GOVERNMENT: What’s a Criminal?

“I wanted and had to maintain Krupp, in spite of all opposition, as an armament plant for the future, even if in camouflaged form.” In these words, in 1941, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach told how his giant munitions trust had helped arm the Nazis. For this and other brags and deeds, the U.S. put Krupp high up on its war criminals list.

But when U.S. troops caught him, Gustav Krupp was too old (now 77) and too ill to stand trial. So his son Alfred and eleven fellow Krupp directors were hauled into Nürnberg court and charged with conspiring to wage aggressive war. Last week, after four months of testimony, a U.S. tribunal acquitted them of the charge.* The tribunal did not say why, but apparently it thought that businessmen could not be blamed for carrying out orders from political leaders. That did not mean that the Krupp officials would get off scot free. They still had to face trial on charges of looting industries in occupied countries and exploiting the slave labor which they employed in their plants.

* For a different kind of verdict in a war crimes trial, see INTERNATIONAL.