Part 13

The valet had been personal valet to Krupp for 20 years, and traveled all over the world with him. He described his master as a very active man, physically and mentally, extremely punctilious in all personal details. He took a great interest in his clothes, and was very observant of any slight defect. In his personal habits he was abstemious, never taking alcohol, and was also a non-smoker. Although a very excellent sportsman and physically capable of considerable feats of endurance when hunting, playing tennis or climbing, he never overdid things and took care of himself without in any way being overanxious about his health. The valet first began to notice serious changes in the patient’s personal habits two years ago, although in the valet’s opinion, he had been failing slightly for about four to five years. The degree of change, however, prior to two years ago, was so slight and his master was in his opinion such a “superman”, that the changes would not have been apparent to the casual observer. Two years ago he began to lose interest in the details of his personal clothing and to become careless with his table manners. For instance, when soup was served to him one day, he took his soup-spoon and used it to take water from his wine-glass. Latterly, he would sit at table and ask who was present, although the only people in the room were intimate members of his family. He would complain that the telephone bell was ringing, and of people speaking to him; these hallucinations became more frequent during the latter part of 1944. The valet was employed as caretaker of the main house by the American Military Government after the cessation of hostilities in Europe, and did not see his employer regularly after June 1945. On August 7, 1945, the occasion of Gustav Krupp von Bohlen’s birthday, he called to pay his respects, and for the first time he was not recognized, and his master showed no appreciation of his presence or his conversation.

2. General Appearance: The patient was lying rigidly in bed in a Parkinsonian position with fine tremors of the jaw and hands. The skin was atrophic and dry, and there was pigmentation of the dorsum of the hands. The temporal arteries were prominent and tortuous. The face was masklike, with dilated venules over the cheeks. There was evidence of considerable wasting of the body tissues, especially in the extremities, which also showed evidence of trophic and acrocyanotic changes.

3. Neuropsychiatric Examination: The patient lay in bed with a masklike face and in a fixed position on his back. The legs were partially flexed, and similarly the elbows, the latter being pressed firmly against the trunk. There was generalized muscular rigidity, due to hypertenus of an extra-pyramidal tract lesion.

On the physicians’ entering the room, the patient fixed his gaze on them, and replied to their greeting with “Guten Tag,” and gave his hand when they offered theirs to him. He shook hands normally, but he could not relax his hold or remove his hand, and continued to squeeze the physician’s hand; this was due to the presence of a forced grasp-reflex, which was more marked in the left than in the right hand. When asked how he felt, he replied “Gut,” but to all further questions he gave no reply at all. He was silent and showed no reaction to, or comprehension of, other questions, and simple commands, such as “Open your mouth,” “Put out your tongue,” “Look this way.” Only painful and disagreeable stimuli produced any reaction, and then it was merely a facial expression of discontent, sometimes accompanied by grunts of disapproval.

The disturbance of verbal response was not due to dysarthria, because the patient was able to pronounce such words as he did use, quite distinctly. Neither was it due to motor aphasia, because the few words he used were used correctly, and he never exhibited the jargon responses of the true aphasic when attempting to answer questions.

The patient was indifferent, apathetic, and was not in good rapport with the external world, lacked initiative, exhibited paucity of emotion. He uttered no spontaneous speech, and his reaction to painful stimuli was primitive.

Neurological examination showed the following additional abnormal findings: There was a right facial weakness of a supranuclear origin. The pupils reacted promptly to light, and appeared normal, save that the left was slightly larger than the right. Ophthalmoscopic examination of the fundi, limited by lack of cooperation from the patient, showed clear media and normal retina and retinal vessels. The right disc, the only one visualized, appeared normal. Extra-ocular movements could not be tested; there was no obvious strabismus. All deep reflexes in the arms and legs were present and very brisk. Clonus was not elicited. The plantar reflexes were flexor. Abdominal reflexes were absent, except for the right upper. There was incontinence of urine and feces, of the type associated with senile dementia. There was an associated minimal degree of intertrigo. Owing to lack of cooperation of the patient a full sensory examination could not be made, but the patient responded to pin-prick, deep pressure and muscular movement throughout the body.

4. Cardio-vascular Examination:

Pulse: Rate 100, rhythm irregular. The irregularity was due to extra-systoles. The radial arteries were just palpable, without evidence of pathological thickening or tortuosity. Blood pressure: systolic 130 mm. of mercury, diastolic 80 mm. of mercury.

Heart: The heart was clinically not enlarged. The cardiac sounds were feeble, there was no accentuation of the second sound in the aortic area, nor were any cardiac murmurs audible. There were no vascular changes observable in the vessels of the fundi. There was no evidence of cedema or of congestive heart failure.

