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| U. Opening Statement for Defendant Oster* |
| |
DR. HELMUTH HENZE (counsel for defendant Oster): Your Honors: As
counsel for the defendant, Dr. Heinrich Oster, it will be my task to occupy
myself also with his personal activities during the last decade and a half, as
the charges are also directed against him as an individual. They are also
extended against him as a member of the Vorstand of the IG, and seek to place
upon him responsibility for the entire business activities of the IG. I have to
deal with this, as well as with the further charge that, together with the
other defendants, he entered into a common plan to commit crimes against peace
as set forth in the indictment. I will not, at this stage, go into the question
of whether the concept of conspiracy permits of so broad an interpretation as
the prosecution desires. I confine myself today to the statements made by the
defense in the morning session of 29 October last.
After a study of the
extensive indictment and of the mass of evidence comprising nearly 1,400
documents, I have gained the impression that the prosecution deliberately does
not wish to have the scope of responsibility of the individual defendants
clarified, in order that it should not be shown how small their part in the
activity of the IG really was. I will therefore endeavor to bring some light
and clarity into this desired darkness, since, according to recognized
principles of criminal law, as expressed also by the IMT, the individual
defendant can only be made responsible for acts actually committed by himself,
or in which he consciously took part. This was upheld by the Military Tribunal
II in the proceedings against Pohl, and others. In its judgment it
unequivocally adopted this standpoint.
In order to keep within the
bounds of my aim, I will, during the submission of my evidence, only refer to
the prosecution documents insofar as to any sensible extent they affect my
client.
If I may now turn to count one of the indictment and deal with
what my client has done, or is supposed to have done in this connection, I
find, on looking through the documentary material, very few documents which
show any independent acts of my client himself or of his subordinates. These
few business incidents are, in comparison with the extent of the prosecution
material, so insignificant that one is obliged to come to the conclusion that
in no way did they cause the events of the last 15 years, as set forth by the
prosecution, viz, the planning, preparation, and waging of aggressive war.
Otherwise, it would so |
__________
* Tr. pp. 4892-4899. 19
December 1947.
338 |
. 
