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Volume VI · Page 162
| Bavaria, stated that the greatest
insufficiency of the Germans in the past months lay in the fact that they had
not worked out any plans for industrial development. Planning for German
economy must not be left entirely to the government, since it lacked experts
with sufficient experience and the knack to unravel the complicated and
extensive plans. I offer no opinion as to whether this criticism of Mr. Dayton concerning German industry is justified. But in any case I have the impression that Mr. Dayton is not in close contact with the American prosecuting authorities. For, otherwise, he would know that the prosecuting authorities started an anticapitalist campaign against German economy 2 years ago, and in connection with that arrested the majority of the leading German industrialists who, to a great extent, are still in custody. It is, after all, no wonder if these measures which were greeted joyfully by the Communists and the anticapitalist eastern states, worked out most unfavorably for the development of German economy. It is this very criticism uttered by the American Military Government which shows how problematic and how dangerous is the procedure of the prosecuting authorities. It must be clearly recognized and explicitly stated that the industrial trials planned by Justice Jackson and conducted by or in the process of being prepared by General Taylor, represent no criminal proceedings against a few industrialists, but are basically an attack against the whole German economy. This results from the extraordinarily comprehensive forms of participation specified in Control Council Law No. 10, Article II. According to the argument of the indictment, a hundred thousand German industrialists, employees, and workers are war criminals, because they have been involved in some way or other in so-called slave labor and in employment of prisoners of war. It corresponds absolutely to general humane feeling if these people are called to account who have themselves committed crimes against humanity. But it is incomprehensible when the charge is not made against real criminals but, purely for reasons of international law, against industrialists whose guilt lies in that they were industrialists and not powerful enough to oppose the measures of a dictatorial government. 1. For the first time in the history of law, here in this trial, industrialists — that is private persons — stand before the court because they are alleged to have violated international law. I consider this legally inadmissible. All previous international treaties, as for instance the Hague Convention on Land Warfare of 1907, and the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 1929, were directed at the State, and not at |
