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[influ…] ence on the plant management and business management of
these independent enterprises, so that my client's responsibility in this
connection cannot be considered.
Under count four of the indictment, my
client was charged with having been a member of the SS after 1 September 1939,
and a member of the Himmler Circle of Friends. I shall prove that my client was
never an active member of the SS, had no command, belonged to no society,
performed no service in the 55, but that he was merely a so-called honorary
leader [Ehrenfuehrer] and that these are not to be considered as active members
of the SS. I wish to point out here that the IMT judgment did not condemn
persons charged before it because they belonged to the SS, insofar as they were
purely honorary leaders. More evidence will be brought on this point too. On
this assumption, however, Dr. Buetefisch cannot be condemned on the charge of
belonging to an organization which has been declared criminal. In this
connection, the evidence on the Circle of Friends presented by the prosecution
in support of its assertion must be gone into and, by the presentation of
further evidence, the nature of this so-called Circle of Friends will have to
be subjected to a closer examination.
Concerning count five of the
indictment, the examination of the prosecution's assertion will reveal, through
the submission of further evidence, that there can be no question of Dr.
Buetefisch's having taken part in a common plan to commit war crimes. In the
interrogations which preceded the prosecution's investigations, details were
required from my client which he had to produce purely from memory, without any
records whatsoever. This gave rise, in some instances, to erroneous statements
which were disclosed when Dr. Buetefisch had the opportunity to look up
documents. Insofar as such erroneous statements were found to have been made,
these will be corrected in the course of the personal interrogation of my
client. |
| |
| M. Opening Statement for Defendant
Haefliger¹ |
| |
| DR. VON METZLER (counsel for defendant Haefliger):² May it
please the Tribunal: In addressing Your Honors on behalf of |
__________
¹ Tr. pages
4821-4831, 19 December 1947.
² Counsel read the opening
statement in English. Dr. von Metzler, was entrusted by the entire defense to
make one of two closing statements on behalf of all the defendants. This
closing statement is reproduced below in section XI E, volume VIII, this
series. The final statement of the defendant Haefliger to the Tribunal appears
in section XII 7, volume VIII, this series.
286 |
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