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Volume VI · Page 1042
| still have been enslaved, and the orders would have been filled. Why,
we are asked, should Flick or the other defendants have sacrificed themselves
to a futile martyrdom? We have expressed our view that, in the light of the record in this case, these questions are highly academic. There has not emerged the picture of a Flick who, even assuming the State would not have harmed him, would have preferred to see his plants stand idle in order to avoid the stigma of slave labor. We doubt that the defendants ever devoted much thought to the perplexing questions posed by Dr. Kraus, and we are certain that they have never been preoccupied with the possibilities of martyrdom. Nevertheless, this question merits reflection. The answer is, we submit, not so difficult as would appear at first blush. The question assumes the existence of a highly difficult and dangerous situation without paying any regard to how that situation came about. Germany would not have launched the war if it had not been known that armament orders would be filled; slave laborers would [not] have been brought to Germany if it had not been known that industrialists would use them to fill the armament orders. Flick and others like him did not suddenly wake I up one morning to find themselves in this desperate predicament; on the contrary, they worked themselves into it over the course of many years. We may well answer the question with another: If the defendants and others like them had not given money in furtherance of Hitler's election in 1933, if they had not curried favor with Himmler and Goering, if they had not carefully woven themselves ever closer into the economic hierarchy of the Third Reich, if they had not subordinated everything else to the maintenance of their leading positions, would they have ever found themselves I faced with the problem which Dr. Kraus' rhetorical question poses? This is a situation, in fact, which is encountered in criminal law time and time again. A succession of slips, mistakes, and minor offenses often leads a man into a desperate situation in which he is confronted with grave risks if he does not continue to walk the path of crime. Obviously, the acute dilemma which we are asked to suppose confronted these defendants would have been an even greater dilemma for Himmler or Goering or Goebbels, or anyone in the Third Reich except Hitler. Surely it is true that if Himmler had suddenly been overcome by remorse, say, in 1941, undoubtedly someone else would have stepped into his shoes and acted much as Himmler did for the remaining years of the Third Reich. And it may be doubted whether Himmler would have been allowed to settle down peaceably to repent his sins. In short, if we are to give the defendants the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have ever felt any qualms concerning |
