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Volume VI · Page 600
| mining plant had been
established. However, we — by "we" I mean the steel industry — we
were very surprised when in the summer 1937 the whole question of the
foundation of the Hermann Goering Works reached an acute stage so unexpectedly
and soon. We were surprised by this. PRESIDING JUDGE SEARS: Was this process developed solely under the company that you mentioned, or was there much research on it in all countries, about the use of brown coal, for example, in the manufacture of iron and steel? What was the process which they developed? DEFENDANT FLICK: Those processes referred not to coal but to ore; but in Great Britain in the district around Corby there was iron ore which I may say was thought to have been rediscovered, an ore which contained 33 or 34 percent iron, and Brassert had invented a procedure together with the English, according to which ores which one had not made use of in foundries, could now be used, or at least one thought they could. And a new plant had been built in England by Brassert, blast furnaces, steel works, and rolling mills, and Pleiger had visited Corby together with Brassert, and he was most interested and enthusiastic about it when he came back. He said conditions are such and such in England, and he took Brassert with him. And Brassert designed all the technical equipment and installations for the Hermann Goering Works, modeled after a large American company. Q. The development was therefore rather in the use of the ore than in any process in relation to the coal? A. The base of this development was the making use by foundries of these iron ores. That was the basis. But, your Honor, there are two raw materials which are necessary — for the production of pig iron. One is the ore; the other is the coal. For a ton of pig iron one needs two tons of iron ore and one ton of coal in the case of good ore — I mean, for one ton of pig iron. One ton of coke is equal to one point three tons of coal. If a plant produces one million tons of pig iron, steel and so on, it needs 1.3 million tons of coal, at least; possibly even 1.5 million. Ore and pig iron are the two raw materials for the steel industry, if they produce Thomas iron, and not as the Martin Works, scrap Brassert made all these plans with the program for foundries according to American style. I might relate a small story here: When Goering once told me later on, "If we enlarged Salzgitter according to this plan, do I have the largest steel mill in the world, or do I not have the largest steel mill in the world"? I told him, "Field Marshal, there is the Gary steel works near Chicago which produces more |
