Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac - I.G. Farben Nuremberg testimony
Summary: 
Reply-To: kmcvay@nizkor.org
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Nizkor Project, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: Farben

Archive/File: orgs/germany/farben farben.006
Last-modified: 1993/06/07

   "It was not until the prosecution staff reached the charge of slavery
   and mass murder that the critical point of the trial was reached....
   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 Haehne'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.

   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 Ter Meer?'

      STRUSS: 'Yes.' " (Borkin, 141-142)


                             Work Cited

   Borkin, Joseph. The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben. New York: 
   The Free Press, 1978, and London: Macmillan Publishing Company. 

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