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participants at Auschwitz. It includes other Farben Vorstand plant
managers and embraces all who knowingly participated in the shaping of the
corporate policy. I find on the evidence that all Vorstand members must share
the responsibility for the approval of the policy despite the fact that there
were varying degrees of immediate connection among various defendants. The
“freedom and opportunity for initiative” found to exist at Auschwitz
was, in my opinion, equally present at the other plants. I find it hard to
understand why the majority can conclude that construction and production at
Auschwitz was not under Reich compulsion when the Reich wanted the plant for
war production and directed its erection, and production involving utilization
of slave labor in other plants was “under compulsion.” The answer, it
seems to me, lies in the fact that the freedom was as real in all the Farben
plants and the similar attitude of willing cooperation was present —
differing at Auschwitz only in the matter of degree. The majority opinion
concludes that the defendant Krauch was a willing participant in the crime of
enslavement. With that conclusion I agree, but the mere fact that Krauch was a
governmental official operating at a high policy level is insufficient, in my
opinion, to distinguish his willing participation in the crime of enslavement
from other degrees of willing participation exhibited by the other defendants
according to their respective roles within Farben.
Criminal liability
is not to be imputed to the officer of a corporation merely by virtue of his
occupancy of his office. Generally a corporate officer is not criminally liable
for the corporate acts performed by other agents or officers of a corporation.
But the action of an officer of a corporation may result in criminal liability
where, by virtue of the officer’s individual act, he may be said to have
authorized, ordered, abetted, or otherwise has actually participated in a
course of action which is criminal in character. The criminal intent required
as a prerequisite to guilt under the charges of war crimes, and crimes against
humanity alleged in count three of the instant indictment is present if the
corporate officer knowingly authorizes the corporate participation in action of
a criminal character. On this score the evidence is more than sufficient. From
the time of the participation by Farben in the Auschwitz project, the
corporation was actively engaged in continuing criminal offenses which
constituted participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity on a broad
scale and under circumstances such as to make it impossible for the corporate
officers not to know the character of the activities being carried on by Farben
at Auschwitz. From the outset of the project it was known that slave labor,
including the use of concentration-camp inmates, would be a principal source of
the labor supply for the project. Utilization of such labor was approved as a
matter of corporate policy. To permit the corporate instrumentality to be used
as a cloak to |
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