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[com…] mitted in a most manifest and direct way, namely, through
physical removal of machines and materials. Other acts were committed through
changes of corporate property, contractual transfer of property rights, and the
like. It is the results that count, and though the results in the latter case
were achieved through “contracts” imposed upon others, the illegal
results, namely, the deprivation of property, was achieved just as though
materials had been physically shipped to Germany.
Finally, the defense
has argued that the acts complained of were justified by the great emergency in
which the German war economy found itself. With reference to this argument it
must be said at the outset that a defendant has, of course, the right to avail
himself of contradictory defense arguments. This Tribunal has the duty
carefully to consider all of them; but the Tribunal cannot help observing that
the defense, by putting forth such contradictory arguments, weakens its entire
argument. The “emergency argument” implies clearly the admission
that, in and of themselves, the acts of spoliation charged to the defendants
were illegal, and were only made legal by the “emergency.”
This argument is bound to weaken the other argument of the defense, according
to which the acts charged to them were legal, anyway.
However, quite
apart from this consideration, the contention that the rules and customs of
warfare can be violated if either party is hard pressed in war must be rejected
on other grounds. War is by definition a risky and hazardous business. That is
one of the reasons that the outcome of a war, once started, is unforeseeable
and that, therefore, war is a basically unrational means of
“settling” conflicts — why right thinking people all over the
world repudiate and abhor aggressive war. It is an essence of war that one or
the other side must lose, and the experienced generals and statesmen knew this
when they drafted the rules and customs of land warfare. In short these rules
and customs of warfare are designed specifically for all phases of war. They
comprise the law for such emergency. To claim that they can be wantonly —
and at the sole discretion of anyone belligerent — disregarded when he
considers his own situation to be critical, means nothing more or less than to
abrogate the laws and customs of war entirely.
We shall now discuss in
appropriate sequence the proven facts relating to the alleged specific acts of
spoliation as they appear from the credible evidence presented before us.
On 18 May 1940 the defendant Alfried Krupp and three other
industrialists were gathered around a table intently studying a map while
listening to a broadcast of German war news over the radio. The four men
learned of the great advances of the German |
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