WASHINGTON,
ТУ. С.,
21
Farben Heads
Plead Not Guilty
To War Crimes
Indictment Charges
Aid in Starting and
Prosecuting Conflict
By rS* A»toc«>r»d fren
NUERNBERG. Germany, Aug.
14. — Twenty-one
о
fthe billion-
dollar I. G. Farben chemical
trust pleaded not guilty before
an American War Crimes Court
today to charges that they had
conspired to plunge the world
into war for profit.
Without Farben. Brig. Gen. Tel¬
ford Taylor, the Chief prosecutor,
charged In a scorching 20.000-word
Indictment, Adolf Hitler would have
been jxnverless to start the war In
1939 and powerless to wage It so
successfully for so long. .
Three other defendants were
absent and it was announced they
would be tried later. Max Bruegge-
Tiann and Karl Wurster were in hos¬
pitals and Carl Lautonschlaeger was
cxccuml at the last moment because
his son died last night.
The defendants entered their pleas
after the tribunal overruled argu¬
ments by defense attorneys that they
would need from three to six months
THURSDAY
Л ТОПЯТ
it 1947
Tlie defense attorneys protested
thM a t.Yiai of SUCh international
scope v.-as -impossible” t0 defend
«fd5r the circumstances and they
cited , what, they called inadcciuue
faculties, inability to contact nec-
елаагу
witnesses in other countries,
and Ir.ablity to get hold of Farben
Шел
captured by American troops.
Gen. 'Taylor, heading up the pro¬
secution. retorted to the 90-minute
defense plea in four minutes, saying
that the defense had been given suf¬
ficient time to prepare its case and
that he had- made available 700 doc¬
uments for the attorneys’ perusal.
Gen. Taylor, in his indictment of
the Farben directors, accused the
dye and chemical trust— world-wide
1л
scope— of being the industrial
heart of the Nazi effort. He bor¬
rowed the Germans’ fcwn expression
for I. G. Farben— "A state within a
state”— because the company was
given such a peculiarly Independent
status by personal orders from
Hitler.
-FIFTY-SIX PAGES.
Aid in War Plans Charged.
He accused the vast concern of
helping to plan the war by synchro¬
nizing its activities with the military
high command and of stockpiling
war materials during the peace
years.
Without Farben. said Gen. Tay¬
lor. Germany would have been
powerless to start a war. let alone
fight as long as she did.
Defendants included Carl Krauch,
chairman of the Farben Super¬
visory Board of Directors; Herman
Schmitz, chairman of the manag¬
ing Board of Directors, and George
von Schnitzler. chief of all foreign
ar.d domestic sales divisions.
Others were Fritz Oajewskl. Hein¬
rich Herlein. August von Knlerieai,
ordered* the^ctuaf'uial S'ltSf on
«5
ordered the actual trial to start on rlch Bueleflschi Pau, Harfllgcr. Max
Ilgncr. Friedrich Jachne. Hans
Defense Attorney* Protest. iKuehne. Wilhelm Mann, Heinrich
August 27.
Tlie Farben directorate, which in¬
cludes some of the biggest ar.d yet
least-known men of Central Europe,
is charged with waging aggressive
war. with plundering subjugated
countries, with experimenting on
concentration camp victims and
with exploiting slave labor.
The 21 defendants barked out
their "not guilty” pleas in the same
courtroom where Hermann Goer in g
and other Hitler henchmen
tried.
Ostcr. Walter Ducrflld. Heinrich
Gattineau. Erich von der Heyge
and Hans Kuggler.
The American Judges were Curtis
G. Shake of Vincennes. Ind.; Paul
M. Herbert of Baton Rouge. La.,
and James Morris of Bismarck, N.
Dak.
Included 400 German Firms. y
Gen. Taylor said Farben— its pffl-
clal German name is I. G. Farbenin-
dustrie Aktiengcsellschaft— consisted
ot 400 German firms and partici¬
pated in more than 500 firms abroad,
throughout Europe and elsewhere.
It owned its own railroads and
mines, he said, and possessed power
plants and coke ovens.
It was so well organized for war,
Gen. Taylor declared, that only a
telegram was needed from the mili¬
tary after Poland was invaded to put
the trust in high gear.
Once Europe was overrun, the
.0,000-word indictment charged.
Farben plunged into slave labor in
a big way and pursued it agg-es-
sively. working slaves until they
dropped and then sending them to
.the crematorium.
