 |
During my completely non-political career as a chemist, as a plant
leader, as a Vorstand member of Farben, I worked according to this guiding
thought. When in 1938 I took over the Bitterfeld plant as manager and Vorstand
member, in view of the enormous social activities of IG, I received a rewarding
task, not only in the technical field. The outbreak of war, a year later,
unfortunately suppressed one’s own initiative in all fields to a large
extent. Nevertheless, the foreign workers who took the places of the drafted
German workers, were taken care of as well as possible.
During my work in France after the war, I
learned from conversations with French workers, who had been employed in
Germany, that they liked to think back to the time when they were in Germany
and that they had returned home with increased technical and language
knowledge.
The picture
that the prosecution has drawn of the circumstances under which the foreign
workers lived, is completely distorted. Your Honors, an inspection of the place
would have shown you its real conditions best. Besides, we must not forget that
the constant air raid dangers in the last years of war brought Germans and
foreigners together in their common distress — brought them closer
together than it would appear today.
After a thorough examination of my former
work, for which I have had ample opportunity here, I may say, that I feel free
of the guilt which the prosecution is trying to prove against me. I am
convinced that the Tribunal will judge my actions justly, and will give me an
opportunity to work in freedom with all men of good will toward a better future
in which I have not lost faith even today. |
| |
| 7. DEFENDANT HAEFLIGER |
| |
| PRESIDING JUDGE SHAKE: Dr. Haefliger. DEFENDANT HAEFLIGER: Mr.
President, Honorable Judges: From Thomas Carlyle originates the
sentence, |
| |
“There is no act more moral
between men than that of rule and obedience. Woe to him that claims obedience
that is not due to him and to him who refuses it. God's law is that there is a
divine right or else a diabolic wrong at the heart of every claim that one man
makes upon another.” |
It is my tragic error not to have perceived that it was
diabolic wrong which was hidden behind the claims, the fulfillment of which
Hitler exacted from the. German people, and that he and his small clique of
conspiring revolutionists deceived and shielded from them his aims.
There is no better way to illustrate the nature of an absolute
dictatorship than Erasmus of Rotterdam did in the 16th Century with reference
to Henry VIII, and other potentates when he said: |
1066 |
. 
