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XIII. DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE
WILKINS ON THE DISMISSAL OF
CERTAIN
OF THE CHARGES OF SPOLIATION¹ |
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The majority of the Tribunal are of the opinion that the Tribunal has
no jurisdiction over the acquisition in 1938 of the Berndorfer Plant in
Austria.
With due deference to my colleagues, I feel compelled to
dissent from this finding and to the failure of the Tribunal to find that acts
of spoliation were committed by these six defendants in three other instances;
namely, (1) the confiscation of the Montbelleux mining property in France, (2)
the illegal acquisition of the CHROMASSEO mining properties in Yugoslavia, and
(3) the participation by the Krupp firm in the spoliation of the occupied
Soviet territories.²
The facts relating to the acquisition of the
Berndorfer Plant are as follows: |
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| AUSTRIA |
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The Berndorfer Metallwarenfabrik Arthur Krupp, A.G., a very
important metals factory located near Vienna, had been established in 1843 by a
Viennese industrialist named von Schoeller. In a history of “Alfried Krupp
and His Family” published in 1943 it was stated, “The Anschluss of
the Ostmark to the German Reich in March 1938 had the gratifying result as far
as the Krupp firm was concerned that an old plant established in 1843 by the
Krupp brothers and the house of Schoeller, the Berndorfer Metallwarenfabrik,
could be incorporated in the parent firm of Krupp in Essen.” In any event
Arthur Krupp, a grand uncle of Bertha Krupp, took over the property from his
father in 1879 and succeeded in building it into one of Europe’s leading
industrial enterprises.
During the economic crisis of 1931-1932 the
Berndorfer Company was forced to undergo a financial reorganization as a result
of which the Creditanstalt Bank of Austria became the owner of a majority of
the Berndorfer stock. From the time of the refinancing of the company and until
the invasion of Austria in March 1938 the Krupp firm at Essen tried
continuously to obtain ownership of Berndorfer but their offers were always
rejected |
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¹ Read in part by
Judge Wilkins after the Tribunal had rendered its judgment on 31 July, 1948.
However, the mimeographed transcript contains the dissent in full, 31 July
1948. pp. 11403-13448.
² At this point, in reading parts of his
dissent, Judge Wilkins said: “May I just interpolate by saying that the
six defendants referred to, of course, were the six who were found guilty of
the crime of spoliation under count two.”
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