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The defendants Schneider, Buetefisch, and von der Heyde are acquitted
of the charges contained in count four of the indictment.
By numerous
objections and formal motions made during the course of the trial and in their
final arguments and closing briefs, several of the attorneys for defendants
have questioned the validity of the laws, orders, and directives by virtue of
which this Tribunal was created and under which it has functioned. We have
again given careful consideration to these matters and have satisfied ourselves
that this Tribunal was lawfully organized and constituted, that it has
jurisdiction over the subject matter of this proceeding and over the persons of
the defendants before it, and that it is fully authorized and competent to
render this judgment.
The President now recognizes Judge Hebert who
wishes to make a statement for the record. |
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| STATEMENT OF JUDGE HEBERT JUDGE HEBERT |
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I concur in the result reached by the majority under counts one and
five of the indictment acquitting all of the defendants of crimes against
peace, but I wish to indicate the following: The judgment contains many
statements with which I do not agree and in a number of respects is at variance
with my reasons for reaching the result of acquittal. I reserve the right,
therefore, to file a separate concurring opinion on counts one and five.
As to count three of the indictment, I respectfully dissent from that
portion of the judgment which recognizes the defense of necessity as applicable
to the facts proven in this case. It is my opinion, based on the evidence, that
the defendants have not established the defense of necessity. I conclude from
the record that Farben, as a matter of policy, with the approval of the TEA and
the members of the Vorstand, willingly cooperated in the slave-labor program,
including utilization of forced foreign workers, prisoners of war, and
concentration-camp inmates, because there was no other solution to the
man-power problems. As one of the defendants put it in his testimony, Farben
did not object because “we simply did not have enough workers any
longer.” It was generally known by the defendants that slave labor was
being used on a large scale in the Farben plants, and the policy was tacitly
approved. It was known that concentration-camp inmates were being used in
construction at the Auschwitz buna plant, and no objection was raised.
Admittedly, Farben would have preferred German workers rather than to pursue
the policy of utilization of slave labor. Despite this fact, and despite the
existence of a reign of terror in the Reich, I am, nevertheless, convinced that
compulsion to the degree of depriving the defendants of moral choice did not in
fact operate as the conclusive cause of the defendants’ actions, because
their will coincided with the governmental solution of the situation,
|
1204 |
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