I.G. Loses the
War
May 12, 1944, was a fateful
day for Germany and for I.G. On that ay the United States Eighth Air
Force sent 935 bombers over Germany to attack its synthetic oil
industry; 200 bombers concentrated on I.G.’s Leuna plant alone. This
attack marked the beginning of what the U.S. strategic bombing
survey called “the Battle of Leuna,” classifying it as “one of the
major battles of the war.” 1
The next day Albert Speer, Reich
minister for armaments and war production, toured the wreckage of Leuna with Buetefisch. What he saw convinced him that “the
technological war was decided.... It meant the end of German
armament production.” 2 For Speer it was the turning point in the
war. He immediately flew to Hitler’s headquarters at Obersalzburg to
report on the extent and meaning of the disaster:
“The enemy has
struck us at one of our weakest points,” he told the Fuehrer. “If
they persist at it this time, we will soon have no fuel production
worth mentioning. Our one hope is that the other side has an air
force general staff as scatterbrained as ours!” 3
Hitler then
summoned four of the top fuel experts from I.G., including Krauch
and Buetefisch, for a discussion about the consequences of the May
12 air raid. Goering and Speer accompanied them to the meeting.
Before the group went in to see Hitler, Speer advised the four fuel
experts to tell “the unvarnished truth.” However, Goering insisted
that they not be too pessimistic. “He was probably afraid that
Hitler would place the blame for the debacle chiefly on him,” Speer
wrote later. 4
Krauch was determined to follow Speer’s advice. He
told Hitler that Germany’s position was hopeless if the enemy air
raids on the synthetic oil plants continued. To support his grim
forecast, he presented Hitler with an impressive array of facts and
figures.
Goering, full of rage at what he regarded as gross insubordination,
turned on Krauch in front of Hitler. The success of the Allied air
raids was all Krauch’s fault, he fumed, since planning for air raid
protection was Krauch’s responsibility. 5 By this time Goering had
lost his influence with Hitler, who ignored his tirade against
Krauch. For Hitler there was a more fundamental reason for the
terrible effectiveness of the Allied air raids directed against the
German productive centers: “In my view the fuel, Buna rubber and
nitrogen plants represent a particularly sensitive point for the
conduct of the war.” 6 Because of I.G.’s monopoly, these vital war
materials were concentrated in too few plants. 7
But it was too late
for Hitler to invoke a German Antitrust Act. The only thing to do
was to try to put the plants back in operation as quickly as
possible and then protect them with a heavy defensive air cover.
Speer gave the restoration project the highest priority for men and
materiel; 350,000 workers were assigned to the task of restoring
German oil production. At Leuna the effort succeeded in bringing the
facilities back to partial operation within ten days. But, on May
28, the Eighth Air Force resumed the battle of Leuna. The result was
another crippling blow, which reduced German fuel production by
half.
By now Goering acknowledged the seriousness of the situation. He
promised Krauch and other German fuel experts that a significant
part of Germany’s new aircraft production would be designated solely
to protect the oil plants and would never be diverted to the front.
8 But the Allied invasion of the continent on June 6 forced Goering
to renege on that promise. The planes and anti-aircraft guns
promised by Goering to protect the oil plants were diverted to meet
the more immediate danger. At the end of June, a desperate Speer
wrote to Hitler for help.
Our aviation gasoline production was badly hit during May and June.
The enemy has succeeded in increasing our losses of aviation
gasoline up to 90 percent by June 22. Only through speedy recovery
of damaged plants has it been possible to regain partly some of the
terrible losses. In spite of this, however, aviation gasoline
production is completely insufficient at this time.... If it is
not possible for us to protect these plants we will be forced to
curtail the flow of supplies to the Army in September, which will
mean that from that time on there will be a terrible bottleneck
which may lead to the most tragic consequences.... I regret
having to inform my Fuehrer of these tragic developments and I beg
you to issue all the necessary orders for this additional protection
of these plants. 9
The course of the Battle of Leuna became the
gauge for the state of German oil production. By early July the
resourceful I.G. technicians were able to restore Leuna to
seventy-five percent operating capacity. However, the Eighth Air
Force returned on July 7, again bombing the plant to a halt. Two
days later the plant started operating again and by July 19 had
reached fifty-three percent of capacity. 10
And so the cycle of
bombings and reconstruction continued. But the total effect on
German fuel production was nothing less than catastrophic. Krauch
concluded that the only way fuel installations could be rebuilt
after each raid was to cannibalize other installations. Under this
plan to prevent the total cessation of oil production, Germany’s
productive capacity diminished with each recuperation. By September,
oil production had dropped to fifteen percent, a condition from
which Germany was never to recover. 11
The intensive bombing of Leuna led to a curious confrontation between Buetefisch, who was in
charge of Leuna, and Paul Harteck, a leading nuclear scientist
working on Germany’s atomic bomb project. Part of Leuna was devoted
to the manufacture of heavy water, a necessary component of atomic
energy. After the first bombs fell on Leuna, Buetefisch informed
Harteck that the heavy water installation must be abandoned. He
claimed that the massive bombing could not have been aimed at fuel
production since there was a “gentlemen’s agreement” between heavy
industry in Germany and abroad that I.G.’s synthetic gasoline plants
would not be bombed. The only explanation for the raids against
Leuna, therefore, was the heavy water facility. 12
Stories of such
agreements between Allied and German concerns became part of the
war’s mythology. Except for this extraordinary statement by Buetefisch, which was confirmed by Harteck, not a scintilla of
credible evidence ever has been uncovered to support any of them.
Moreover, the removal of the heavy water installation did not halt
the Allied bombings, which continued until Leuna became inoperative.
At about the same time, Buetefisch had another, more personal
concern. The
Petroleum Times in its December 23, 1943 issue published in detail a
lecture by Robert
T. Haslam of Standard Oil. In the article, Haslam claimed that
United States technical warfare would not have been effective if I.G.
had not supplied Standard with valuable information before the war.
In fact, said Haslam, the success of the U.S.S.R.’s military
campaigns was the result of the “technical achievements” the Soviet
Union gained from I.G. via Standard. 13
Buetefisch, who had been
personally charged by General Thomas with the responsibility for
seeing that there were no leaks of technical information to
Standard, was terrified by the Petroleum Times article. He took the
matter up with Knieriem, apparently the most level-headed person
still in I.G. Knieriem immediately realized that “this was a
dangerous situation and we had to recognize the possibility that we
might be attacked for treason.” 14
This would never have been a
pleasant contemplation at any time in Nazi Germany, but during the
Allied bombings it had awesome implications. “Imagine,” said Knieriem, “the situation of a German firm in
1944 before the People’s Court.” 15
As quickly as possible the I.G. executives prepared a point-by-point
refutation of Haslam’s lecture in the event the German government
delved into the matter. But the Nazis were preoccupied with other
troubles, and no such inquiry was ever undertaken. Had the Nazis
learned of Haslam’s defense of the Standard-I.G. agreements,
Buetefisch, Ter Meer, and probably other I.G. officials might
conceivably have been placed in the most serious jeopardy.
By the fall of 1944, the German military situation had become so
desperate that Bormann, Goebbels, and Ley—three of the most
dedicated and ruthless Nazis in the Third Reich—began to pressure
Hitler to attack enemy strongholds and cities with Tabun, a nerve
gas so deadly that a drop on the skin killed a victim in minutes by
attacking the nervous system. 16 Tabun, as well as Sarin, a
companion nerve gas, had been discovered during I.G. research and
development on pesticides and became one of Germany’s most closely
guarded military secrets, referred to in documents only by the code
name “N-Stoff.”
