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make my assertion comprehensible, that my client certainly cannot
have collaborated in anything as vague as this indictment, the joint plan of
these defendants. Any evidence that, contrary to this opinion (the authenticity
of which is revealed prima facie by the position of my client in the
IG), instances exist to show that he consciously and in cooperation with others
worked at the alleged joint plan against peace, I cannot get from the document
material.
The prosecution accuses my client of having participated
personally in the planning and preparation of aggressive war. In count one of
the indictment, the prosecution has been at pains to erect a mosaic-like
structure supposed to represent a causal connection between the activity of the
defendants and the aggressive war begun in 1939. I shall have to look in this
mosaic for the little pieces connected with the work of my client. I shall
furnish proof that this activity can serve other aims besides the criminal
purpose alleged by the prosecution, namely the preparation of aggressive war.
In a modern state, one can naturally connect each action of a citizen with war,
since the whole economic life in a war is of significance in all its details
for the conduct of the war. I mention the fact that when someone sells
dyestuffs to Rumania, at the same time, he puts the state in a position to buy
foodstuffs, or leather for shoes, for the armed forces with the money realized.
My argumentation, Your Honors, will show you that much that the prosecution
represents as action aimed at aggressive war, proves to be a harmless business
incident, when looked at in a light other than that in which a suspicious
interrogator looks at it.
It is essential, therefore, since many
business incidents can also be very significant for a war, to pay particular
attention in this count of the indictment, not to the objective, but to the
subjective side, the question of guilt, the question of the knowledge about
certain things, the question of the knowledge of indirect connections with this
war and its preparation. General Taylor himself stressed the importance of this
question when he drew special attention to the guilt question. Since the
prosecution has produced nothing from which I can deduce that my client is
accused of special knowledge about the preparation of an aggressive war, I see
myself confronted with the necessity of investigating whether my client had any
special knowledge or general knowledge of the intention of the Reichsleitung
(Reich leadership) to prepare aggressive war.
It is known to the
Honorable Tribunal that the IMT acquitted the former Minister of Economics and
President of the Reichsbank, Schacht, of the accusation of participation in the
prepara- […tion] |
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