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. NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNAL
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Table of Contents - Volume 7
 VIII. PLUNDER AND SPOLIATION —
COUNT TWO 
 
 
A. Introduction 
 
All of the defendants were charged with criminal participation "in the plunder of public and private property, exploitation, spoliation, and outer offenses against property in countries and territories which came under the belligerent occupation of Germany in the course of its invasions and aggressive wars" (par. 86 of the indictment). There were thirty paragraphs setting forth specifications concerning alleged spoliation by Farben in six countries in the chronological sequence in which they were occupied or invaded — Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, France, and Russia (pars. 87-118).

Count one of the indictment (crimes against peace) incorporated by reference the specifications of count, two, alleging that the spoliative acts “were committed as an integral part of the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression and invasions of other countries” (par. 84a). Count five of the indictment (common plan or conspiracy to commit crimes against peace) likewise incorporated by reference the specifications of count two on the theory that the alleged spoliative acts “formed a part of said common plan or conspiracy” (par. 147).

The charges of spoliation in Austria and Czechoslovakia under count two were dismissed by an interlocutory ruling of the Tribunal on 12 April 1948 (subsec. B, below). Some of the evidence submitted in connection with these charges as well as in connection with crimes against peace has been reproduced in volume VII (sec. VII), “The ‘New Order’ and Expansion into German Occupied Europe.” No further evidence on these charges is reproduced in the present section.

Nine of the defendants were convicted for spoliative acts in one or more of three countries — Poland, France, and Norway. None was found guilty upon the charges of spoliation in Russia on the ground that “the plans laid by Farben did not reach the stage of completion, and we are unable to say from the record before us that any individual defendant has been sufficiently connected with completed acts of plunder in Russia within the meaning of the Control Council Law.”

The materials reproduced below contain the interlocutory ruling dismissing the charges of spoliation as to Austria and Czechoslovakia (subsec. B) ; selections from the evidence concerning spoliation in Poland (subsec. C) ; selection from the evidence concerning the Francolor case in France (sub sec. D) ; and selections from the evidence, as well as argument and an interlocutory ruling, concerning all the alleged spoliation in Russia (subsec. E). These cases illustrate quite fully the various types of alleged spoliation, and space limitations have made it unfeasible to include subsections concerning the other cases.

 
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