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“Fellow-citizens, we cannot
escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered
in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one
or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in
honor or dishonor, to the latest
generation.'”¹ |
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| C. Closing Statement for Defendant
Krauch² |
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DR. BOETTCHER (counsel tinsel for defendant Krauch): Your Honors: We
have come to the end of a trial the type and extent of which may be
characterized as unique. By submitting 6,545 documents, in more than 15,000
pages of transcript, on 140 days in session, by hearing 188 witnesses, we have
struggled to get at the bottom of things.
Now it is time to sum up the
result, with all lie application befitting the seriousness of the matter and
the dignity of the court, and also for the defense to contribute its share to
the legal findings and — as it was once expressed in this trial — to
help “to get us out of the wood.”
What then is the result?
It is customary in this trial that the case of the defense begins with
an opening statement.³ This places the defense under the obligation to
correlate the results of its case with this opening statement and to answer the
question which worries counsel day and night: Was not too much said, too much
promised in the opening statement? Did we succeed in our case in fulfilling the
claims made in the opening statement? Dr. Krauch submitted to direct
examination by this court and to cross-examination by the prosecution. Did he
pass the test, thus questioned face to face? Within the time limits set by the
Tribunal, which may be explained by the special circumstances of this trial, my
final plea will only be able to give a blue print — if I may characterize
it with a German expression often chosen for scientific work — of only the
broad outlines of the viewpoint of the defense with regard to Dr. Krauch’s
case.
All the details are laid down in the final brief ,4 which had been drawn up in such a manner as to
enable the Tribunal to obtain infor- [...mation] |
__________
¹ “Annual Message
to Congress, 1 December 1862,” The Life and Writings of Abraham
Lincoln, edited by Philip van Doren Stern (The Modern Library, New York,
1942), page 745.
² Mimeographed transcript, 2 June 1948, pages
14600-14634.
³ The opening statement for Defendant Krauch Is
reproduced in vol. VII, section III C.
4 In
addition to the closing statements, both the prosecution and defense submitted
final briefs in the Farben case. The closing statements, even though they were
read orally in open court, were also submitted in writing, so that translations
could be made in advance and thus assure a more literal treatment of
quotations, citations, and similar matters than would be possible by the usual
system of simultaneous interpretation of court proceedings. See volume XV,
section VII, “Handling of Language Problems Arising Because of the
Bilingual Or Multilingual Nature of the Nuernberg Trials.”
911 |
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