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| III. OPENING STATEMENTS |
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| A. Introduction |
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This section includes the full text of the opening statement of
the prosecution and the opening statements on behalf of each of the 23
defendants who stood trial. Actually counsel for defendant Kuehne stated that
he did not wish to make an opening statement, but since his announcement refers
to a pending motion for acquittal and his intentions in case the motion should
be denied, this announcement is reproduced here with the opening statements for
the other defendants. The prosecution was allotted one day for its opening
statement and the defense two days.
Argument in the Farben case was
more extensive than in any other Nuernberg trial, with the exception of the
Ministries case (see vols. XII-XIV, this series). Apart from the opening
statements and the even more lengthy closing statements (see section XI, vol.
VIII), there were numerous interlocutory motions and answers of great length,
some supported by separate briefs, and the opposing parties both submitted
lengthy final briefs after the close of the evidence. Only a relatively small
part of this total argumentation is reproduced herein. The opening statements
have been reproduced in full for several reasons: firstly, these openings
afford introductory material on almost every aspect of the charges and should
make more readily understandable the relevance of the selections from the
evidence which is reproduced in ensuing sections; secondly, this argumentation
at least illustrates the issues which developed on certain of the charges upon
which it has been impossible to include evidence herein for reasons of
limitation of space; thirdly, since space limitations made it impossible to
print in full both the opening and closing statements, it was thought
preferable to print the openings in full and to reproduce only extracts from
the closing statements (see section XI, vol. VIII). |
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