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[prod…] ucts exclusively. Even after Farben and Goldschmidt
acquired participating interests in the firm it continued to maintain its
headquarters in the Degussa building. Its office staff was recruited from and
compensated on the same basis as Degussa personnel.
The evidence does
not warrant the conclusion that the executive board or the defendants Mann,
Hoerlein, or Wurster, as members thereof, had any persuasive influence on the
management policies of Degesch or any significant knowledge as to the uses to
which its production was being put. Meetings of the board were infrequent and
the reports submitted to the members thereof were not very enlightening. It
seems fair to conclude that the board's principal function was to recognize the
financial investments of the participating stockholders and that operational
policies were largely left to Dr. Peters, subject only to the general
supervision of Degussa’s executives with whom he was in close contact.
The proof is quite convincing that large quantities of Cyclon-B were
supplied to the SS by Degesch and that it was used in the mass extermination of
inmates of concentration camps, including Auschwitz. But neither the volume of
production nor the fact that large shipments were destined to concentration
camps would alone be sufficient to lead us to conclude that those who knew of
such facts must also have had knowledge of the criminal purposes to which this
substance was being put. Any such conclusion is refuted by the well-known need
for insecticides wherever large numbers of displaced persons, brought in from
widely scattered regions, are confined in congested quarters lacking adequate
sanitary facilities.
The testimony of Dr. Peters is highly important on
the issue of the defendants’ guilty knowledge. He related the details of a
conference that he had in the summer of 1943 with one Gerstein, introduced by
Professor Mrugowsky, director of the health institute of the notorious Waffen
SS. After swearing Dr. Peters to absolute secrecy under penalty of death,
Gerstein revealed the Nazi extermination program which he said emanated from
Hitler through Himmler. There followed a long conference concerning the
efficacy of different methods of extermination, including the use of Cyclon-B
for that purpose. Dr. Peters stated emphatically that he was thereafter
extremely careful to observe the admonition to treat this conference as Top
Secret, and he negatived the assumption that any of the defendants had any
knowledge whatever that an improper use was being made of Cyclon-B. We are of
the opinion that the evidence falls short of establishing the guilt of any of
the defendants on this aspect of count three.
Medical
Experiments It is further charged under count three (subsec. B of par. 131)
of the indictment that “* * * various deadly pharmaceuticals manu-
[...factured] |
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. 
