3. _Methodical ineptness of a retrospective view_--Evaluation from the point of view of criminal law is concerned with the possible participation in the commission of a criminal act and the possible personal guilt. It is decisive for judging a person’s guilt to establish whether he shared in and had knowledge of the crime and whether he is conscious of it; so for instance in the case of the conspiracy which is alleged to have existed since 1933, knowledge of the criminal development of national socialism since that time is decisive. In spite of some disappointments and bad experiences in individual cases surely none of the defendants considered the National Socialist development in principle and as a whole as criminal, nor was he necessarily compelled to do so. It is not intended to question the statements of the IMT about the destructive development of the NSDAP, which according to article X of Ordinance No. 7, are binding until the contrary is conclusively proved. Nevertheless, it so happened that the National Socialist era produced a number of events and institutions which were either politically indifferent or even appeared as the expression of peaceful reconstruction; they were not mentioned in the findings of the IMT. Public opinion, however, was formed on the basis of those manifestations. Questions such as the revival of trade, the construction of Autobahnen [super highways], the elimination of unemployment, the creation of great social institutions, as for instance the National Socialist Public Welfare Association (NSV) and the Winter Relief Scheme (WHW), continuously, year in, year out, were in the limelight with the German public and overshadowed everything else, not to mention events in the field of foreign policy like the Anglo-German Naval Treaty, international sport events such as the Olympic games, etc. The greater part of the population, even the educated classes, were not aware that unemployment was only eliminated by an ever more formidable increase of the economic capacity for the purpose of the coming war, and that the donations and subscriptions which the people collected by hard work for their social institutions, disappeared in the gorge of rearmament. Did not Hitler’s protestations that the construction of Autobahnen was to be considered proof of Germany’s peaceful intentions of reconstruction, and not as the expression of militaristic mentality, sound entirely convincing in view of the fact that should it come to the point these same Autobahnen would operate strategically to Germany’s disadvantage which actually did happen?