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which will set to rights the evidence submitted by the prosecution on
the most essential points.
In order to be able to include my client in
the charges, an attempt is being made to make him responsible in general for
questions of labor allocation.
Quite independently of the examination
of the factual prosecution evidence, it will be the task of the defense to
investigate to what extent responsibility for the events submitted by the
prosecution can be deduced from Dr. Buetefisch's sphere of work. On this
matter, due consideration will have to be given to the far-reaching division of
labor within the Vorstand and the allocation of tasks to the administrators of
the individual factories within IG, which were the main factors in making the
work of the whole enterprise possible. In my presentation of evidence, I shall
bring proof that my client, within the limits of the functions and tasks
entrusted to him, did everything in his power, through the selection and
surveillance of the supervisors or Betriebsfuehrer assigned by him, or through
the administration of the Sparten, to make sure that the orderly administration
of the plants was achieved. The various Betriebsfuehrer will, moreover, give
evidence that the plant management was indeed carried out in a proper and fair
manner; any divergence from the faultless conduct of the IG would otherwise
have been brought to the attention of my client or of the Sparte
administration.
In my client's well-defined sphere of work for the
technical and organizational interest of Sparte I within IG, he had no
decisions to make on special questions concerning the engagement of workers and
their welfare. Besides his work as technical director of Leuna and chairman of
various technical committees in syndicates and economic groups, he was chief
supervisor of technical planning for the Sparte I building projects, such as
Moosbierbaum and Auschwitz. I consider it expedient, however, to point out that
my client was never chief of an I.G. Farben plant or of any other enterprise,
so that he did not even belong to the Employers Advisory Council
[Unternehmensbeirat] of the IG and consequently did not take part in the
conferences of the Betriebsfuehrer.
It is therefore also misleading if
the prosecution tries to make the members of the Aufsichtsrat, and my client as
chairman of the Aufsichtsrat of Fuerstengrube G.m.b.H., responsible for the
allocation of workers in the mines or the treatment of prisoners in the plants
of this company. I have already pointed out that on legal grounds this
standpoint of the prosecution is untenable. I shall confirm this opinion
through submission of further evidence, and prove my client could not and did
not exert an influ- […ence] |
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