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my client, Paul Haefliger, I do not propose to deal with the
allegations of the prosecution incriminating the activities of IG and its
policy as such. Those general subjects will be covered by some of my colleagues
in order to avoid repetitions.
Therefore, Your Honors, what remains to
be said in the case of Paul Haefliger is to raise the question of his personal
responsibility for the policy of IG pursued before and after the outbreak of
the war, which the prosecution is blaming as having been criminal from the
beginning to the end, whereas the defense maintain that this was definitely not
the case, and that the prosecution, in presenting their evidence, have grossly
overshot the mark.
In reviewing the incredibly vast amount of evidence
which the prosecution has introduced in this case, there is, among various
other things, one point which strikes the defense particularly. It is the
incredibly small amount of evidence — if any — which the prosecution
has put in on the question of the personal responsibility of each defendant for
what has happened. Apparently the prosecution maintains that IG was a criminal
organization set up for the purpose of subduing or destroying whatever became
entangled "in its deadly network." The Vorstand members of this dangerous
organization apparently, in the view of the prosecution, are responsible for
whatever happened in this vast and complex Konzern, which, in the indictment,
has been referred to as "a State within the State." The prosecution, as far as
I can see, does not attach any special weight to the questions whether, and to
which extent, the various defendants were personally connected with the
numerous activities of IG which are dealt with in the indictment. In order to
avoid the necessity of going carefully into this complicated question, the
prosecution has, in the first place, introduced the charge of conspiracy as to
practically all counts of the indictment. In the second place, to bear out its
allegation that all Vorstand members are jointly responsible for the activities
of their company, it is referring to the German commercial law and the bylaws
of IG, which — by the way — have been wrongly interpreted by the
prosecution.
I do not wish to be hard on the prosecution, but I regret
to say that this approach to the problem of the personal responsibility of the
defendants is — among others — one more striking example of the
deplorable fact that the prosecution apparently has not considered carefully
enough the grounds of the IMT judgment.
As to the conspiracy, the
prosecution, as far as I can see, has not introduced any special evidence
bearing out the fact that all defendants agreed to do, or caused to be done,
the criminal acts alleged in the indictment. I may refer in this respect to the
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