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them for the improvement of the workers’ quarters and a
rejection would have resulted in a deterioration of the foreign workers’
lot.
As regards the conditions in the Hoechst plants, the defense will
prove that the number stated for loaned workers, etc., in the graph Exhibit
1559 (NI-7376 A), Document Book 68, page 17a, is incorrect and bound to
be misleading in view of the fact that no inmates of concentration camps had
been employed in Hoechst at all. In refuting the affidavit by De Bruyn, Exhibit
1367 (NI-11613), Document Book 69, page 207, evidence will be submitted
that the employment of foreigners and prisoners of war was conducted in an
appropriate manner and was not in violation of Article 31 of the Geneva
Convention, dated 27 July 1929. Furthermore it will be shown that arrangements
had been made for adequate housing, food, good medical care, schools, sewing
rooms, and that the plant manager, Professor Lautenschlaeger and Herr Jaehne,
as his deputy, made particular efforts to this effect. Accordingly, the
treatment of the foreigners in Hoechst was decent and humane. Beyond this,
arrangements had been made in a generous way for recreational facilities. There
were large club-rooms with radio, newspapers, libraries, canteens, athletics
fields, sporting equipment, theater, moving pictures and above all, the
possibility to attend religious services. On the part of the plant management,
everything was done that was possible under the unfortunately prevailing war
conditions. It was due to his engineering activity that Jaehne inspected many
plants of the IG for the purpose of solving any special technical problems.
Thus, he also paid a brief and fleeting visit to the Farben plant in Auschwitz.
It can be proven that he did not enter the Monowitz concentration camp during
this visit and has not seen anything which ought to have induced him to
interfere with the independent management of this plant, which did not belong
to his jurisdiction. Neither did he obtain any knowledge of gassings, either
from observation or from any information beyond that of rumors.
The
defense for the defendant Jaehne will open its arguments by interrogating the
defendant on his own behalf, and thereafter will conclude by producing
documents and affidavits as well as the interrogation of a few less important
witnesses. |
| |
| O. Opening Statement for Defendant
Gattineau* |
| |
| DR. ASCHENAUER (counsel for defendant Gattineau) : In the
|
__________
* Tr. pages 4838-4854, 19
December 1947. The final statement o the defendant Gattineau to the Tribunal
appears in section XII 13, volume VII, this series.
297 |
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