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of the factory. They made careful inquiries about Dr. Wurster on the
spot, as we shall prove by means of the testimony of an American. They did not
only study the documents in the case, they gained their conviction on the very
spot where the truth could most easily be established, in the place where he
worked. They found in Dr. Wurster a man who had disobeyed the orders the Nazi
powers issued at the end of the war, prior to the arrival of American troops,
to the effect that he blow up the whole factory and withdraw to the other side
of the Rhine. They discovered that Dr. Wurster had sabotaged the order of the
Nazi bosses at the risk of his own life, thus saving the important factory and
the town of Ludwigshafen from ruin and destruction. That too, I shall prove.
They found in Dr. Wurster a man who opposed all the lunacy, and prevented it,
and averted disaster by his courageous conduct. The American occupation
authorities collaborated closely with Dr. Wurster during the time they occupied
the Palatinate and Ludwigshafen. When they left that area, on 10 July 1945, to
hand it over to the French occupation authorities, they expressed their regret
at being unable to continue working with him. That we shall prove. We shall
also prove by means of the same testimony that Dr. Wurster and others were
considered by the Americans, after a thorough examination of the facts and in
accordance with the experiences they had made, as an "honest and honorable
gentlemen upon whose word" they "could depend."
Wasn't it, by chance,
this evaluation of Dr. Wurster which caused American authorities to offer him a
good position in the United States of America a short time before this
indictment was filed? Is it possible that all these people, the German
population who know him so well, as well as veteran and experienced Americans,
who investigated the case and who worked with him day by day, can be wrong, and
that only the prosecution is right, with nothing to show but a few paltry
documents?
When the French occupation authorities took over from the
Americans the occupation, and therefore the administration, of the Badische
Anilin- und Sodafabrik, Ludwigshafen-Oppau, the same thing happened. After a
certain probationary period, Dr. Wurster was reinstated as manager of the
factory, his record having been investigated. As an exceptionally large
percentage of the foreign workers and prisoners of war had been French, the
French authorities of course immediately instituted an inquiry into the
treatment meted out to their fellow countrymen in the plant for which Dr.
Wurster was responsible. The result of the inquiry was that the French
authorities were confirmed in their faith in Dr. Wurster. When a Frenchman (who
was especially |
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