This was not the first time this trio had pleaded with Hitler to
employ I.G.’s Tabun
against the enemy. In May 1943, after the debacle of Stalingrad,
they had urged its use
on the Russian front. At that time Hitler called a conference at his
headquarters in East
Prussia to weigh this proposal. Speer, who was strongly opposed to
the introduction of
Tabun, flew Otto Ambros, I.G.’s authority on poison gas as well as
synthetic rubber, to
the meeting. Hitler asked Ambros, “What is the other side doing
about poison gas?” 17
Ambros explained that the enemy, because of its greater access to
ethylene, probably
had a greater capacity to produce mustard gas than Germany did.
Hitler interrupted to
explain that he was not referring to traditional poison gases:
“I
understand that the
countries with petroleum are in a position to make more [mustard
gas], but Germany
has a special gas, Tabun. In this we have a monopoly in Germany.” 18
He specifically
wanted to know whether the enemy had access to such a gas and what
it was doing in
this area. To Hitler’s disappointment Ambros replied,
“I have
justified reasons to assume
that Tabun, too, is known abroad. I know that Tabun was publicized
as early as 1902,
that Sarin was patented, and that these substances appeared in
patents.” 19
Ambros was informing Hitler of an extraordinary fact about one of
Germany’s most
secret weapons. The essential nature of Tabun and Sarin had already
been disclosed in
the technical journals as far back as 1902, and I.G. had patented
both products in 1937 and 1938.
Ambros then warned Hitler that if Germany used Tabun, it
must face the
possibility that the Allies could produce this gas in much larger
quantities. 20 Upon
receiving this discouraging report, Hitler abruptly left the
meeting. The nerve gases
would not be used, for the time being at least, although they would
continue to be
produced and tested.* 21
* Guinea pigs and white rats, animals traditionally used for testing
purposes, were deemed inadequate for measuring the effect of the
nerve gases on humans. Early in the war, it was decided to
substitute apes, whose biological reactions to such gases were
believed to be more like those of human beings. However, apes were
not readily available in Germany, and Speer’s office supplied
200,000 Swiss francs, a precious foreign currency, to buy them in
Spain. They were transported to Germany with great difficulty; many
died before the experiments were concluded (TWC I, p. 351, Brandt
Document Book 12, Defense Exhibit 11). Eventually it was decided to
experiment on concentration camp Jews.
It is suspected that the testing of I.G.’s poison gases on humans
was known in the highest echelons of I.G. After the war, Georg von
Schnitzler swore that Ambros, Schmitz, and Ter Meer were aware of
these activities. According to British intelligence, one of them was
reported to have “justified the experiments not only on the grounds
that the inmates of concentration camps would have been killed
anyway by the Nazis, but also on the grounds that the experiments
had a humanitarian aspect in that the lives of countless German
workers were saved thereby” (Hearings before a Subcommittee of the
Committee on Military Affairs, U.S. Senate, 79th Congress, 1st
Session (1945), pursuant to S. Res. 107 and 146, Elimination of
German Resources for War, part X, p. 1276).
However, Hitler did not give up his interest in such a weapon
entirely. After the
Allied invasion of the continent in June 1944, Hitler became
disenchanted with Army
Ordnance tests of “N-Stoff.” He informed Speer that he intended to
transfer the
“responsibility for the production and tests of N-Stoff to the S.S.”
22
Speer objected,
apparently shocked by the award of such decisive power to the S.S.
Moreover, I.G. was
too important to the program to be removed at this time. Speer
convinced Hitler to limit
the S.S. authority to testing the nerve gas while permitting I.G. to
retain control over
production and development. 23
Hitler was persuaded and issued an order to this effect. On July 7,
1944, Speer received a teletype message from General Keitel:
The Fuehrer has ordered that the Reichsfuehrer S.S. [Himmler]
immediately continue
experiments with “N Stoff.”. . . To this end, the Army Ordnance
Office will immediately submit
to the Reichsfuehrer S.S. all reference material and know-how
gathered up to now about “N
Stoff” and will support him in his endeavors with all possible
means. 24
After the issuance of Hitler’s order, Speer sought to clarify his
position in a letter to
Himmler. It would be a mistake, explained Speer, for the S.S. to
take over the
production of N-Stoff when, after all, only I.G. had the qualified
specialists. Speer
regretted that no competitive firm to I.G. Farben had been
established within the
framework of the four-year plan when it could easily have been done:
“Nowadays we
are entirely dependent on the work of I.G. Farben for chemical
progress.” 25
Himmler,
apparently satisfied, replied that the S.S. would devote all its
energy to the testing of N-Stoff and leave production to I.G. 26
When the suggestion to use Tabun was made again in the fall of 1944,
Hitler was still concerned about retaliation. He inquired once again
of Speer about the possibility that the enemy possessed an
equivalent weapon. Speer checked with Ambros and was told that
nothing had changed and no defense against the nerve gas had been
developed.
Hitler again forbade its use. 27
Ambros’s estimate of the Allies’ chemical warfare capability proved
wrong. The Allies had nothing comparable to I.G.’s nerve gases with
which to retaliate. It is terrifying to speculate on the holocaust
that would have resulted had Hitler known this and ordered a massive
nerve gas attack on London, Moscow, or Washington. Or worse, Hitler
might have found the weapon to win the war.
The subject of Tabun surfaced for one more brief moment before the
war was over. In order to end the war more quickly, Speer conceived
the idea in February 1945 of using the gas to kill Hitler. 28 He
planned to induce Tabun into the ventilating system of the
Chancellery bunker. But the technical problems proved insuperable,
and Speer abandoned the scheme. The war continued for another three
months. On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally. By
August war crimes trials were being organized, and by November the
first of the trials against the major war criminals had begun.
I.G. officials acted as though they had a premonition of what the
future had in store. As early as September 1944 Ter Meer and
Ernst Struss, secretary of the managing board, were planning for the
destruction of the files of I.G. in the event that the American
forces occupied Frankfurt. The next spring, when Frankfurt was about
to fall to the American army, a massive burning and shredding of
files was undertaken—some fifteen tons of paper.
Most of the records
at Auschwitz were also destroyed before the Soviet army arrived.
When the Allies began to try to piece together the I.G. record from
the Nazi period, there were enormous gaps. More than one observer
has suggested that I.G.’s record would have been far more
incriminating had these files been available. What remained for the
Allies to capture was horrible enough.
Back to Contents
I.G. at Nuremberg
In August 8, 1945, the representatives of the governments of the
United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France met in
London to establish an International Military Tribunal to try the
war criminals of Germany. 1 Prominent jurists from the four major
powers were selected to serve as judges and a committee of chief
prosecutors was appointed to draft an indictment.
On October 6, the formal indictment was completed and filed with the
International Military Tribunal. 2 Indicted were the leaders of Nazi
Germany still alive. They were charged with three basic war crimes:
planning, preparing, and waging aggressive war; plunder and
spoliation of the property of conquered countries; and slavery and
mass murder.
It had been planned to include among those indicted a prominent
industrialist who typified the complicity of German business in
Hitler’s programs. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, head of the
Krupp steelworks, was chosen to fill this role. Although I.G. had
been far more important to Germany’s military-economic war
preparations, Krupp was the individual most associated by reputation
with the war-making power of Germany.
