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Volume VI · Page 972
| Nazi government as a lever. The defendants Flick and Steinbrinck did
establish relations with Himmler at an early date: they continued to meet
regularly with Himmler and other notorious SS leaders right up to the end of
the war, and they did contribute substantial sums of money which became part of
the financial resources of the SS. All these basic facts charged in the
indictment have been conclusively proved and cannot, I believe, now be
seriously disputed. Essentially, therefore, the defense in this case is by way of confession and avoidance, or by way of demurrer. Private persons, as these defendants claim to be, are said to be beyond the reach of international penal law. This court is said to be unlawfully constituted and without jurisdiction. The defendants profess to have been ignorant, at first, that thousands of their employees were brought from distant lands against their will, and to have learned about this shocking circumstance only late in the war. Substandard and dangerous conditions of employment, and mistreatment, they say they know nothing of; anyhow, it wasn't so bad; anyhow, it was bad elsewhere, too; and anyhow they did all they could to ameliorate the situation. The plants and factories which they acquired in the occupied territories were seized by the government originally, and some other German concern would have had them had the defendants not undertaken the responsibility of managing them. As for the seizure of Jewish properties in Germany, that too was really the act of the government, and others might have driven an even harder bargain with the Jewish owners. As for the SS, Himmler was a dangerous man and when he asked for money the defendants thought it best to give it. However, they discussed only cultural matters with him and the other gentlemen of the SS, all of whom were disarmingly polite; and the defendants never suspected that the SS was committing the horrible crimes which have since been proved. Anyhow, say the defendants, we were just businessmen. Life under Hitler was a difficult and dangerous thing, especially for a prominent businessman. Whatever we did that now seems reprehensible was done out of fear. Thus do the defendants seek to cloak their motives and justify or apologize for their actions. Many of these purported defenses submitted are untrue, others are irrelevant and ephemeral. The whole pattern disintegrates under analysis of the law and the facts, like a cobweb on a housewife's broom. Much more insidious, I believe, is the deadening effect on the mind of endless weeks spent with these defendants and their witnesses and documents. The trial has unfolded in this courtroom a cross section of life in Germany under the Third Reich. During these long months we have lived in a world where all the normal moral standards and human values are inverted. War is a whole- […some] |