5. Respiratory Examination: Chest movement satisfactory. There was no impairment of percussion noted. Auscultation revealed no impairment of air entry, no alteration in the breath sounds, and the absence of any adventitious sounds.

6. Alimentary-renal Examination: There was slight distention of the abdomen, due to increase in the gaseous content of the intestines. There was no evidence of ascites. The spleen was not palpable, nor was there any evidence of glandular enlargement. The liver was just palpable, one finger’s breadth below the right costal margin, but there was no evidence of enlargement upwards. Urinalysis: no sugar or albumen present.

7. Skeletal Examination: The patient’s rigidity limited the examination of joints. There was limitation of movement of the neck due to muscular hypertonus. The hypertonus was so marked in the lower dorsal and lumbar region as to produce rigidity of the spine. Attempts to move the joints passively stimulated involuntary contractures of the muscles. There was evidence of crepitus in both knee-joints.

DISCUSSION:

The clinical record presented by this patient is that of an organic cerebral disorder, with predominant involvement of the frontal lobes and basal ganglia. The mental disintegration of the patient renders him incapable of comprehending his environment, and of reacting normally to it. He remains uniformly apathetic and disinterested, intellectually retarded to a very marked degree, and shows no evidence of spontaneous activity.

The above findings are such as are found in the degenerative changes associated with senility. The findings in the visceral organs are likewise compatible with the diagnosis of senile degeneration.

The clinical course, from the evidence obtained, has been that of a gradual decline over a period of years, with more rapid deterioration during the past year. Such deterioration will continue, and would be rapidly accelerated, with immediate danger to the patient’s life, were he to be moved from his present location.

DIAGNOSIS:

Senile degeneration of the brain tissues, selectively affecting the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia, with associated senile degeneration of the visceral organs.

/s/ R. E. TUNBRIDGE Brigadier, O.B.E., M.D., M.Sc., F.R.C.P., Consulting Physician, British Army of the Rhine

/s/ RENE PIEDELIEVRE M.D., Professor of the Paris Faculty of Medicine, Expert of the Tribunal

/s/ NICOLAS KURSHAKOV M.D., Professor of Medicine, Medical Institute of Moscow, Chief Internist, Commissariat of Public Health U.S.S.R.

/s/ EUGENE SEPP M.D., Emeritus Professor of Neurology, Medical Inst, of Moscow; Member, Academy of Medical Sciences, U.S.S.R.

/s/ EUGENE KRASNUSHKIN M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Medical Institute of Moscow.

/s/ BERTRAM SCHAFFNER Major, Medical Corps, Neuropsychiatrist, Army of the United States

ANSWER OF THE UNITED STATES PROSECUTION TO THE MOTION ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT GUSTAV KRUPP VON BOHLEN

INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, and THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

— against —

HERMANN WILHELM GÖRING, et al.,

Defendants. ANSWER FOR THE UNITED STATES TO THE MOTION FILED IN BEHALF OF KRUPP VON BOHLEN

The United States respectfully opposes the application on behalf of Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach that his trial be “deferred until he is again fit for trial.”

If the Tribunal should grant this application, the practical effect would be to quash all proceedings, for all time, against Krupp von Bohlen.

It appears that Krupp should not be arrested and brought to the court room for trial. But the plea is that the Tribunal also excuse him from being tried in absentia. This form of trial admittedly is authorized by Article 12 of the Charter of the Tribunal. Of course, trial in absentia in circumstance of the case is an unsatisfactory proceeding either for prosecution or for defense. But the request that Krupp von Bohlen be neither brought to court nor tried in his absence is based on the contention that “the interests of justice” require that he be thus excused from any form of trial. Public interests, which transcend all private considerations, require that Krupp von Bohlen shall not be dismissed unless some other representative of the Krupp armament and munitions interests be substituted. These public interests are as follows:

Four generations of the Krupp family have owned and operated the great armament and munitions plants which have been the chief source of Germany’s war supplies. For over 130 years this family has been the focus, the symbol, and the beneficiary of the most sinister forces engaged in menacing the peace of Europe. During the period between the two World Wars, the management of these enterprises was chiefly in Defendant Krupp von Bohlen. It was at all times however a Krupp family enterprise. Only a nominal owner himself, Von Bohlen’s wife, Bertha Krupp, owned the bulk of the stock. About 1937 their son, Alfried Krupp, became plant manager and was actively associated in the policy making and executive management thereafter. In 1940 Krupp von Bohlen, getting on in years, became chairman of the board of the concern, thus making way for Alfried who became president. In 1943 Alfried became sole owner of the Krupp enterprises by agreement between the family and the Nazi Government, for the purpose of perpetuating this business in Krupp family control. It is evident that the future menace of this concern lies in continuance of the tradition under Alfried, now reported to be an internee of the British Army of the Rhine.