When James H. Rowe, Jr., a prominent American lawyer representing
the
International Military Tribunal, tried to serve the indictment upon
the steel baron, he
discovered that the aged Krupp was mentally and physically unable to
defend himself. 3
It was agreed that he would therefore have to be dropped as a
defendant. The chief
prosecutors, determined to include a German industrialist among the
major war
criminals, filed a motion to substitute Gustav Krupp’s son Alfried.
The motion was
denied by the Tribunal, 4 and the trial began on November 20, 1946,
without an
industrialist as a defendant.* To assuage public opinion in the
Allied countries, the
French and British issued a joint declaration that in the future a
number of leading
German industrialists would be indicted as war criminals and tried
before another
International Military Tribunal. 5
* At the conclusion of this trial on August 31, 1946, the following
were sentenced to death:
Hermann Goering, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred
Rosenberg, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius
Streicher, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Arthur von Seyss-Inquart, and
Martin Bormann (in absentia). 6 All were hung except Goering, who
committed suicide on the morning of the executions, and Bormann, who
was never apprehended. 17 Rudolf Hess, Walter Funk, and Erich Raeder
were sentenced to life imprisonment. Albert Speer and Baldur von
Schirach received twenty years’ imprisonment; 8 Konstantin von
Neurath, fifteen years; and Karl Doenitz, ten years. Hjalmar
Schacht, Franz von Papen, and Hans Fritsche were acquitted on all
counts. 9 On April 5, 1946, with the trial nearing its end, the
committee of chief prosecutors revived the plan to try a number of
leading German industrialists before a second International Military
Tribunal. 10 It was agreed that the list of the industrialist
defendants must be held to a manageable number, preferably six but
not to exceed eight.
That Alfried Krupp was to be one of these defendants was a
certainty. As it turned out,
only four other industrialists were selected. The United States
nominated Hermann Schmitz and Georg von Schnitzler of I.G. Farben.
The French chose Hermann Roechling, the coal and steel magnate of
the Saar. (Roechling’s trial was to be a repeat performance: a
quarter of a century earlier, after World War I, he had been tried
and convicted as a war criminal in absentia by the French.) The
British nominated Kurt von Schroeder, the Cologne banker. The
Russians reserved the right to designate two defendants but never
did so.
However, the plans for conducting a second trial before an
International Military Tribunal collapsed. The experiences of the
trial of the major war criminals convinced the prosecutors that a
court made up of the four Allied powers was too unwieldy. Instead, a
trial of industrial war criminals was to be left to each of the
Allies in its own occupation zone of Germany. 11 The United States
proved the most energetic of the Allies in this connection and
promptly initiated plans to proceed with a series of war crimes
trials against the leading executives of the I.G., Krupp, and Flick
concerns. 12
Judges were recruited from the state and federal
judiciaries and from the faculties of law schools to preside over
the trials. Staffs were organized to collect facts, draft
indictments, and generally make the necessary preparations for the
trials.
The chief of the prosecution staff for the I.G. case was Josiah E.
Du-Bois, Jr., a deputy to Brigadier General Telford E. Taylor, who
succeeded Justice Jackson as chief U.S. provost of the war crimes
trials. After months of gathering evidence, examining witnesses, and
organizing thousands of documents, the prosecution staff filed an
indictment on May 3, 1947, on behalf of the United States. 13
Twenty-four I.G. executives were indicted:
-
Carl Krauch as chairman
of I.G.’s supervisory board
-
Hermann Schmitz as chairman of the I.G. managing board
-
all the
other members of this board (Georg von Schnitzler, Fritz Gajewski,
Heinrich Hoerlein, August von Knieriem, Fritz ter Meer, Christian
Schneider, Otto Ambros, Max Brueggemann, Ernst Buergin, Heinrich
Buetefisch, Paul Haefliger, Max Ilgner, Friedrich Jaehne, Hans
Kuehne, Carl Lautenschlaeger, Wilhelm Mann, Heinrich Oster, and Karl
Wurster)
-
four other important I.G. officials (Walter Duerrfeld,
Heinrich Gattineau, Erich von der Heyde, and Hans Kugler)
The indictment, a document of over sixty pages, consisted of five
separate counts into which was poured the record of I.G.’s
involvement with the Nazi machine. The major counts were “Planning,
Preparation, Initiation and Waging of Wars of Aggression and
Invasions of Other Countries”; “Plunder and Spoliation”; and
“Slavery and Mass Murder.”
Under the aggressive warfare count, the indictment listed a wide
range of offenses:
-
alliance of I.G. with Hitler and the Nazi party
-
synchronization of
all I.G.’s activities
with the military planning of the German High Command
-
participation
in the four-year
plan preparations and direction of Germany’s economic mobilization
for war
-
participation in creating and equipping the Nazi military machine
for aggressive war
-
procuring and stockpiling critical war materials for the Nazi
offensive
-
participation in
weakening Germany’s potential enemies
-
carrying on propaganda,
intelligence, and
espionage activities
-
preparation for and participation in the
planning and execution of Nazi aggressions and reaping of spoils therefrom
-
participation in plunder, spoliation, slavery, and
mass murder as part of the invasions and wars of aggression.
In the
plunder and spoliation count, the indictment charged that “I.G.
marched with the Wehrmacht and played a major role” in Germany’s
program for acquisition by conquest:
“To that end, it conceived,
initiated, and prepared detailed plans for the acquisition by it,
with the aid of the German military force, of the chemical
industries of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, France,
Russia, and other countries.”
The charge of slavery and mass murder
was the crucial count in the indictment, without which it is even
doubtful that there would have been any war crimes trial at all. All
of the defendants, acting through the instrumentality of I.G. . .
participated in... the enslavement of concentration camp inmates... the use of prisoners of war in war operations... and the
mistreatment, terrorization, torture, and murder of enslaved
persons. In the course of these activities, millions of persons were
uprooted from their homes, deported, enslaved, ill-treated,
terrorized, tortured, and murdered.
In effect the indictment was a catalogue of Nazi inhumanities in
which the I.G. defendants played a part, particularly in the most
notorious of all extermination centers, Auschwitz.
Farben, in complete defiance of all decency and human
considerations, abused its slave workers by subjecting them, among
other things, to excessively long, arduous, and exhausting work,
utterly disregarding their health or physical condition. The sole
criterion of the right to live or die was the production efficiency
of said inmates.
By virtue of inadequate rest, inadequate food
(which was given to the inmates while in bed at the barracks), and
because of inadequate quarters (which consisted of a bed of polluted
straw, shared by from two to four inmates), many died at their work
or collapsed from serious illness there contracted.
With the first
signs of a decline in the production of any such workers, although
caused by illness or exhaustion, such workers would be subjected to
the well-known “Selektion.” “Selektion,” in its simplest definition,
meant that if, upon a cursory examination, it appeared that the
inmate would not be restored within a few days to full productive
capacity, he was considered expendable and was sent to the
“Birkenau” camp of Auschwitz for the customary extermination. The
meaning of “Selektion” and “Birkenau” was known to everyone at
Auschwitz and became a matter of common knowledge.
The working conditions at the Farben Buna plant were so severe and
unendurable that very often inmates were driven to suicide by either
dashing through the guards and provoking death by rifle shot, or
hurling themselves into the high-tension electrically-charged barbed
wire fences. As a result of these conditions, the labor turnover in
the Buna plant in one year amounted to at least 300 percent.
