. ©MAZAL LIBRARY

NMT07-T0414


. NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNAL
Volume VII · Page 414
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Table of Contents - Volume 7
V. COMPULSION IN HITLER'S THIRD REICH AND
THE DEFENSE OF "WINDOW DRESSING" 
 
A. Introduction 
 
The defense argued extensively, and introduced large amounts of evidence in support of their claim, that regulations were so stringent and far reaching under Hitler's dictatorship that private individuals, including leading industrialists, could not refuse their cooperation without fear of immediate penalty, including confinement and possibly even death. The defense further claimed that most of the acts charged as criminal in the indictment were committed under this compulsion and hence were not the voluntary acts of the defendants.

Closely related to this argument, if not a part thereof, was the claim that many statements made in contemporaneous documents by the defendants and their associates were formulated for "window dressing" purposes, and that some of the defendants engaged in the practice of "howling with the wolves" in order to avoid penalties or in order to obtain legitimate ends which they otherwise could not have accomplished under the Nazi regime.

Since these defenses were urged in connection with each of the five counts of the indictment, some of the evidence concerning these matters is reproduced in this preliminary section with a view to presenting at an early point a general defense to numerous prosecution exhibits and thus avoiding needless repetition later on. The first selections from the evidence are extracts from the testimony of three defense witnesses and the defendant Ambros concerning compulsion (subsec. B). The word "window dressing" first made its appearance in the courtroom because the secretary of the Commercial Committee of Farben's Vorstand, Dr. Frank-Fahle, had used the word in an affidavit (NI-5169, Pros. Ex. 360) discussing the minutes of the meetings of the Commercial Committee.

When this affiant was called for cross-examination by the defense, the defense elicited considerable further testimony concerning "window dressing" as a policy, and thereafter the term was used again and again in the trial. Accordingly, extracts from the testimony of Frank-Fahle and his affidavit are reproduced below (subsec. C 1 b). This is followed by brief extracts from the testimony




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