. NMT06-T0152
Volume VI · Page 152
| at the same time, that the plants had not the
slightest influence on whether, in any country, workers were forcibly recruited
or not. As the prosecution tries to prove participation in the criminal slave program by membership in certain economic organizations, I shall deal with the tasks of these organizations, as far as these are of importance in this context. As the prosecution still maintains its charge in this point only against Dr. Flick, I shall to this extent speak for this defendant in agreement with Dr. Dix and with the consent of the Tribunal. In doing so I shall confine myself to the Economic Group Iron Producing Industry and to the Reich Association Iron, while Dr. Siemers will deal with the Reich Association Coal. My evidence will show that the Economic Group Iron Producing Industry lost its significance completely after the foundation of the Reich Association Iron in 1942. The Reich Association Iron was concerned with problems of quite a different nature than those of allocation of labor, and I shall furnish proof of this with both documents and witnesses. In recalling the powerful words of the prosecution with which it lashed out against the criminal method of the slave-labor program during the indictment and during the opening speech, it can already be established after the case-in-chief of the prosecution, that of those allegations very little has remained concerning the plants of the Flick group. In presenting our own case in chief this will dwindle down to such an extent, that any participation in a criminal setup will be out of the question. On this point too we have distributed the work among us. While Dr. Siemers will deal with conditions existing in the hard coal and finishing group, and Dr. Pelckmann will examine the Maxhuette and its affiliated subsidiaries, my own evidence will take up the plants of the iron producing and the soft coal group. It will deal, in particular, with the allocation of concentration camp inmates to Groeditz, and the alleged ill-treatment of prisoners of war in Lauchhammer. It will further deal with the treatment of foreign workers in the Havel group in Spandau and Brandenburg. Finally, we shall give particular attention to the remarkable statements made by the witness Voytovitch concerning Rombach, that witness who used to wash herself every morning in her tears. At this point reference should perhaps be made to the almost insurmountable difficulties which present themselves to the procuring of evidence concerning the above-mentioned plants. For these plants are either in the Soviet Zone of Occupation or in France. Hence, they are practically inaccessible to the defense Individuals who could make exonerating statements are silent for |
