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| IX. SLAVE LABOR — COUNT THREE |
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| A. Introduction |
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Count three of the indictment was entitled “Slavery and Mass
Murder.” The specifications, appearing in paragraphs 120 through 143 of
the indictment (see sec. I, vol. VII, this series, were divided broadly into
three parts: “A. Role of Farben in Slave Labor Program”; “B. Use
of Poison Gas and Medical Experimentation upon Enslaved Persons”; and
“C. Farben at Auschwitz” [Oswiecim]. Five of the defendants were
found guilty under the slave-labor charges involving Farben's plant adjoining
the Auschwitz concentration camp, but in all other respects, the slave-labor
charges were dismissed (see “Decision and Judgment,” sec. XIII).
Judge Hebert dissented in part from the findings of the majority of the
Tribunal, declaring that all defendants who were members of the managing board
of Farben (19 defendants )should have been found guilty under the slave-labor
charges (see sec. XV, below).
An effort was made at the trial to
present the evidence on slave labor in two parts, that concerning Farben and
the slave-labor program generally (“the General Slave Labor Case”),
and that concerning Farben and the Auschwitz concentration camp (“the
Auschwitz Case”). However, this separation of materials for trial
convenience was not rigid and, in fact, both evidence and argument overlapped
substantially on many points. In this section the first materials deal briefly
with the numbers of laborers, slave and otherwise, which were employed by
Farben during the war (subsec. B). This is followed by the testimony of perhaps
the most dramatic defense witness, Dr. Muench (subsec. C). Muench testified
with clarity concerning the scope and nature of the extermination of human
beings at Auschwitz, but declared the entire matter was a highly guarded secret
of the SS. Next follows the full or partial translation of more than 100
contemporaneous documents (subsec. D). These documents appear chronologically,
regardless of their subject matter, with a few exceptions when two or more
closely related documents have been grouped together for reasons of clarity of
presentation.
The contemporaneous documents on slave labor are followed
by three subsections containing affidavits and testimony. The first contains
the affidavit or testimony of five prosecution witnesses who were imprisoned at
Auschwitz, the first two as political prisoners and the others as prisoners of
war (subsec. E). This is followed by extracts from the testimony of eight
defendants, including each of the five defendants who were convicted under
count three — Krauch, ter Meer, Ambros, Buetefisch, and Duerrfeld (subsec.
F). The section con- […cludes] |
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