 |
convinced of the correctness of my first impression. I beg to submit
to the Tribunal the reasons for my conviction.
The prosecution has
submitted 1834 documents. The number of documents in which the name of the
defendant von der Heyde appears or which he himself has drawn up is extremely
insignificant. Even in these few documents, the name of the defendant von der
Heyde appears to be as remote from the actual happenings which are on trial, as
his position is remote from that of most of the other defendants. The few
documents which the prosecution has submitted against him are mainly records of
the Commercial Committee of the IG in which the name of the defendant von der
Heyde appears.
I believe that I am entitled to state, first of all,
that this Commercial Committee, in itself, did not represent anything criminal.
Beyond this, it has been proved that the defendant von der Heyde was not even a
member of the Commercial Committee. The few times in which his name appears in
these documents his presence is expressly described as "occasional."
The witness Frank-Fahle, when questioned as to why the defendant von
der Heyde was occasionally present at the meeting of the Commercial Committee,
stated that, for the sake of facilitating the work, he had been requested to be
present as expert on a single question. He stated further that the presence of
the defendant von der Heyde had no bearing whatsoever on the actual decisions
of the Commercial Committee.
With two exceptions, which I am going to
deal with immediately, I could find no documents, excluding his own affidavit
and those of his co-defendants, in which the defendant von der Heyde is
referred to or mentioned at all. One of the two documents making an exception
is the letter written by the defendant von der Heyde to the defendant von
Schnitzler in March 1940. From this document it is apparent that up to the time
it was written, that is 30 March 1940, the IG had organized neither a fifth
column nor an espionage system abroad.
As far as I can see, it is
inexplicable why the prosecution submitted this letter at all, for it
contradicts the assertion of the prosecution that up to then, the IG had
organized a system of espionage and a fifth column abroad.
Defendant
von Schnitzler's reply of 3 April 1940 is significant. This letter is polite,
but evasive and, when all is said and done, meaningless. Obviously nothing was
done as a result of the letter from the defendant von der Heyde.
The
other document is dated April 1940, and deals with ap- […proximately]
|
366 |
. 
