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| G. Opening Statement for the Defendant Pfirsch¹
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| DR. VORWERK²: May it please the Tribunal. In the field of
planting, producing, and trading with narcotics, the concepts of "national
sovereignty" had to give way to the world wide imperious public demands for
effective international regulations. It is characteristic that today anything
connected with narcotics is regulated in a most effective manner, and even in
cases where national governments adopt an uncooperative attitude there are
provisions in the regulations to keep those governments in line. To my
knowledge this supervisory body constitutes the only international control
agency, which in its particular field completely overrules all claims to
sovereign nationality. In the field of armament production too, organizations
have been created on an international basis and efforts have been made at least
in this respect to restrict the armament potential of the world and thus the
“national sovereignty” of the individual nations; it has been
recognized as undisputably correct that even in the most crucial political
times and at the most critical moments in the world’s history only those
cannons can be fired which exist. These endeavors have so far been without any
result. This may be the main reason for the following statement of the
prosecution I quote:³ |
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“We do not seek, in this
case, to level any attack against the business of making arms as such. We are
not trying to prove that all wars derive from the sinister machinations of
armament manufacturers and their sales agents. The armorer’s trade is no
more inherently unlawful than that of the soldier or diplomat; all of these
professions revolve around war and statecraft, but that does not make them
criminal per se.” |
The question necessarily arises what is the difference between the
Krupp firm, in which the defendants were employed, and other producers of
armaments, such as the prosecution enumerated, for example, in its opening
statement. Inasmuch as these differences refer to the commission of crimes,
which is all that concerns us here, it is for the prosecution to produce proof
of this.
In the opinion of the prosecution these differences must be
serious and must be relevant from the point of view of criminal law, since it
felt itself entitled and obliged to bring this charge |
__________
¹ Opening statement is
recorded in mimeographed transcript, 22 March 1948, pp 4774 4788.
² A
charge made in this statement by Dr. Vorwerk concerning the reproduction of
photostats for the defense was followed by a directive of the Tribunal that
representatives of the defense and the prosecution jointly investigate the
matter. The following day, 23 March 1948, Dr. Vorwerk withdrew certain of his
remarks and the Tribunal granted his motion to strike certain remarks in his
opening statement. For purposes of clarity, the related proceedings on 23 March
1948 have been reproduced in the text of the opening statement.
³
Opening statement of the prosecution, section A, above.
174 |
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