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So for me, on the occasion of opening the defense, there was a
natural impulse too to dramatize the situation. There were reasons enough if 2
years after the father has been dropped from among those on trial, the son sits
in the defendants’ dock because of precisely the same charges. I shall,
however, forbear emphasizing the human and moral side of these inherited
accusations. General Taylor’s statement will demonstrate a much more
different circumstance which brings particularly to light the singular nature
of these proceedings.
If the American prosecution staff under the
leadership of Justice Jackson believed itself to be in the position in
September 1945 to serve an indictment against Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und
Halbach on the grounds of crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes
against humanity, it must have had in its possession as early as that time all
the essential documents needed to base such charges. From that time until now a
huge staff of prosecutors and investigators has worked on this material,
extending and broadening the charges on all sides and establishing bases for
them. But it was determined by a decision of the International Military
Tribunal that Mr. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach could never be the
defendant against such charges, and so the proceedings, since then, have been
directed exclusively against his son, Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, and
those persons associated in the firm who at the desire of the prosecution staff
should be placed in the dock.
I know of no regulated penal code which
under such circumstances would have denied counsel to persons so charged. The
Nuernberg prosecution staff which has repeatedly depicted itself in the press
as being “so fair” acted according to different principles. Alfried
Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was in custody 2 years and 4 months before the
indictment was served; during this time he petitioned repeatedly for counsel,
and for 2 years and 4 months his applications were denied. While he —
defenseless, condemned to inactivity, and destitute of all monetary means
— was being dragged from one camp and prison to another, the prosecution
staff was examining thousands of files and interrogating hundreds of witnesses
to build up an unshakable case against him.
When the charges finally
were made known to the defendants in August of last year and when the
defendants were permitted, for the first time, to engage counsel, they and
their defense attorneys were in somewhat the same position as a man who
undertakes to raze a skyscraper with a pick axe. But the man with the pick axe
at least knows what task he has to fulfill; the defendants did not know that,
even after the indictment was served, |
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