Besides
those who were exterminated and committed suicide, up to and
sometimes over 100 persons died at their work every day from sheer
exhaustion. All depletions occasioned by extermination and other
means of death were balanced by replacement with new inmates. Thus,
Farben secured a continuous supply of fresh inmates in order to
maintain full production.
Farben’s conduct at Auschwitz can be best described by a remark of
Hitler [sic; should be Himmler]:
“What does it matter to us? Look
away if it makes you sick.” 14
The possible verdicts ranged from
acquittal to death.
From the outset the legality of the war crimes trials had been
challenged by a number of legal scholars and politicians who
contended that such trials represented victors’ justice. Among the
most prominent of those who joined in the debate were Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone, Justice William O. Douglas, and Senator
Robert A.
Taft.
Justice Douglas wrote,
No matter how many books are written or briefs filed, no matter how
finely the lawyers analyzed it, the crime for which the Nazis were
tried had never been formalized as a crime with the definiteness
required by our legal standards, nor outlawed with a death penalty
by the international community. By our standards that crime arose
under an ex post facto law. Goering et al. deserved severe
punishment. But their guilt did not justify us in substituting power
for principle. 15
Chief Justice Stone was even more emphatic. In a
private letter, he wrote,
“Jackson is away conducting his high-grade
lynching party at Nuremberg. I don’t mind what he is doing to the
Nazis, but I hate to see the pretense that he is running a court and
proceedings according to common law.” 16
Senator Taft said,
“In
these trials we have accepted the Russian idea of the purpose of
trials—government policy and not justice—with little relation to
Anglo-Saxon heritage. By clothing policy in the forms of legal
procedure, we may discredit the whole idea of justice in Europe for
years to come.” 17
By the time the prosecution of the I.G. officials
began in 1947, a new element had been added to the objections to war
crimes trials. The cold war had begun. Germany, the wartime enemy,
had become a sought after ally; the U.S.S.R., the former ally, was
now regarded as the enemy. Congressman John E. Rankin of Mississippi
declared on the floor of the House of Representatives:
What is taking place in Nuremberg, Germany, is a disgrace to the
United States. Every other
country now has washed its hands and withdrawn from this saturnalia
of persecution. But a
racial minority, two and a half years after the war closed, are in
Nuremberg not only hanging
German soldiers but trying German businessmen in the name of the
United States. 18
Representative George A. Dondero of Michigan continued the attack in
the House,
charging that ten communist sympathizers had infiltrated key
positions in the American
military government in Germany. He specifically attacked Josiah
DuBois, the deputy
chief counsel of the prosecution staff in the I.G. case, as a “known
left-winger from the
Treasury Department who has been a close student of the Communist
Party line.” 19
DuBois challenged Dondero to repeat his charges off the floor of
Congress so that he
would not be immune from a libel suit, but Dondero refused to do so.
20
The trial opened on schedule on August 27, 1947, in the Palace of
Justice at
Nuremberg. Selected as judges to conduct the trial were Curtis
Grover Shake, formerly
a judge of the Supreme Court of Indiana, who was to preside; James
Morris, justice of
the Supreme Court of North Dakota; and Paul M. Hebert, dean of the
Law School of
Louisiana State University. Clarence F. Merrell, an Indiana lawyer
who was a friend of
Judge Shake’s, was to serve as alternate judge. 21
The large courtroom was filled to capacity. Members of the public
occupied all 300 seats allocated to them and the press section was
filled to overflow. The twenty-three defendants (Brueggemann was
declared too ill to stand trial) were attended by more than sixty
lawyers, among the best of the German bar, and another twenty
accountants and other specialists. The prosecution staff consisted
of a dozen lawyers and experts. There were also clerks,
stenographers, police, and military guards, as well as technicians
and simultaneous translators required to make an electronic,
bilingual trial possible.
General Telford Taylor set the tone of
the prosecution’s case in his opening statement.
The indictment
accuses these men of major responsibility for visiting upon mankind
the most searing and catastrophic war in human history. It accuses
them of wholesale enslavement, plunder, and murder. These are
terrible charges; no man should underwrite them frivolously or
vengefully...
The defendants will, no doubt, tell us that they were merely
over-zealous, and possibly misguided patriots. We will hear it said
that all they planned to do was what any patriotic businessman would
have done under similar circumstances.... As for the carnage of
war and the slaughter of innocents, these were the regrettable deeds
of Hitler and the Nazis, to whose dictatorship they, too, were
subject. 22
Taylor correctly divined one of the main defense
strategies—to make the defendants out to be ordinary businessmen
like those the world over. However, the way the prosecution began to
develop the case seemed to play into the hands of the defense. The
prosecution introduced organizational charts, cartel agreements,
patent licenses, correspondence, production schedules, and corporate
reports, as is done in antitrust cases, not at a trial of war
criminals charged with mass murder. Judge Morris finally voiced his
irritation with the proceedings.
Mr. Prosecutor, this organization,
so far as records show here, was simply a big chemical, commercial
and business concern, the like of which there are many throughout
the world.... I am at a complete loss to comprehend where
documents of this kind are of the slightest materiality to the
charges. This trial is being slowed down by a mass of contracts,
minutes and letters that seem to have such slight bearing on any
possible concept of proof in this case. 23
Emanuel Minskoff of the
prosecution staff appealed to his chief, Josiah DuBois, to change
the order and direction of the prosecution case. It would have been
more effective, he argued, to have opened with the charge of slavery
and mass murder: “We should have started with Auschwitz on the first
day.” Because the prosecution failed to do so, “the court just can’t
believe these are the kind of men who would be guilty of aggressive
war.” DuBois replied that it was too late to adopt such an approach.
Minskoff persevered, “But I still say you should argue Auschwitz;
then they will see what kind of men they are trying and they’ll
understand the rest of it.” 24
It was too late to adopt Minskoff’s
recommendation, much as DuBois would have liked to. The trial moved
along according to the sequence of the counts in the indictment.
It was not until the prosecution staff reached the charge of slavery
and mass murder
that the critical point of the trial was reached. No longer did the
procedures resemble
those of an antitrust suit. The prosecution, in order to support
these charges, introduced
scores of eyewitnesses who had been in I.G. Auschwitz, including
prisoners of war,
Jewish and foreign inmates, physicians, and I.G. officials troubled
by conscience, all of whom told stories that were incredible but
still had the ring of truth.
An effective prosecution witness was
Norbert Jaehne, the son of defendant Friedrich Jaehne, and a
certified engineer at I.G. Auschwitz from January 1943 to the end of
the war. The elder Jaehne had made several trips to visit his son at
the camp. Norbert Jaehne’s position at I.G. Auschwitz and his blood
relationship with a defendant gave added force to his description of
what went on at Auschwitz.
Of all the people employed in I.G. Auschwitz, the inmates received
the worst treatment. They were beaten by the Capos, who in their
turn had to see to it that the amount of work prescribed them and
their detachments by the I.G. foremen was carried out, because they
otherwise were punished by being beaten in the evening in the
Monowitz camp.
A general driving system prevailed on the I.G.
construction site, so that one cannot say that the Capos alone were
to blame. The Capos drove the inmates in their detachments
exceedingly hard, in self-defense, so to speak, and did not shrink
from using any means of increasing the work of the inmates, just so
long as the amount of work required was done. 25
Hardly less
compelling was the testimony of the secretary of the I.G. managing
board, Ernst A. Struss, who had visited I.G. Auschwitz several
times.
