 |
It was inherent in the nature of the Nuernberg trials that the
defense often, and even predominantly, could only produce witnesses who, to a
certain degree, were witnesses on their own behalf because they were "in on
it." I shall try — I hope it will be technically possible — to bring
in witnesses who at some time or other were first deprived of their
professional status and of their jobs, and subsequently persecuted by the Nazis
in the Third Reich.
Your Honors, I hope to show you, in the course of
my presentation of evidence, that there can be no question of guilt, let alone
of criminal guilt, but only of tragedy. Whoever lived in a state such as the
Third Reich, and moreover occupied a prominent position in economic life, could
not prevent the shadows of those iniquitous doings from affecting his own
sphere of life. Nobody has known this better than the man whose authority is
unchallenged and recognized by all constitutions and institutions based on
Christian theology, namely Saint Augustine, who, in his book "De Civitate
Dei," wrote: |
| |
"What matters it under what
government mortal man lives as long as those who govern do not force those they
govern to do godless and unjust things." |
| Well, the defendants lived in the Third Reich under a government
which forced those they governed to do godless things. I hope to establish
before the Tribunal, in the course of the presentation of the evidence
entrusted to me by the body of the defense counsel, that this was the tragic
shadow I mentioned and, by the same token, the tragedy of the defendants —
but not their guilt under penal or ethical laws. Under these assumptions, I
will present to the Tribunal the proof which has been entrusted to me by all
the defense counsel. |
| |
| E. Opening Statement for Defendant von
Schnitzler* |
| |
DR. SIEMERS (counsel for defendant Georg von Schnitzler):
Your Honors, Dr. Siemers, counsel for the defendant Dr. Georg von
Schnitzler. Your Honors: Having completed the work in the first big Nuernberg
industrial case, the Flick case, together with five other defense counsel
(although I shall not know the result until the publication of the impending
verdict), I shall now attempt to continue the defense of the German economy and
|
__________
* Tr. pages 4780-4745, 18
December 1947. The final statement of defendant von Schnitzler to the Tribunal
appears in section XII B 3. volume VIII, this series.
222 |
. 
