 |
| L. Opening Statement for Defendant
Buetefisch* |
| |
Du. HANS FLAECHSNER (counsel for defendant Buetefisch): Your Honors:
The prosecution has sketched, or rather, has tried to sketch, a picture of the
accused Vorstand members of I.G. Farbenindustrie; a picture which is abounding
in mistakes in perspective, misconstructions, misrepresentations, and
distortions. From its viewpoint, the prosecution arrives at judgments which are
in no way justified by actual facts. The accused were men "who stopped at
nothing." These were the words of the chief prosecutor when referring to them
in his opening statement. He accuses them of "unmitigated presumption and
unbounded scorn for the laws of God and man," and further maintains that "they
judged themselves alone as fit to sway the destiny of the world. All their
judgments sprang from a bottomless vanity and an insatiable ambition." And
finally, he says: "They made power their only and highest God." Such
accusations and recriminations are heard throughout the whole of the
prosecution's speech. What is there in it, on the other hand, that is true? I
cannot concern myself here with the accused as a group, but shall confine
myself to the accusations levelled at the accused Dr. Buetefisch, whom I
represent, with reference to his activities within IG.
He has been a
member of IG for 25 years. First in the laboratory, and then, as works
assistant in the Leuna plant, he advanced until he finally took over, together
with his colleague Schneider, the entire management of the Leuna plant, a post
which he filled until 1945. It is the career of a gifted, capable chemist and
technician, whose life was taken up with the development and extension of
chemical synthesis in the sphere of coal, which, in the course of the
prosecution's speech, became known to the Court as the sphere of production of
Sparte I. The scope of the duties undertaken by Dr. Buetefisch and his gradual
rise in this great field of research, development, and technical expansion
cannot be deduced from the record of his promotions to new positions within IG.
It rather developed organically and grew, with the ability to recognize
technical possibilities in any sphere, to direct their development, to appraise
them properly, and to organize their utilization. In a large and leading
chemical firm such as I.G. Farbenindustrie, people with such ability could
become specialists in their particular fields and be recognized as experts, not
only inside Germany, but as first class specialists beyond the boundaries of
the Reich. It can indeed be said that Dr. Buetefisch was considered as such a
technical expert in the field of nitrogen, |
__________
* Tr. pages 4814-4821, 18
December 1947.
281 |
. 
