 |
[Wehrwirt…] schaftsfuehrer] (facts adduced by the prosecution),
do not make the slightest difference in this connection. Everything
Lautenschlaeger did for his foreign workers and everything he did to maintain
the peacetime level of the production of medicines, he had to do in opposition
to the Nazi Party, which watched him with suspicious eyes.
The defense,
in presenting its case in chief, will show that there is no evidence in support
of, but everything against, the thesis that this man was a party to the
planning and preparation of a criminal war. The drafting of air-raid protection
plans, the completion of production plans in the event of mobilization, as well
as the subsequent delivery of preliminary products which, with further
processing, might be utilized for war purposes, is within the framework of
national defense measures which all countries of the world take in the ordinary
course. This did not in any way change the nature of the Hoechst plant as an
enterprise predominantly manufacturing medicines and other peace-time products.
The defense will begin its case in chief with the examination of
Professor Lautenschlaeger, who will testify on his own behalf.¹ The
defense will also submit numerous documents and call a few essential
witnesses. |
| |
| T. Opening Statement for Defendant Mann
² |
| |
DR. BERNDT (counsel for defendant Mann) : Your Honor, may I ask
whether the Tribunal will agree to hear me now? It is seven to twelve now, and
I shall take up approximately twenty-five minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Very
well, we will hear you now, Doctor.
DR. BERNDT: May it please the
Court: Anyone coming to Leverkusen will perceive next to the main IG
administration building another building that strikes you by its plain, clear,
and utilitarian structural features. It stands there, bare of any adornment,
with the world-renowned Bayer cross on its middle section. It is connected by a
bridge with the main administration building. This building is the seat of the
Bayer Sales Combine. In past years, the father of the defendant Mann was
manager of the Bayer Sales Combine; in 1931, my client succeeded his father in
this position. Just like the building, the sales combine was |
__________
¹ Later the defendant
Lautenschlaeger elected not to testify. Two other defendants. Schmitz and Von
Schnitzler, also elected not to testify.
² Tr. pp. 4883-4891, 19
December 1947.
331 |
. 
