. NMT06-T0160
Volume VI · Page 160
These examples alone show to what a disproportionate and thus unjust result the interpretation of the prosecution would lead, if one were willing to follow it. I am therefore of the opinion that purely from a legal consideration a condemnation of my client also on this count cannot take place. The submission of evidence on the part of the defense will, however, also prove from the point of view of actual fact that in all the four cases of Aryanization there existed no punishable circumstance; and the defense submits that if such should have existed, Konrad Kaletsch took no part in it. The prosecution has based its criminal judgment for this count of the indictment on the assertion that the nature of the crime in this case was the pressure which was exercised against the owner of the Jewish property in order to force him to sell. These statements are made in the opening speech of the prosecution in the case of Julius Petschek, where it is pointed out that "it is immaterial whether the seller receives an adequate price or not." Also in another passage, namely, concerning the acquisition of the Hochofenwerk Luebeck, this point of view is set forth as decisive for criminal judgment, when it says of the Luebeck transaction, "The pressure was as yet not so very great." The establishment of this criterion ought, in my opinion, to prove decisive for a penal judgment. The fact that Jewish property was sold at all during that period and acquired by non-Jewish persons in Germany, can never, considered by itself, be regarded as a crime against humanity. On a great number of occasions, Jewish owners asked their business friends and acquaintances to take over their property, and these businesses were liquidated in a way corresponding to the circumstances of that period which satisfied both parties. Decisive for a penal judgment from the viewpoint of a crime against humanity could thus be, if anything, only the method in which the transaction was carried out in these cases. For the accusation of my client, Konrad Kaletsch, it is therefore necessary to prove that he — (1) took any part in these negotiations and, (2) that pressure was exerted by him on the other partner in the negotiation, or that he supported pressure or approved of it in a legally relevant way. I shall in my submission of evidence furnish proof that there was no punishable form of participation in these transactions on the part of my client. The mere fact that my client, at the conclusion of the decisive negotiations, in accordance with the duties of his department, worked on the technical financial liquidation and, in the case of Julius Petschek, signed the agreement with the United Continental Corporation, can never, considered by itself, make him |
