 |
mentions my client in the documents produced only in connection with
the Stickstoff Ost G.m.b.H., which was formed after the beginning of the war
against Russia. I shall be able to furnish evidence that this company, which
was established at the suggestion of the Reich, did not take any measures that
even remotely could be considered as robbery or spoliation.
Furthermore, the indictment says that in 1940, my client became a
member of the Styre (management) of the Norsk Hydro A/S at Oslo, the largest
enterprise in the field of chemicals in Norway. The prosecution associates this
appointment with the formation of the Norwegian firm Nordisk Lettmetall A/S.,
an establishment in the field of light metals, which was formed simultaneously
with the Norsk Hydro, and sees in this fact a participation in robbery and
spoliation. To what extent there was any question of robbery and spoliation
will be discussed by my colleagues, who will supply counterevidence. I am
merely asserting, and shall supply proof of this, that the appointment of my
client as a member of the Styre (management) of this company, with which he had
been working in a friendly spirit for years, was not prompted by those alleged
reasons.
As regards count three of the indictment, I beg to observe
that Dr. Oster, as a businessman and manager of a commercial enterprise, had
nothing whatsoever to do with questions of labor allocation. There were no
factories under him. It was no business of Dr. Oster's to deal with the
procurement of manpower required for the fulfillment of the production orders
imposed by the Government of the Reich, and he was just as little concerned
with the foreign labor program. Since this was in the hands of, and controlled
by, the state, he was doubly removed from it. Therefore, I need not produce
evidence supported by actual events.
Count four of the indictment does
not apply to Dr. Oster; count five has already been discussed by me, so that I
may conclude my statements. |
| |
| V. Opening Statement for Defendant Wurster* |
| |
| DR. WAGNER (counsel for defendant Wurster) : America has little
knowledge of the continent of Europe in general and of Germany in particular;
Germany and the continent of Europe, on the other hand, know little about
America. There are only |
__________
* Tr. p. 4899-4910 19
December 1947. The final statement of Defendant Wurster to the tribunal appears
in subsection XII 11, vol. VIII, this series.
343 |
. 
