 |
| when she said: “c’est ma guerre.” But I also know,
from personal observation, that what Silenz says on page 188 of the book quoted
above is absolutely true: |
| |
“The nation wanted peace,
the whole nation, workers or scholars, farmers or bankers, industrialists or
high-ranking civil servants. The number of persons who knew what the next point
on the program was, for example, the attack against Poland, was undoubtedly
surprisingly small. The number of those who began to fear that Germany was
embarking upon an irresponsible policy was slightly larger. One of the
directors of a large German bank said to me in private 1 week prior to the
outbreak of war: ‘We must avoid war in all circumstances. Frontier
adjustments’ (that was the only problem which came to his mind at all)
‘do not justify bloodshed nowadays.’ That was the opinion of the vast
majority, if not of all the leaders of German industry in responsible positions
and of the highest-ranking civil servants and generals. Hitler betrayed his own
country when he unleashed the war in
Europe.” |
My client Schmitz was one of the many who simply could not imagine
that Hitler would use for purposes of aggression (which were as frivolous as
they were stupid) the war potential, inadequate as it proved to have been, for
a major war in 1939. Farben had, of course, contributed its due share to the
building up of this potential as a firm which was not chauvinistic but
patriotic, loyal to its country, but at the same time open and receptive to
outside influences.
I have nothing to say on behalf of my client with
respect to the other points of the indictment, the refutation of which I shall
leave to the defense counsel concerned, and I refer Your Honors to the closing
brief.
We have reached the closing stage of the biggest industrial
trial of all times, with a strong political background, in which the defendants
have also been charged with purely political crimes such as conspiracy aiming
at aggressive war. Schneider Document Book 7, submitted by my brother, contains
a religious-moral-philosophical expert opinion of the highest quality, written
by Pribilla, a member of the Society of Jesus, which is in keeping with the
highest traditions of that order, whose scientific training and knowledge of
life have become proverbial. It contains the following passage:
|
| |
“In final consideration of
my thesis, it impresses me as a contemporary commentary to the words which a
holy and also politically outstanding Pope made in an also confused and
turbulent era, in the middle of the storms of the great migration. One must
ascribe special importance to these words, because they were included in the
Corpus Juris Canonici and therefore recommended to all jurists as a
|
950 |
. 
