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I thought that I would help science and industry. I worked to this
end, and I am happy that I did so.
There was another sacrifice that I
had to make. I had to leave my associates to whom I was very much attached and
had to get along with strangers. I did this, too, although it was very
difficult for me. I had been very close to the worker, too; as a research man I
was dependent on the work, the industry, the powers of observation, the
enthusiasm of the workers which very early had made me see — not a slave
— as the prosecution says, but a comrade and a human being in the worker.
That is how I always looked on the worker.
This occupation with natural
science convinced me very early that there is a higher law above the laws of
man, a law whose first commandment is humanity. I have tried to keep this
commandment and observe it. Therefore, I consider the prosecution's charges
especially hard.
How unfounded this charge is you may see, for example,
from my conduct in the Schoemberg case. I have nothing to add to this and the
other prosecution charges, since my counsel Dr. Boettcher has exhausted all
these points so excellently that I cannot thank him better than by stating that
I have nothing to add.
I ask Your Honors, however, to reestablish my
honor which has been attacked by the prosecution, by acquitting
me. |
| |
| 2. DEFENDANT SCHMITZ |
| |
PRESIDING JUDGE SHAKE: Defendant Schmitz will address the Tribunal.
DEFENDANT SCHMITZ: Mr. President, Your Honors: My state of health made
it impossible for me to testify, myself, on the witness stand to the enormous
charges with which the prosecution has overwhelmed me and my colleagues. This
trial which has been going on for over a year now has not lessened the shock
which these attacks occasioned. I have only one answer: my conscience is clear
and I feel free of all guilt.
For that reason the charges of the
prosecution are especially depressing; doubly so, because these charges affect
not only myself and my codefendants but are aimed at ruining the good name of
our company to which our devotion and our life work were given and to which we
all feel deeply bound; and so I will take advantage of this one opportunity in
the course of this trial to make a personal statement, in addition to assuring
you of my innocence, and, as former chairman of the Vorstand of Farben, to
thank all those who had the courage to testify for Farben. “A friend in
need is a friend indeed.”
We have learned the truth of this
saying; many a person whom honor and duty would have obliged to raise his voice
here to serve |
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