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[mini...] -mized. I reach the conclusion, however, that the
individual defendants, under proof, are not guilty of the crime against peace
denounced by Control Council Law No. 10, regardless of how strongly the support
and encouragement given by Farben and its influential leaders of the Nazi
regime contributed, first, to making the war possible from the viewpoint of
production and, secondly, to prolonging the war after it had been launched by
Hitler’s aggression against Poland.
An important factor in my
concurrence in the result reached is that I feel the necessity for bowing to
such weighty precedents as the acquittal by the International Military Tribunal
of Schacht and Speer of the charges of crimes against peace; of the acquittal
by Military Tribunal III of the leading officials of the Krupp firm on similar
charges; and, the more recent precedent established by an International
Military Tribunal in the French occupied zone in acquitting officials of the
Roechling concern of the charges of participation in the planning and
preparation of aggressive war. Such precedents, coupled with a most liberal
application of the rule of “reasonable doubt” in favor of the
defendants and added to a reluctance, because of the novelty of the crime
against peace, to draw inferences unfavorable to a defendant in the
all-important area of knowledge of the aim of aggressive war and specific
intent to further such aim, lead to the result of acquittal. I am concurring
though realizing that on the vast volume of credible evidence presented to the
Tribunal, if the issues here involved were truly questions of first impression,
a contrary result might as easily be reached by other triers of the facts more
inclined to draw inferences of the character usually warranted in ordinary
criminal cases. I do not agree with the majority's conclusion that the evidence
presented in this case falls so far short of sufficiency as the Tribunal’s
opinion would seem to indicate. The issues of fact are truly so close as to
cause genuine concern as to whether or not justice has actually been done
because of the enormous and indispensable role these defendants were shown to
have played in the building of the war machine which made Hitler’s
aggressions possible. The destruction of important Farben records at the
direction of certain of the defendants has probably deprived the prosecution of
essential links in its chain of incriminating evidence and leaves one with the
feeling that a different result might possibly be called for if the complete
Farben files were now available to the war crimes prosecutors.
On the
all-important element of criminal intent or state of mind accompanying the acts
and actions of the defendants, I have felt constrained to agree upon acquittal
predicated upon the doubt as to whether the defendants actually knew and
believed that their contributions to the armament of Germany constituted the
crime of participating in the planning and preparation for initiation of a
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