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I will deal with this question from the point of view of the
principles and of the facts.
The principles will be discussed
extensively during the defense of the other defendants. The defense of my
client will therefore be limited to any supplementation which may be required.
With regard to the facts, my defense of my client will start from his position
and his activities as chief of the Oberlagerfuehrung, insofar as he was in
charge of living conditions of the foreign workers as far as quarters were
concerned.
I have to agree here with the prosecution’s statement
that the sphere of activity of my client extended only to the Krupp camps in
the Essen area.
The plant of the case iron factory at Essen did not in
principle come under the charge of the office Oberlagerfuehrung, since those
camps were established and managed by the individual plants.
In order
to describe the nature and extent of the activities and thus of the
responsibility of my client, I will first discuss what was the official date on
which Kupke was appointed by the Vorstand of the firm Krupp to take over the
camps for foreigners, what were his tasks, what organization for the execution
of these tasks existed at the time of his taking over and what new
organizations were created by him.
The living conditions in the camps
were to a very large extent dependent upon the relevant laws, regulations, and
other directives. In this respect the defense will prove, by submitting legal
ordinances and other documentary evidence, that a number of state and municipal
authorities, Party agencies, agencies of Party affiliations, and organizations
as well as agencies of the Wehrmacht, had a decisive influence on this matter.
In addition to this, I shall prove that the firm of Krupp and thus
Kupke were not in principle responsible for living conditions in the prisoner
of war camps, in the labor training camps of Dechenschule–Neerfeldschule
and the Humboldtstrasse concentration camp.
In connection with this I
shall discuss the question of the rights and duties of the camp leaders with
regard to maintaining peace, order, and security; whether they had any right to
mete out punishment and, if so, to what extent; and what their duties were
vis–a–vis the security agencies, like the office of the public
Prosecutor, the criminal police and the Secret State Police.
Here too,
I shall prove that my client was not in charge of the Abwehr
[counterintelligence] for the office Oberlagerfuehrung.
The sphere of
activity assigned to my client included first of all the organization of the
quarters which were planned and built by |
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