To drop Krupp von Bohlen from this case without substitution of Alfried, drops from the case the entire Krupp family, and defeats any effective judgment against the German armament makers. Whether this would be “in the interests of justice” will appear from the following recital of only the most significant items of evidence now in possession of the United States as to the activities of Krupp von Bohlen in which his son, Alfried, at all times aided as did other associates in the vast armament enterprises, all plotting to bring about the second World War, and to aid in its ruthless and illegal conduct.

After the first World War, the Krupp family and their associates failed to comply with Germany’s disarmament agreements but all secretly and knowingly conspired to evade them.

In the 1 March 1940 issue of the Krupp Magazine, the Defendant Krupp stated:

“I wanted and had to maintain Krupp in spite of all opposition, as an armament plant for the later future, even if in camouflaged form. I could only speak in the smallest, most intimate circles, about the real reasons which made me undertake the changeover of the plants for certain lines of production . . . . Even the Allied snoop commissioners were duped . . . . After the accession to power of Adolf Hitler, I had the satisfaction of reporting to the Führer that Krupp stood ready, after a short warming-up period, to begin rearmament of the German people without any gaps of experience . . . .”

Krupp von Bohlen (and Alfried Krupp as well) lent his name, prestige and financial support to bring the Nazi Party, with an avowed program of renewing the war, into power over the German State. On 25 April 1931 Von Bohlen acted as chairman of the Association of German Industry to bring it into line with Nazi policies. On 30 May 1933 he wrote to Schacht that:

“It is proposed to initiate a collection in the most far-reaching circles of German industry, including agriculture and the banking world, which is to be put at the disposal of the Führer of the NSDAP in the name of ‘The Hitler Fund’ . . . . I have accepted the chairmanship of the management council.”

Krupp contributed from the treasury of the main Krupp company 4,738,446 marks to the Nazi Party fund. In June 1935 he contributed 100,000 marks to the Nazi Party out of his personal account.

The Nazi Party did not succeed in obtaining control of Germany until it obtained support of the industrial interests, largely through the influence of Krupp. Alfried first became a Nazi Party member and later Von Bohlen did also. The Krupp influence was powerful in promoting the Nazi plan to incite aggressive warfare in Europe.

Krupp von Bohlen strongly advocated and supported Germany’s withdrawal from the Disarmament Conference and from the League of Nations. He personally made repeated public speeches approving and inciting Hitler’s program of aggression: On 6 and 7 April 1938 two speeches approved annexation of Austria; on 13 October 1938 approving Nazi occupation of the Sudetenland; on 4 September 1939 approving the invasion of Poland; on 6 May 1941 commemorating success of Nazi arms in the West.

Alfried Krupp also made speeches to the same general effect. Krupps were thus one of the most persistent and influential forces that made this war.

Krupps also were the chief factor in getting ready for the war. In January 1944, in a speech at the University of Berlin, Von Bohlen boasted, “Through years of secret work, scientific and basic groundwork was laid in order to be ready again to work for the German Armed Forces at the appointed hour without loss of time or experience.” In 1937, before Germany went to war, Krupps booked orders to equip satellite governments on approval of the German High Command. Krupp contributed 20,000 marks to the Defendant Rosenberg for the purpose of spreading Nazi propaganda abroad. In a memorandum of 12 October 1939 a Krupp official wrote offering to mail propaganda pamphlets abroad at Krupp expense.

Once the war was on, Krupps, both Von Bohlen and Alfried being directly responsible therefor, led German industry in violating treaties and international law by employing enslaved laborers, impressed and imported from nearly every country occupied by Germany, and by compelling prisoners of war to make arms and munitions for use against their own countries. There is ample evidence that in Krupp’s custody and service they were underfed and overworked, misused, and inhumanly treated. Captured records show that in September 1944 Krupp concerns were working 54,990 foreign workers and 18,902 prisoners of war.

