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of Hitler's seizure of power that the Third Reich was heading
inevitably toward war.” Can you mention any intelligent man who had a
different opinion?
A. Yes, Ambassador Dr. Ulrich von Hassel, who has
been mentioned repeatedly. Von Hassel, as has been said, was very anti-Nazi. In
1937-1938, he was a personal enemy of von Ribbentrop’s and, as such, was
dismissed from the Foreign Office. He was a prominent member of the resistance
movement. He was considered one of the best and perhaps the best man in the
Foreign Office. After the successful assassination of 20 July 1944, he was to
have become Foreign Minister of the Goerdeler¹ government, that is, the
resistance movement.
Hassel was condemned to death by the People's
Court and hanged in the spring of 1939. Hassel did not believe that Hitler was
aiming at war. In his opinion Hitler's endeavor was to gain success in foreign
politics without letting it come to hostilities. It was only in 1939 that
Hassel began to doubt, and, as Hassel thought, so thought many people in
Germany, and for them the war was a complete surprise. |
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| d. Testimony of Defendant Kugler |
| |
EXTRACT FROM THE TESTIMONY OF
DEFENDANT KUGLER² |
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| DIRECT EXAMINATION |
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| * * * * * * * * * * |
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DR. HENZE (counsel for defendant Kugler) Mr. Kugler, it is said in
the indictment that directly on the heels of the invading German Armies there
followed the functionaries of Farben. In the fall of 1938 you went to Aussig.
Do you have anything to say about your work at Aussig?
DEFENDANT
KUGLER: I don't know whether I am supposed to be directly affected by this
passage in the indictment. In the event that it does refer to my work at that
time, I should merely like to say that even if I had taken over such a position
on behalf of the Reich Ministry of Economics [RWM], I considered it my duty to
see to it that there would be no interregnum between the occupation and my
arrival. It would have been difficult to justify myself if I had arrived a week
or 10 days later, and if, in the meantime, in the two plants or the three
mines, some emergency had arisen. There were about 4,000 people employed in
|
__________
¹ Dr. Carl F.
Goerdeler, Lord Mayor of Leipzig, was the chief civilian leader of the German
resistance group which attempted the 20 July 1944 plot.
² Further
extracts from the testimony of the defendant Kugler are reproduced above in
subsection C 5g, and in subsection VIII D 5, volume VIII this series.
1598 |
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