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Volume VI · Page 228
| middle of 1932 I entered into the known
connections with Keppler-Kranefuss¹ within the Schacht Circle. Sometime
later I met Reich Leader SS Himmler through Count Helldorf,² the SA leader
of Berlin. These connections also were of a purely defensive character at
first, in order to protect us from unfriendly actions by all these offices,
because the publicity of the Gelsen transaction with the State in April 1932
caused a great stir.³ There were many inquiries, investigations by most of
the parties (in south Germany demonstrations against Flick took place), which
on their part used the opportunity to manifest their own desire for donations
and support. After having just overcome a crisis of existence, we were not in a
position to avoid such demands. In this period of economic and political
ferment a calming of the atmosphere which threateningly surrounded us was
essential to the Konzern at any cost. We were in need of an objective middle
class [buergerliche] government in order to insure that the whole transaction
was smoothly carried to its conclusion and to maintain the established
connections with the middle class parties. It was due to this attitude that we
made donations to all groups which asked for them, from the Independents and
Social Democrats to the right wing parties, and especially also to the left
wing newspapers. During the years 1931-32 we naturally made donations also to
the Party, SA, SS, and NSDAP newspapers. I am not in a position any more today
to give reliable details with regard to this. As far as I remember, toward the end of 1932 an agreement with the Reichsfuehrung SS was reached, presumably through the mediation of Kranefuss, on the strength of which the Konzern was entitled to pay all contributions intended for the SS and its organizations exclusively to the Reichsfuehrung SS. This arrangement was made to protect the works from excessive demands by individual local offices. |
¹ Keppler was economic adviser to Hitler and Fritz Kranefuss was one of Keppler's early associates. Kranefuss later acted as secretary of the "Circle of Friends". An affidavit of Keppler and extracts from Keppler's testimony are reproduced below in sections D 1 and D 2, respectively. Keppler was a defendant in the case of United States as. Ernst von Weizsaecker et al., Case 11, Volume XII-XIV, this series.
² Count Wolf von Helldorf, Berlin chief of police and an important SA leader in Berlin, played a prominent role in the so-called Roehm purge, when Ernst Roehm, chief of staff of the SA, and a number of other persons were assassinated because of an alleged plot to overthrow Hitler. Later Helldorf joined the resistance movement and took en active part in the abortive plot against Hitler's life on 20 July 1944. He was arrested, tried before a People's court on 9 August 1944 and subsequently executed.
³ Reference is made to the sale to the government of Flick's shares in the Gelsenkirchener Mining Company, which company in turn held a majority of the shares of the Verenigo Stahlwerke. See Document NI-7589, Prosecution Exhibit 769, reproduced above in section IV B and the testimony of defendant Flick reproduced above in section IV H and below in section G.