Moreover, the Krupp companies profited greatly from destroying the peace of the world through support of the Nazi program. The rearmament of Germany gave Krupp huge orders and corresponding profits. Before this Nazi menace to the peace began, the Krupps were operating at a substantial loss. But the net profits after taxes, gifts, and reserves steadily rose with rise of Nazi rearmament, being as follows:

For year ending 30 September 1935— 57,216,392 marks For year ending 30 September 1938— 97,071,632 marks For year ending 30 September 1941— 111,555,216 marks

The book value of the Krupp concerns mounted from 75,962,000 marks on 1 October 1933, to 237,316,093 marks on 1 October 1943. Even this included many going concerns in occupied countries at a book value of only 1 mark each. These figures are subject to the adjustments and controversies usual with financial statements of each vast enterprise but approximately reflect the facts about property and operations.

The services of Alfried Krupp and of Von Bohlen and their family to the war aims of the Nazi Party were so outstanding that the Krupp enterprises were made a special exception to the policy of nationalization of industries. Hitler said that he would be “prepared to arrange for any possible safeguarding for the continued existence of the works as a family enterprise; it would be simplest to issue ‘lex Krupp’ to start with”. After short negotiations, this was done. A decree of 12 November 1943 preserves the Krupp works as a family enterprise in Alfried Krupp’s control and recites that it is done in recognition of the fact that “for 132 years the firm of Fried. Krupp, as a family enterprise has achieved outstanding and unique merits for the armed strength of the German people.”

It has at all times been the position of the United States that the great industrialists of Germany were guilty of the crimes charged in this Indictment quite as much as its politicians, diplomats, and soldiers. Its chief of counsel, on 7 June 1945, in a report to President Truman, released by him and with his approval, stated that the accusations of crimes include individuals in authority in the financial, industrial, and economic life of Germany as well as others.

Pursuant thereto, the United States, with approval of the Secretary Of State, proposed to indict Alfried Krupp, son of Krupp von Bohlen, and president and owner of the Krupp concern. The Prosecutors representing the Soviet Union, the French Republic, and the United Kingdom unanimously opposed inclusion of Alfried Krupp. This is not said in criticism of them or their judgment. The necessity of limiting the number of defendants was considered by representatives of the other three nations to preclude the addition of Alfried Krupp. Immediately upon service of the Indictment, learning the serious condition of Krupp von Bohlen, the United States again called a meeting of Prosecutors and proposed an amendment to include Alfried Krupp. Again the proposal of the United States was defeated by a vote of 3 to 1. If now the Tribunal shall exercise its discretion to excuse from trial the one indicted member of the Krupp family, one of the chief purposes of the United States will be defeated and it is submitted that such a result is not “in the interests of justice.”

The United States respectfully submits that no greater disservice to the future peace of the world could be done than to excuse the entire Krupp family and the armament enterprise from this Trial in which aggressive war making is sought to be condemned. The “interests of justice” cannot be determined without taking into account justice to the men of four generations whose lives have been taken or menaced by Krupp munitions and Krupp armament, and those of the future who can feel no safety if such persons as this escape all condemnation in proceedings such as this.

While of course the United States cannot, without the concurrence of one other Power indict a new defendant, it can under the Charter alone oppose this motion. The United States respectfully urges that if the favor now sought by Krupp von Bohlen is to be granted, it be upon the condition that Alfried Krupp be substituted or added as a defendant so that there may be a representative of the Krupp interests before the Tribunal.

It may be suggested that bringing in a new defendant would result in delay. Admitting, however, that a delay which cannot exceed a few days may be occasioned, it is respectfully suggested that the precise day that this Trial will start is a less important consideration than whether it is to fail of one of its principal purposes. The American Prosecution staff has been by long odds the longest and farthest away from home in this endeavor. On personal as well as public interest consideration it deplores delay. But we think the future as well as the contemporary world cannot fail to be shocked if, in a trial in which it is sought to condemn aggressive war making, the Krupp industrial empire is completely saved from condemnation.

The complete trial brief of the United States on Krupp von Bohlen with copies of the documents on which his culpability is asserted will be made available to the Tribunal if it is desired as evidence concerning him and Alfried Krupp and the Krupp concerns.

Respectfully submitted:

/s/ ROBERT H. JACKSON Chief of Counsel for the United States of America

12 November 1945

MEMORANDUM OF THE BRITISH PROSECUTION ON THE MOTION ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT GUSTAV KRUPP VON BOHLEN

British War Crimes Executive (E.S.) 12 November 1945

To: The International Military Tribunal.

The British Chief Prosecutor has had the opportunity of considering the application of the Defending Counsel to the accused GUSTAV KRUPP VON BOHLEN UND HALBACH:

1) that the proceedings against this accused be deferred until he is again fit for trial; 2) at any rate, that the accused be not tried in his absence.

The British Chief Prosecutor opposes this application for the following reasons: