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Prosecution and defense alike have made their case and filed their
briefs. We believe that all questions bearing on a just decision have been
clearly raised and, with a few exceptions to which we will in due course call
attention, the argument on these issues has been closely joined. If the length
of this proceeding has aroused question in some quarters, surely in the long
run it will be generally realized that patience his been the best insurance of
the rights of those who stand accused. The Tribunal has dedicated itself to the
conduct of the trial with manifest devotion to the task at hand. Certainly no
one who has followed the proceedings, and has listened to the arguments of the
past week, can doubt that the defendants have been most ably represented by
counsel, or that they have been accorded the fullest opportunity to establish
their innocence.
The proven facts in this case, we submit, present a
compelling claim to a firm and meaningful judgment. The prosecution does not
come before the Tribunal to pray for a declaratory judgment on naked questions
of law. This is a criminal trial. And if the proven facts require findings of
guilt — as we believe they do — the judgment must be meaningful. If
that is a desirable quality in any criminal judgment, it is doubly necessary in
this one. For in this courtroom many hopes and fears are met. The issues in
this case travel far beyond the confines of Nuernberg, and the impact of their
solution here will be felt thousands of miles away and for many years to come.
In a very deep sense, Nuernberg is the world in microcosm.
My
colleagues at the prosecution bench have devoted their energies unstintingly to
the presentation and illumination of the evidence embodied in the record before
the Tribunal. That record is now closed, and on this last day we can do little
more than strive, by selection and analysis, to reduce this case to such
proportions as will enable at least its salient features to strike the mind in
conjunction. |
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| II. THE FARBEN RECORD |
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Accordingly, we will begin by taking a look at the evidence in this
case as a whole. Needless to say, the defendants are on trial as individuals,
and it has been the prosecution’s task to establish the personal guilt of
each defendant as charged. But the common denominator of case is I. G. Farben,
A. G., and the record we have made here is the “Farben record.” Later
on we will have something to say about the individual responsibility of these
defendants for what that record contains. For the moment, we propose to
summarize for the Tribunal, and set in their proper perspective, certain of the
major criminal activities which were carried on by I. G. Farben, through its
officers and agents.
Of course we do not propose to burden the Tribunal
at this time with a comprehensive narrative of the evidence. For that we rely
on our |
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