 |
Court which has to decide on the responsibility under international
law.
But even if they
were responsible under international law, the prosecution did not furnish
sufficient evidence to show that these businessmen whom it put into the dock
took part in the expansion of the foreign labor program as such. This program,
as the prosecution sees it, spreads over many years and many countries. The
defendants in the Flick trial still had to defend themselves against the charge
of having compelled the German Reich Government, out of greed, to recruit and
allocate foreign manpower. As far as that is concerned, the prosecution learned
something from the Flick trial. It obviously no longer asserts that the
industry instigated the government to formulate this program. But it still
maintains that the defendants, as representatives of the firm of Krupp and some
of them through their memberships in committees and other bodies belonging to
the Reich Association Iron, the Reich Association Coal, and the Economic Group
Iron Producing Industry and other organizations, had criminally participated in
the government program.
Whether these reproaches are correct or not can only be ascertained
if this program is being defined in all its various functions such as, supply,
allocation, and assignment of foreign workers. The program as a whole has been
condemned as criminal by the IMT judgment. A reference thereto does not suffice
for establishing the guilt of the individual defendant. For if we find that the
defendants only participated in various sections which in themselves were not
criminal, or had no knowledge of other sections, then it would be impossible to
punish them.
“ * * *
The slave labor program had its origin in Reich governmental circles and was a
governmental program * * *.” Already some time before the introduction
of “* * * the slave labor program here under consideration the
employment of labor in German industry had been directed and implemented by the
Reich government.” Bearing these statements of the Flick judgment* in
mind, it should have been the task of the prosecution to submit weighty
evidence to the Tribunal to prove that these statements do not, in fact,
correspond to the truth. They were, however, not in a position to do so. In
their place, however, I myself will submit evidence to the Tribunal that will
substantiate the correctness of the Flick judgment.
It was the National Socialist State which
by its manifold authorities and agencies difficult to survey and by an
intricate organization, managing and directing production, provided the plants
with detailed directions as to the nature and amount of |
__________
* United States vs.
Friedrich Flick, et al., Case 5. judgment. vol. VI.
186 |
. 
