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during all those critical years I never had cause for the slightest
suspicion that the IG management in an alleged conspiracy with Hitler was
working up to an aggressive war is a further proof for the absurdity of this
allegation, as pointed out already by my defense counsel, Dr. von Metzler, in
his final plea. How could I possibly, as a Swiss consul, knowingly myself
participate in the preparation of an aggressive war which, in all probability,
would at the least extremely endanger the country which I had the honor to
represent officially?
I have never felt, of course, as an instrument of
Hitler nor as a capitalist, but all the time as a worker in the services of the
I. G. Farben.
I was proud to have been assigned in it the field of
activity which permitted me, as an honest businessman, to contribute a modest
share to a friendly and peaceful international cooperation. Neither greed for
money nor for power were the motives which stimulated me, but a joy and the
enthusiasm for the task allotted to me. If any men must have, known that a war
means not enrichment but impoverishment, they were I and all my colleagues. And
now, at the end of a laborious life, 1 am facing monstrous charges.
Honorable Judges, I know you will not let yourselves be influenced by a
systematically poisoned atmosphere. I confide in your justice and I am looking
forward to your verdict with calmness and a clear conscience. |
| |
| 8. DEFENDANT ILGNER |
| |
PRESIDING JUDGE SHAKE: Dr. Ilgner.
DEFENDANT ILGNER: Your
Honors, after more than 3 years as a prisoner I am allowed to speak my final
words today. It was a long and bitter probation period on which, however, I now
look back without bitterness and resentment. In such days, when a great part of
humanity has suffered, and is still suffering, the misfortune of the individual
is of minor importance.
During the last years the American prosecution
preparing this trial was very much interested in my person, at least at the
beginning. For a long time I could not find out the reason. I only suspected
it; I know it today. The motive is to be found very far back and goes like a
red thread through the last 20 years, beginning with the press campaign against
Farben in New York on the occasion of the foundation of the American I. G.
Chemical Corporation, in 1929, in which I took an active part. That was about
the same time when Farben supported in a decisive way the foundation by the
Ford Motor Company, Detroit, of the German Ford plant in the Rhineland. At that
time the same Frank Garwan, who in his capacity, as Alien Property Custodian
confiscated the entire patents of Farben during the First World War, wrote, the
well-known severe article “Cui Bono?” directed against Farben in the
New York Times. |
1069 |
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