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| briefs and the full record that has been made here. Several narrower
aspects of the case, such as count four of the indictment, we will also leave
to our briefs. Rather it is our intention to touch on certain aspects of the
Farben record which are vital to a true understanding of this case, and which
may help to shed light on some of the observations made by defense counsel in
their learned presentations during the past week. In developing these aspects
of the Farben record, the actions of various individual defendants will
naturally be mentioned, but our present purpose will be to illuminate the
record of Farben as an institution, rather than to evaluate the guilt of any
individual defendant. |
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| A. Counts one and five |
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In approaching the Farben record under counts one and five of the
indictment — that is, those counts which charge the planning, preparing,
initiating or waging of aggressive war, and conspiracy to bring about any of
the foregoing — we believe that much potential confusion will be avoided
if a very simple and elementary principle of criminal liability is kept ever in
the forefront of our minds. This principle is that criminal guilt always
requires two elements — action and state of mind. Both are essential. The
fact that a man thinks, desires, or concludes is not in itself criminal, no
matter how vicious or depraved these thoughts, desires, and conclusions may be.
Nor is an act, standing alone, to be judged criminal regardless of the
concomitant state of mind or knowledge. All this is very elementary, but it is
very important, and it has been obscured here in recent days.
Careful
observance of these principles is particularly important in connection with the
charges we are now examining. This court and others sitting at Nuernberg and
elsewhere are being called upon to enforce the doctrine of international penal
law — born centuries ago, accepted by all major nations after the First
World War, and first judicially applied by the IMT — that the deliberate
planning and waging of aggressive war is a crime. That is a doctrine of the
most serious bearing to the world and every nation in it, and it has never been
of graver import than it is at this very moment. In applying this doctrine to
the facts disclosed in this and other contemporaneous cases, it is the high
duty of this and other Tribunals to ensure that the doctrine is neither
extended beyond the bounds of reason, justice and hard common sense, nor
contracted into a fleshless legal stereotype of no real meaning in these
restless times.
On this general theme, we will have more to say when we
conclude. What we wish to suggest now is that the elementary legal principle
which we have stressed is the best safeguard against killing off this doctrine
either by dropsy or malnutrition.
One other general point may well be
noted. Some crimes, such as murder or robbery can be committed by one man
alone. Others, |
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