoning of the judgment tries to show, he would necessarily have had a military service grade which would have enabled him to issue instructions to the individual office chiefs." |
| In the first place, the grade of army
captain is not an insignificant one, and in the second place, Volk's crime does
not arise out of his having given orders to any one, but consists of his
voluntary participation in a criminal project. It is denied that Volk had anything to do with the OSTI enterprise or the Action Reinhardt. The judgment does not con- […vict] |
