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war which was to be aggressive in character. Beyond that I follow the
implications of the acquittal of Speer as a precedent for the acquittal of the
defendants of the charge of “waging aggressive war.” That the
defendants knew they were preparing for a possible war is certain. That their
actions in this regard were not the normal activities of businessmen is equally
clear. Farben participated in a complete transformation of the economic
structure into one of military economy. The possibility of war was ever before
them. But clear unequivocal proof of exact knowledge of the decision of the
regime to initiate and wage wars of aggression is not established beyond
reasonable doubt. Farben, under the leadership of these defendants, pursued a
course of action which was proved to be in fact adverse to the cause of
international peace in numerous respects; a course evidencing cavalier
disregard of possible and probable consequences of their acts. Such conduct,
carried out in a warlike atmosphere for a dictator who had manifested his
warlike intentions in many ways, despite contradictory protestations of peace,
is sufficiently reprehensible in its relation to the resulting holocaust of war
as to cause me to feel that international law should be broadened so as to
devise standards defining the criminality of action of the character carried
out by these defendants. However, I conclude that what has been proved is
sympathy and support of the Nazi regime and participation in armament on a
gigantic scale with reckless disregard of the consequences, under circumstances
strongly suspicious of individual knowledge of Hitler’s ultimate aim to
wage aggressive war, but the proof does not meet the extraordinary standard
exacted by the mentioned precedents, including the judgment of the
International Military Tribunal.
Count five charges the defendants with
participation in a common plan or conspiracy to commit crimes against peace. In
my view it has not been established beyond reasonable doubt that there existed
a well-defined conspiracy on the part of these defendants to commit crimes
against peace as here alleged. The proof rather shows individual action by the
defendants who utilized the instrumentality of Farben in the performance of
acts and actions in their individual spheres within Farben, but the character
of the proof is such as to make it impossible to determine when, if ever, the
defendants agreed on a common decision for concerted action to join an
enterprise constituting crimes against peace, or when the defendants may be
said to have joined such an alleged conspiracy. While there are broader
concepts of the law of conspiracy that might be utilized to cover the action of
certain of the defendants, we are met here with the fact that in this new field
of international law the judgment of the International Military Tribunal dealt
most conservatively with the concept of conspiracy in relation to the crimes
against peace. While its view in this regard |
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