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We have also seen that, if Krupp was in tune with the policies of
aggression of the Third Reich, it was equally in step with Nazi concepts of the
methods by which wars should be waged. The utmost ruthlessness and disregard of
international conventions came as naturally to Krupp as to the German war lords
and the political leaders of the Third Reich. The mines and factories of
Austria and Alsace and the Ukraine were seized with as little compunction as
the deported workers from France, Poland, and Russia were enslaved and
terrorized to keep the Krupp machines turning. All this was in full keeping
with Nazi scorn for the rights of others and the dignity of man.
We
said at the outset that the crimes charged in this case arose out of certain
ideas and attitudes which antedated nazism, and have their own independent and
pernicious vitality but which fused with Nazi ideas to produce the Third Reich.
No one has expressed this better than Gustav Krupp von Bohlen himself. On 1 May
1940, Rudolf Hess and other prominent Nazis visited Essen to confer on the
Krupp company the “Golden Banner” which distinguished the works as a
“National Socialist model plant.” Hess was received at the entrance
to the hall by Dr. Gustav Krupp, and by the three members of the Vorstand, the
defendants Alfried Krupp, Ewald Loeser, and the deceased Paul Goerens. As the
Krupp report of this occasion tells us, Rudolf Hess delivered a “stirring
address” which was “characterized by a most timely political note
— settling final accounts with the Jewish-plutocratic-democratic
world.” Gustav Krupp acknowledged the award with the following words
(NIK-12630, Pros. Ex. 261).* |
| |
“I share with the entire
personnel of the Krupp works a pride in this award. It is in honor of a
social-political attitude which, while having its roots in a 128-year-old
tradition, has developed organically so as to fit into the new times, into the
National Socialist Germany.” |
| These words accurately epitomize the defendants. Nothing need be
added. The tradition of the Krupp firm, and the “social-political”
attitude for which it stood, was exactly suited to the moral climate of the
Third Reich. There was no crime such a state could commit — whether it was
war, plunder, or slavery — in which these men would not participate. Long
before the Nazis came to power, Krupp was a “National Socialist model
plant.” |
__________
* Part of this document is
reproduced in section VI B 1.
131 |
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