COUNSEL: “The chief engineer of the Buna plant with whom you
spoke in 1943, did he specifically tell you that people were being
burned at Auschwitz?”
STRUSS: “Yes, I think he also told me that
before the burning, they were gassed. ...”
COUNSEL: “And in the
summer of 1943 you knew that people were being burned and gassed?”
STRUSS: “Yes.” COUNSEL: “And to your best recollection you told that to Ambros and
TerMeer?” STRUSS: “Yes.” 26
Through former Auschwitz inmates, the prosecution presented a
graphic picture of conditions at I.G. Auschwitz and Monowitz.
Typical was the testimony of Robert Elie Waitz, a professor at the
University of Strasbourg, an inmate who was also a physician with an
international reputation. He worked in the Monowitz hospital and,
because of his renown and demeanor, was a forceful witness.
I found out very soon that Monowitz was an extermination camp. On
account of the severe living conditions, the prisoners were exposed
to that slow process of physical and mental dissolution which
terminated in most cases in the gas chambers. The final aim was
unmistakable: the dehumanization and eventual extermination of the
prisoners employed in the I.G. plant at Auschwitz. I heard an S.S.
officer in Monowitz saying to the prisoners, “You are all condemned
to die, but the execution of your sentence will take a little
while.”
Until that time the S.S. and I.G. in common exploited the
prisoners beyond what they could bear. 27 From witness Rudolf Vitek,
also both a physician and an inmate, came the following appraisal:
The prisoners were pushed in their work by the Capos, foremen, and
overseers of the I.G. in an inhuman way. No mercy was shown.
Thrashings, ill-treatment of the worst kind, even direct
killings were the fashion. The murderous working speed was
responsible for the fact that while working many prisoners
suddenly stretched out flat, turned blue, gasped for breath and
died like beasts....
It was no rare occurrence that detachments of 400 to 500 men brought
back with them in the
evening five to twenty corpses. The dead were brought to the place
of rollcall and counted as
being present. 28
A Czechoslovakian inmate swore that,
The directors of I.G. Farben knew about the selections.... The
employees of I.G. Farben indirectly occasioned the selections....
The master craftsmen complained to the management. . . and from
there the complaints were forwarded to the management, Dr. Duerrfeld. and from there to the S.S. Consequently, the Labor
Allocation Officer in Auschwitz went to Monowitz early in the
morning, when the squads left for work, posted himself near the gate
and picked out those people... whom they considered sickly; these
people were sent to the gas chambers straight away. Those written
complaints came from I.G. I myself have seen such reports. 28
Very
dramatic was the appearance for the prosecution of a group of
British prisoners of war. Their testimony was especially impressive.
The condition of the concentration camp inmates was deplorable. I
used to see them being carried back at night, dead from exposure,
hunger, or exhaustion. The concentration camp inmates did heavy
manual labor, such as carrying steel girders, pipes, cables, bricks,
and sacks of cement weighing about 100 lbs. As a rule the inmates
weighed less than the cement sacks. I have seen the inmates shuffle,
trying to make it in double time, but unable to do it, and I have
seen them collapse.
. . . We would see the chaps hanging up in the gate of Lager IV, and
the prisoners had to walk underneath them. I saw those bodies
myself; working parties passed under the gate while walking to work.
30 Cross-examination did not help the defendants’ cause.
Q. “Did you see personally how prisoners were hanged in camp IV
[Monowitz] ?” A. “I saw three men hanging in the gate of camp IV approximately in
February 1944.” Q. “Do you know why these prisoners were hanged?”
A. “I didn’t know there had to be a reason.” 31
Another British
prisoner of war testified:
I was at Auschwitz nearly every day. The population at Auschwitz was
fully aware that people
were being gassed and burned. On one occasion they complained about
the stench of burning
bodies. Of course, all of the Farben people knew what was going on.
Nobody could live in
Auschwitz and work in the plant, or even come down to the plant
without knowing what was
common knowledge to everybody. 32
In an attempt to overcome the deadly impact of the prosecution’s
witnesses, the defense introduced into evidence some 386 affidavits.
The prosecution challenged fifteen of them, which came from former
inmates of Monowitz and I.G. Auschwitz. They were called as
witnesses for cross-examination by Emanuel Minskoff of the
prosecution staff. He was unusually successful in breaking down the
credibility of the witnesses. One example reflects the general
atmosphere Minskoff was able to create.
Q. “Now, Mr. Witness, isn’t
it a fact that during the winter days as many as twenty inmates at a
time were carried away from the Farben site back into Monowitz
because they couldn’t walk by themselves any more?” A. “Yes.”
Q. “And could you say what the average weight of the inmates would
be?” A. “100 to 120 pounds.” Q. “Now, Mr. Witness, is it not a fact that the I.G. Farben foremen
used to write evaluation sheets each night?” A. “Yes.” Q. “And isn’t it also true that if the Farben foremen reported the
battalion under 70 per cent, the inmates would be punished with
twenty-five strokes each?” A. “If he reported it—yes, that is true.”
Q. “And wasn’t the whipping post at Monowitz?” A. “I don’t know that.”
Q. “Mr. Witness, you speak of there being no instruments of torture
at Monowitz. Now isn’t it a fact that there was a standing cell in
Monowitz?” A. “Yes.” Q. “Were there gallows in Monowitz?”
A. “Yes.” Q. “And didn’t you often pass those gallows when an inmate had been
hanged?” A. “Unfortunately.” Q. “Now, Mr. Witness, you state at the end of your affidavit that
you survived I.G.
Auschwitz for three years. Isn’t it a fact that you were what was
known as an ‘old
inmate,’ and that because of that and particularly because of the
fact that you were aryanized while you were at the camp, you were in a completely
different position from the other inmates?” A. “That is correct.” 33
When Minskoff concluded, the witness was a broken man, crying
uncontrollably. A major point in the defense strategy to counteract
such damaging testimony was the introduction of affidavits detailing
the efforts of the I.G. defendants to protect Jewish employees from
the Nazis.
Especially interesting in this connection were the
attempts to protect Carl and Arthur von Weinberg. Affidavits from
Richard von Szilvignyi, the son-in-law of Carl von Weinberg, and
Count Rudolf von Spreti, son-in-law of Arthur von Weinberg,
established that Schmitz, Krauch, Schnitzler, and Ter Meer attempted
to save the Weinbergs from the Nazis. Schmitz, for example, supplied
Spreti with money to pay a large sum to a high Nazi official so that
Arthur von Weinberg would not have to wear the yellow “Jewish star.”
When Weinberg was later arrested and incarcerated in the dreaded
concentration camp at Theresienstadt, Schmitz and Krauch intervened
with Himmler.
An agreement was reached for Weinberg’s release,
subject to two relatively minor conditions: that he live with his
only daughter, Princess Charlotte Lobkowicz, at Serrahn for the rest
of his life and that this arrangement be approved by the local
Gauleiter of Mecklenburg. However, before the approval of the
Gauleiter of Mecklenburg could be secured, Weinberg died. Weakened
by hunger, he failed to survive a gall bladder operation. 34
Carl
von Weinberg was more fortunate than his brother. With the aid of I.G. officials, he fled to Italy, where he was supported by payments
from an I.G.-controlled company in Milan. All during the Nazi
regime, he received his I.G. pension of 80,000 Reichsmarks, at great
risk to the top members of the I.G. hierarchy who approved this
payment. 35 Testimony and affidavits from Jewish witnesses, however,
did not always achieve the desired effect.
