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extend the concept of causality as to contradict every recognized
theory of causality. So far as occurrences are concerned which can be brought
into any connection with the war at all, they do not necessarily imply a
connection with a war of aggression. In the few cases in which they, can be
brought into connection with a war, the decisive question is whether my client
worked on these business tasks for reasons which were connected with the war,
or with other circumstances concerned in the charge. This is a question which
brings in the personal attitude of my client, to which I shall later revert.
With reference to the responsibility of my client, as a member of the
Vorstand of Farben, for the activity of this firm, I should like to preface my
remarks with some actual facts.
From 1930 onwards, my client was, in
his principal capacity, a manager of the nitrogen syndicate,
Stickstoff-Syndikat G.m.b.H., an independent firm, to whom all the nitrogen
producers in Germany had entrusted the sale of the nitrogen produced by them.
The Syndikat was a company outside of Farben; Dr. Oster was one of the managers
of this undertaking and was responsible for the sale of the nitrogenous
fertilizer. The sale of the technical nitrogen was not handled by him, but by
another of the managers, who was on the same level as himself. This makes it
clear that his field of work had nothing to do even with rearmament, which the
IMT did not declare criminal as such.
On the contrary, it would have
been in opposition to technical nitrogen, because, in the nature of things, he
would be much more interested in diverting as much nitrogen as possible to
agriculture, since this was his business.
My client was, for 90 percent
of his time, occupied with his business in the Stickstoff-Syndikat, in which he
was, besides, also the plant manager. The Stickstoff-Syndikat employed about
1,000 persons and had a turnover of 540 million reichsmarks. In contrast with
this, I wish to state that, for the execution of his duties in the IG, my
client (as a member of the Vorstand) had at his disposal the BADAMMON
Department belonging to Farben, with a staff of only 6 persons.
The
circumstance that Dr. Oster (delegated by Farben as manager of the Syndikat)
also belonged to the Vorstand of Farben was due to the fact that, in the years
preceding 1930, the nitrogen business was of much greater importance for Farben
than in the past decade, which is also illustrated by the prosecution. The
development of the nitrogen industry in Germany and the rest of the world, and
the resultant development in price and profits have brought it about that
nitrogen lost considerably in importance, compared with the tremendous new
development in |
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