I ask permission to remark here that in cases of this kind it is perhaps after all not in keeping with the rules of true justice to charge one person with everything that happened somewhere and was committed by someone among a people of eighty million. In my opinion the concept of conspiracy is in such a case inflated to the point of monstrosity. It was created for conditions of a narrower and smaller scope where it was within the framework of a man’s possibilities to keep an over-all view of his associates and their deeds. But to extend the concept of conspiracy over an entire nation and, simultaneously, over numerous organizations with millions of members, that no longer can be commensurate with true justice. This would result in the creation of a conspirator to whom would be ascribed a Godlike stature. That, however, would be a distortion of an intelligent legal thought.
It must, therefore, be demanded that in the case of each document, of each act, with due consideration of the extent of the defendant’s working sphere and, consequently, with due consideration for his working capacity, one should examine whether he could obtain knowledge thereof, whether he could humanly anticipate, examine any of them, and by reason of his authority, could somehow prevent them.
Finally, I shall prove to you that the documents submitted to you as official documents are not exact, not reliable; that they never were examined by the defendant and his associates, and that they contain inaccuracies, distortions, and wilful deceptions.
Regarding the powers and position held by the defendant, a number of witnesses and the defendant himself will attest that his powers were not so great nor so permanent as the prosecution assumes.
We will show that while the Medical Inspector of the Luftwaffe was subordinate to him in his capacity of Inspector General of the Luftwaffe, this subordination was more a formal than a practical one, that the staff of the Medical Service was not at all subordinate to him and that especially he did not have under his direction the DVL (German Experimental Institute for Aviation).
We shall further prove that even the Central Planning Board did not have the significance that the prosecution assumes, that this agency was much more an advisory and information agency, that it was chiefly occupied with the allocation of raw materials and that only those decisions of the meetings were binding which were summarized in the so-called “Results.”
Finally, we shall show that although, it is true, the defendant was one of the founders of the Jaegerstab, he was not its chief and that his importance in this connection was far less than it would appear on first consideration. The work of the Jaegerstab and of the defendant was aimed solely at the protection of Germany against bombing attacks, and Milch very soon lost all influence in this Jaegerstab.
In the presentation of all this evidence, I would ask the high Tribunal to have in mind one difficulty which, particularly in this case, is nearly insurmountable.
The documents submitted by the prosecution are only parts of a body of material the extent of which can be termed gigantic. When one considers that the Jaegerstab, for instance, from the time of its establishment held daily meetings and that from those meetings only these few stenographic records of a few sessions have been submitted that appear in the document books of the prosecution, then one realizes that not even five percent of the material pertaining to the Jaegerstab has been submitted.
Similar, although perhaps not equally striking, is the situation with reference to the minutes of the Central Planning Board. All these documents which were not submitted are not accessible to me at all. Does not, however, justice demand that the material in its entirety should be available to the defense counsel for examination? Already it has been possible for me to discover in the incriminating documents numerous passages which throw a different light on the indictment. Is it not highly probable, then, that numerous other passages may be found in all of the other material likely to extenuate to a high degree the guilt of the defendant, or which, in any case, might show many things in a better light?