Gerhard Ollendorff, a
retired deputy member of the I.G. managing board, supplied an
affidavit on behalf of defendant Fritz Gajewski. Ollendorff had been
arrested in February 1939 during what he thought was a Nazi roundup
of Jews. Gajewski went immediately to the chief of the Gestapo of
the area and succeeded in effecting Ollendorff’s release. In
Ollendorff’s affidavit, he recounted this event and added other
information to show Gajewski’s anti-Nazi sentiments and his help to
Jewish employees.
The cross-examination of Gajewski by Morris Amchan of the
prosecution staff, however, cast a different light on his
relationship to Ollendorff’s arrest.
Q. “Now, Dr. Gajewski, is it
not a fact that when your colleague of the [I.G. managing board],
Dr. Ollendorff, came to you as a friend and told you very
confidentially that because of his Jewish ancestry, he was going to
emigrate from Germany, having told you that in confidence, that you
thereupon informed the Gestapo to arrest him and search his house—is
that not a fact?”
A. “No. May I explain that? It was like this. Dr. Ollendorff did not
tell me that in confidence. It was generally known that he was going
to emigrate. I talked to... Bosch about it. He said to me, ‘Be
careful. See to it that no “know-how” gets into other countries in
this way or you will be in trouble.’ We said, ‘There has to be a
search of Dr Ollendorff’s house, so that we are safeguarded in that
respect.’ That was all we did.”
Q. “Now I show you [a document] and
I ask you whether that does not refresh your recollection that on
the same day when Ollendorff told you that he was going to emigrate
from Germany, you wrote the Gestapo and told them to arrest the man
and search his house? Does that refresh your recollection?” 36
Amchan then handed the witness a letter that Gajewski had written to
the Gestapo about Ollendorff.
Dr. Ollendorff has informed the Reich Office for Economic
Development that he intends to go abroad. We wish to inform you that
according to our interpretation Dr. Ollendorff has knowledge of
secret matters and that, therefore, it would serve the general
interest of the economy not to permit Dr. 0. to go abroad for the
time being. Since Dr. Ollendorff may still be in possession of
papers, we would consider it advisable to have his home searched as
a precautionary measure and any documents sent to us for study and
analysis. We request that this matter be treated in absolute
confidence. Heil Hitler! 37
Q. “One more question. Did you ever tell Ollendorff that you
reported him to the Gestapo and ordered his arrest?” A. “No, I didn’t.” 38
Another relatively unsuccessful ploy of the defense was the attempt
to show a lack of knowledge by the defendants of what I.G. Auschwitz
really was. The prosecution had demonstrated that in the three and a
half years of Auschwitz’s existence Ambros visited the compound
eighteen times, Buetefisch seven, Jaehne twice, Ter Meer twice, and
Krauch, Knieriem, and Schneider once each.
Duerrfeld lived on the
site during its entire existence. In addition, both the I.G.
managing board and the technical committee were supplied with
complete reports on the amount, character, and disposition of the
various types of labor in I.G. Auschwitz and I.G. plants in Germany
where slave labor was also used. These figures were reduced to
multicolored charts and hung in the appropriate meeting room.
Beginning in 1941, as the problem of labor supply became more acute,
new classifications began to appear on the charts. The I.G. leaders
were now aware that more than half I.G.’s “employees” were prisoners
of war, foreign loan workers, convicts of the Wehrmacht, and
concentration camp inmates. In the face of such evidence, the
testimony of the defendants that the facts of the slave labor
program and the atrocities of Auschwitz were unknown to them was
hardly credible.
Anyone visiting Auschwitz could not doubt its true
function as an extermination center. The smell of death poured from
its chimneys and polluted the atmosphere for miles around. Attempts
to describe conditions as clean and good were palpably ridiculous.
A much more effective legal strategy was the “defense of necessity.”
The defense emphasized the compulsion under which German
industrialists performed during the Nazi period. So far-reaching
were the Reich’s regulations and so stringent was their enforcement
that refusal to comply exposed an industrialist to imprisonment and
even death. Under the duress of the Nazi terror, the defendants
committed some of the acts charged in the indictment. In order to
survive, it became necessary to obey even the most hideous demands
of the Hitler government; hence the phrase “defense of necessity.”
39
The defense called two important witnesses in this connection.
Field Marshal Erhard Milch, who himself had been convicted and
sentenced to life imprisonment for participation in Germany’s slave
labor program, was asked what the consequences would have been if a
German businessman had refused to employ concentration camp inmates
or prisoners of war allocated to him for war production. Milch
replied that he would have been put under arrest immediately and
would have faced the People’s Court for “undermining the fighting
spirit”—“That was a very well known and dreaded paragraph. It
normally led to the death sentence.” 40
The other witness who
testified about the “defense of necessity” was Friedrich Flick, head
of the Flick concern, who had been convicted and sentenced to seven
years’ imprisonment for slave labor, plunder and spoliation, and
membership in the S.S. Counsel for defendant Schnitzler asked
whether a prominent industrialist could have refused to attend the
February 1933 meeting that Goering had called to raise election
funds for the Nazis and that Schnitzler had attended.
A. “He could do that, if he did not consider the consequences, but
naturally, he would have regretted it.” 41
Some of the judges were
impressed by the attempt of the defense to equate the I.G.
defendants with their industrial counterparts in the United States
and other countries as God-fearing, decent, and vigorously opposed
to communism. This tactic proved most effective: “Replace I.G. by
I.C.I. [Imperial Chemical Industries] for England, or Du Pont for
America, or Montecatini for Italy,” said Krauch’s lawyer to the
court, “and at once the similarity will become clear to you.” 42
Essentially, the defendants were peacetime businessmen and the
transformation of their activities into the defense effort of their
country should not be interpreted as participation in the
preparation for, or the waging of, aggressive war.
The prevailing atmosphere of the cold war, reflected in the remarks
and attitudes of
some of the judges, was put to advantage by the defense counsel. To
explain away the
evidence of their clients’ enthusiastic endorsement and
participation in Nazi policies and
practices, they cited Hitler’s opposition to communism. Krauch’s
counsel especially
hammered the theme that his client, like any good American
businessman, feared the
expansion of the communist threat.
Hitler’s speeches on foreign
policy made a deep
impression on him. Through all these speeches “like a red thread
runs the profession of
the love of peace” and the “fear of the Bolshevist danger.” Then,
appealing to the
passions of the cold war, incredible as it may seem, Krauch’s
counsel cited Hitler
approvingly as a prophet. “How right Hitler was in this outline of
his policy... might
be confirmed by the political situation which has developed in
recent months in Europe.” 43
This sounded a grimly revealing note
upon which to rest the defense of the “Father of I.G. Auschwitz.”
The trial finally ended on May 12, 1948, after having exhausted all
concerned in 152 trial days. There had been 189 witnesses. The
transcript was almost 16,000 pages long. Over 6000 documents and
2800 affidavits had been introduced into evidence.44 In addition,
there had been a multitude of briefs, motions, rulings, and other
legal instruments incidental to such a proceeding.
An intellectually divided and emotionally drained court faced the
task of carving from the huge record a legally valid and
historically meaningful decision. On July 29, 1948, almost a year
after the trial began, the court convened to read its opinion,
render its verdict, and sentence the guilty. Judge Hebert,
apparently supported by Alternate Judge Merrell, requested from
Judges Shake and Morris additional time to complete and file both a
concurrent and a dissenting opinion. This was denied. Before
proceeding with the main business of the court, Presiding Judge
Shake referred to a matter that had been reported in the newspapers
that morning.
A mysterious explosion had destroyed the high-pressure
hydrogenation plant at Ludwigshafen, in the French zone of
occupation, killing almost 200 workers and injuring thousands more,
45 a ghostly reminder of the unsolved explosion at Ludwigshafen in
1921.
Reflecting on the tragedy, Judge Shake commented,
“The
Tribunal has received unofficial information of the terrible tragedy
that occurred last evening at Ludwigshafen, and I am sure that I
speak for the Tribunal, as well as for all who are assembled in this
room, when we express our sympathy for the deceased and pay a
tribute to their memory, as well as to the families of those who
have suffered in this unfortunate incident.”
The court record then
noted, “The assemblage rose in silent tribute.” 46
Rudolf Dix,
counsel for Hermann Schmitz, acting as spokesman for the defense,
was granted permission to respond:
“May I express to you and to this
Tribunal our heartfelt thanks, and the most heartfelt thanks in the
name of these men here, in the name of the defense, and in the name
of the unfortunate sufferers.” 47
After this brief and poignant
ceremony, the court began to read its opinion. Relying on the
decision in the trial of the major war criminals (October 1946), the
court quickly disposed of counts one and four charging the
defendants with the preparation and waging of aggressive warfare and
conspiracy.
To the extent that the activities of the defendants...
contributed materially to the rearmament of Germany, the defendants
must be charged with knowledge of the immediate result.... The
prosecution, however, is confronted with the difficulty of
establishing knowledge on the part of the defendants, not only of
the rearmament of Germany but also that the purpose of rearmament
was to wage aggressive war. In this sphere, the evidence degenerates
from proof to mere conjecture. 48 On counts one and four the court
acquitted all the defendants. On the second count, spoliation and
plunder, the court set the guidelines for guilt or innocence.
We deem it to be the essence of the crime of plunder or spoliation
that the owner be deprived of his property involuntarily and against
his will... when action by the owner is not voluntary because his
consent is obtained by threats, intimidation, pressure, or by
exploiting the position and power of the military occupant under
circumstances indicating that the owner is being induced to part
with his property against his will, it is clearly a violation of the
Hague regulations. 49
Within this framework, nine of the defendants,
including such principal members of the I.G. managing board as
Hermann Schmitz, Georg von Schnitzler, Fritz ter Meer, Friedrich
Jaehne, and Max Ilgner, were adjudged guilty. The remaining fourteen
were acquitted. 50 Count three, charging the defendants with slavery
and mass murder, was the distinctive element of the trial, and it
remained so in the opinion of the court.
Taking note of the
undisputed facts of the terror practiced by the Nazis, even on their
own citizens, the court recognized the truth of the consequences
confronting those who disobeyed the decrees of the Nazi state.
Therefore, the court was,
“not prepared to say that these defendants
did not speak the truth when they asserted that in conforming to the
slave-labor program, they had no other choice than to comply with
the mandates of the Hitler government.” 51
By refusing to become an
oppressor, I.G. could have become a victim itself.
There can be but little doubt that the defiant refusal of a Farben
executive to carry out the Reich production schedule or to use slave
labor to achieve that end would have been treated as treasonous
sabotage and would have resulted in prompt and drastic retaliation.
Indeed, there was credible evidence that Hitler would have welcomed
the opportunity to make an example of a Farben leader. 52
The
question that remained, therefore, was under what circumstances
could the defendants avail themselves of the defense of necessity.
In its answer, the court stated quite succinctly that an order of a
superior officer or a law or governmental decree will not justify
the defense of necessity unless, in its operation, it is of a
character to deprive the one to whom it is directed of a moral
choice as to his course of action. It follows that the defense of
necessity is not available where the party seeking to invoke it was,
himself, responsible for the existence or execution of such order or
decree, or where his participation went beyond the requirements
thereof, or was the result of his own initiative. 53
Having thus set
the limits of the defendants’ main defense, the court went on to
outline with relative brevity the facts surrounding Auschwitz.
Nevertheless, at times during the reading of the opinion, the facts
evoked a passion that even a judicial manner could barely restrain.
The plant site was not entirely without inhumane incidents.
Occasionally beatings occurred by the plant police and supervisors
who were in charge of the prisoners while they were at work.
Sometimes workers collapsed. No doubt a condition of
undernourishment and exhaustion from long hours of heavy labor was
the primary cause of these incidents.
...Rumors of the selections made for gassing from among those who
were unable to work
were prevalent. Fear of this fate no doubt prompted many of the
workers, especially Jews, to
continue working until they collapsed. In camp Monowitz, the S.S.
maintained a hospital and
medical service. The adequacy of this service is a point of sharp
conflict in the evidence.
Regardless of the merits of the opposing
contentions on this point, it is clear that many of the workers were
deterred from seeking medical assistance by the fear that if they
did so they would be selected by the S.S. for transfer to Birkenau.
The Auschwitz construction workers furnished by the concentration
camp lived and labored under the shadow of extermination. 54
Despite
the fact that the court made it perfectly clear that “Farben did not
deliberately pursue or encourage an inhumane policy with respect to
the workers,” 55 it nevertheless was impressed by the facts
disclosed at the trial of the direct responsibility of Ambros,
Buetefisch, and Duerrfeld for taking the initiative in procuring
slave labor and “to some extent, at least, they must share the
responsibility for mistreatment of the workers with the S.S. and the
construction contractors.” 56
Moreover, the court found that I.G.
Auschwitz and Fuerstengrube, a nearby I.G. coal mine where slave
labor was used, 57 were wholly private projects operated by Farben,
with considerable freedom and opportunity for initiative on the part
of Farben officials connected therewith.... The use of
concentration camp labor and forced foreign workers at Auschwitz
with the initiative displayed by the officials of Farben in the
procurement and utilization of such labor, is a crime against
humanity and, to the extent that non-German nationals were involved,
also a war crime, to which the slave-labor program of the Reich will
not warrant the defense of necessity. 58
The court wasted little
time in convicting the defendants most directly involved in the
operation of I.G. Auschwitz.
Our consideration of Auschwitz and Fuerstengrube has impressed upon
us the direct responsibility of the defendants Duerrfeld, Ambros,
and Buetefisch. It will be unnecessary to discuss these defendants
further in this connection, as the events for which they are
responsible establish their guilt under count three [slavery and
mass murder] beyond a reasonable doubt. 59 Although there were no
qualifications or reservations expressed by the court about the
guilt of Ambros, Buetefisch, and Duerrfeld on count three, the
language concerning Krauch and Ter Meer was more circumspect.
The evidence does not convince us that Krauch was either a moving
party or an important participant in the initial enslavement of
workers in foreign countries. Nevertheless, he did, and we think
knowingly participate in the allocation of forced labor to Auschwitz
and other places where such labor was utilized within the chemical
field.
The evidence does not show that he had knowledge of, or
participated in, mistreatment of workers at their points of
employment. In view of what he clearly must have known about the
procurement of forced labor and the part he voluntarily played in
its distribution and allocation, his activities were such that they
impel us to hold that he was a willing participant in the crime of
enslavement.... 60 We reach the ultimate conclusion that Krauch,
by his activities in connection with the allocation of
concentration-camp inmates and forced foreign laborers, is Guilty
under count three. 61
Ter Meer, the highest ranking scientist on the
I.G. managing board and chairman of the technical committee, was
also held guilty on the charge of slavery and mass murder. Two
visits to Auschwitz and the fact that Ambros reported to him were
the factors compromising Ter Meer.
The captured documents... established beyond question that the
availability of concentration-camp labor figured in the planning of
the Auschwitz construction. Ambros played a major role in this
planning. His immediate superior with whom he had frequent contact
and to whom he made detailed reports was Ter Meer. The over-all
field of new construction was one in which Ter Meer was both active
and dominant. It is indeed unreasonable to conclude that, when
Ambros sought the advice of and reported in detail to Ter Meer, the
conferences were confined to such matters as transportation, water
supply, and the availability of construction materials and excluded
that important construction factor, labor, in which the
concentration camp played so prominent a part.
Ter Meer’s visits to
Auschwitz were no doubt as revealing to him as they are to this
Tribunal.... We are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the
officials in charge of Farben construction went beyond the necessity
created by the pressure of governmental officials and may be justly
charged with taking the initiative in planning for and availing
themselves of the use of concentration camp labor. Of these
officials Ter Meer had the greatest authority. We cannot say that he
countenanced or participated in abuse of the workers. But that alone
does not excuse his otherwise well established Guilt under count
three. 62
The rest of the defendants were acquitted under this
count. 63 As its final act, the court handed down its sentences of
the guilty. 64
-
Otto Ambros, guilty of count three, slavery and mass
murder, sentenced to imprisonment for eight years.
-
Walter Duerrfeld, guilty of count three, slavery and mass murder,
sentenced to imprisonment for eight years.
-
Fritz ter Meer, guilty of count two, plunder and spoliation, and
count three, slavery and mass murder, sentenced to imprisonment for
seven years.
-
Carl Krauch, guilty of count three, slavery and mass murder,
sentenced to imprisonment for six years.
-
Heinrich Buetefisch, guilty of count three, slavery and mass murder,
sentenced to imprisonment for six years.
-
Georg von Schnitzler, guilty of count two, plunder and spoliation,
sentenced to imprisonment for five years.
-
Hermann Schmitz, guilty of count two, plunder and spoliation,
sentenced to imprisonment for four years.
-
Max Ilgner, guilty of count two, plunder and spoliation, sentenced
to imprisonment for three years.
-
Heinrich Oster, guilty of count two, plunder and spoliation,
sentenced to imprisonment for two years.
-
Paul Haefliger, guilty of count two, plunder and spoliation,
sentenced to imprisonment for two years.
-
Friedrich Jaehne, guilty of count two, plunder and spoliation,
sentenced to imprisonment for one and one-half years.
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Hans Kugler,
guilty of count two, plunder and spoliation, sentenced to
imprisonment for one and one-half years.
The prosecution staff was
outraged by the court’s verdict and the sentences of the guilty.
Chief prosecutor Josiah DuBois regarded the sentences as “light
enough to please a chicken thief.” As he left the courtroom he
exploded, “I’ll write a book about this if it’s the last thing I
ever do.” 65
Within four years DuBois’s book appeared:
The Devil’s
Chemists: 24 Conspirators of the International Farben Cartel Who
Manufacture Wars. It is a grimly passionate account of a unique
moment in the history of commerce, warfare, and jurisprudence.
Almost five months after the verdict, Judge Hebert filed his
concurring opinion on the charges of crimes against the peace (the
preparation, planning, and waging of aggressive war) and his dissent
on the charge of slavery and mass murder. Despite its concurrence on
counts one and five, the 124-page opinion is nothing less than a
castigation of the majority for their misreading of the record “in
the direction of a too complete exoneration and an exculpation even
of moral guilt to a degree which I consider unwarranted.” 66
To the
contrary, the mass of the evidence presented during the long trial
constitutes an “ugly record” revealing that I.G. went far beyond the
activities of normal business “in its sympathy and identity with the
Nazi regime.” 67 Judge Hebert, far more than his colleagues,
stressed the historic mission of the trial:
“It is important not only to pass judgment upon the guilt or
innocence of the accused, but also to set forth an accurate record
of the more essential facts established by the proof.” 68
This
Hebert did, in careful detail. However, even though the action of
the defendants in aiding the Nazis to prepare and wage aggressive
war and their “relationship to the crimes against peace” 69 could
not be condoned or minimized, Hebert nevertheless felt he had to
acquit the defendants on counts one and five. This acquittal had to
stand, said Hebert, regardless of how much the defendants’ support,
“of the Nazi regime contributed first, to making the war possible
from the viewpoint of production and, secondly, to prolonging the
war after it had been launched.” 70
On the charge of slavery and
mass murder, Judge Hebert dissented bitterly from his colleagues. In
his judgment, all the defendants were guilty.
On the facts proven in this record, I am convinced that the
defendants who were members of the
[managing board of I.G.] were accessories to and took a consenting
part in the commission of
war crimes and crimes against humanity as alleged in count three of
the indictment. 71...
In my
view, the Auschwitz project would not have been carried out had it
not have been authorized and
approved by the other defendants, who participated in the corporate
approval of the project
knowing that concentration-camp inmates and other slave labor would
be employed in the
construction and other work.... 72
Having accepted a large-scale participation in the utilization of
concentration-camp inmates at
Auschwitz, and, acting through certain of its agents, having
exercised initiative in negotiating
with the S.S. to obtain more and more workers, Farben became
inevitably connected with the
inhumanity involved in the utilization of such labor....
The
evidence establishes that the
conditions under which the concentration-camp workers were forced to
work on the Farben site
at Auschwitz were inhumane in an extreme degree. It is no
overstatement, as the prosecution
asserts, to conclude that the working conditions indirectly resulted
in the deaths of thousands of human beings.... 73
In summary, it
is established:
-
that Farben selected the Auschwitz site with
knowledge of the existence of the concentration camp and
contemplated the use of concentration-camp inmates in its
construction
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that these matters necessarily had to be reported to
and discussed by the [managing board] and the T.E.A. [Technical
Committee]
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that Farben initiative obtained the inmates for work at
Auschwitz
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that the project was constantly before the members of the T.E.A. for necessary appropriation of funds
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that the T.E.A. had to
have information on the labor aspects of the project to properly
perform its functions
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that the condition of the concentration camp
inmates was brought to the attention of the T.E.A. and [managing
board] members in various discussions and reports
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that a number of
the defendants were actually eyewitnesses to conditions at Auschwitz
because of personal visits to Auschwitz
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that the defendants Krauch,
von Knieriem, Schneider, Jaehne, Ambros, Buetefisch, and ter Meer
were all shown to have visited the I.G. Auschwitz site during
occurrences of the nature generally described above
-
that the
conditions at Auschwitz were so horrible that it is utterly
incredible to conclude that they were unknown to the defendants, the
principal corporate directors, who were responsible for Farben’s
connection with the project. 74
Not only Ambros, Duerrfeld,
Ter
Meer, Buetefisch, and Krauch but every member of the I.G. managing
board should have been found guilty of slavery and mass murder,
according to Hebert. One can be certain that if he were passing
sentences they would not have “pleased a chicken thief.”
Yet by the
time Hebert wrote his dissent, the interest of the press and the
public in the punishment of war crimes had almost disappeared, and
the cold war was rapidly heating up.
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