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presented will furnish an opportunity to go into these contradictions
in the statements of the witnesses in detail, and it will then be seen that the
defense witnesses came much closer to the truth because they did not allow
themselves to be led in their statements by human feelings (however
understandable), by political intentions, or by other personal considerations.
The same applies to the attempt of the prosecution to do all it can to
establish a connection between the regulations of the works management of I.G.
Farben and the working conditions in these works on the one hand, and the
extermination measures against the Jews in the Birkenau concentration camp on
the other hand. There has never at any time been such a connection, and not the
slightest proof has been submitted that the works management of I.G. Farben in
Auschwitz issued any orders or regulation which could in this connection be
counted against them as crimes.
As far as the witnesses of the
prosecution have made any statements on this question, they have consisted
exclusively of suppositions and conclusions. Not a single witness was able to
state any facts which would even remotely justify the assumption of illegal and
guilty behavior on the part of any member of the works management. The evidence
submitted by the defense will show, on the contrary, that — to name one
example only — the figures given by the administration of camp IV to the
works management concerning the working staff of the camp were such that no
doubts could have arisen on the part of the works management. Such doubts were
all the more unlikely, as these figures were not based on arrivals and
departures, but merely showed the actual numbers of camp inmates at any given
time. This figure was, however, constantly increasing on account of the ever
more numerous allocation of prisoners to the building site, and on account of
the enlargement of the camp. Whatever judgment, however, the Court may reach
after the presentation of the evidence and whatever conclusions are to be drawn
from it, one fact allows us to look forward with confidence to the result of
this trial and its later evaluation, namely, not only that the powerful
foundations of these giant works still exist in Auschwitz today, which were
built under German direction by technicians and workers from nearly all the
countries of Europe together with German workers, under the most difficult
conditions imposed by the war, but that in nearly all the countries of Europe,
including Germany, there are still living today tens of thousands of former
members of the works staff, who for many years will bear witness as to the real
living and working conditions in the Auschwitz works of the I.G. Farben.
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