. NMT06-T0791
Volume VI · Page 791
| production program
was to be carried out in the individual iron producing plants. Although the
Reich Association Iron, as far as I remember, was founded in July 1942, and
therefore the decisions with regard to production up to 1943 apparently had to
be made by the Reich Ministry of Economics, this was actually not the case. For
the Main Ring Iron Production had already assumed these production problems in
the spring of 1942. Third: Beginning in the spring of 1942 the production in
the iron consuming industry was determined by various main committees
subordinated to my Ministry. Q. Did these main committees have executive powers in the iron consuming industries, that is, were they entitled to give binding instructions to the individual industrialists? A. Only in the course of proceedings before the International Military Tribunal has it become clear to me that until September 1943 these main committees did not have any possibility of enforcing a given instruction. The main committees, therefore, worked merely on the basis of the authority given them as subordinated offices by my Ministry. They had no possibility to refer to any decrees in case of opposition against the execution of orders given by the main committees. The main committees, however, had such great authority that I do not know of any case where a plant had opposed an instruction given by a main committee. Q. Will you please inform the Court in detail as to how the activity of the main committee affected the individual industrialists. Who was the recipient of instructions given by the main committee — the individual plant or the owner? A. The main committee determined the production program. Owing to the fact that several main committees generally dealt with a large enterprise it was necessary that the main committee in question give its instructions, as far as possible, directly to the respective department of the enterprise. This I would like to explain by an example. The firm of Krupp had a plant in Magdeburg, the so-called Krupp-Gruson plant. This plant was directed by Krupp from Essen; my Main Committee Tanks, however, gave its instructions directly to the plant management in Magdeburg. It was considered important that as far as possible, these instructions were submitted to the individual plant departments in a still more subdivided manner, so that the production of tank hulls in Magdeburg, for example, could be discussed and set up by a special committee of the Main Committee Tanks with the department manager in Magdeburg directly. Before a plant received its production allotment by the main committee, investigations were made in joint discussions with the |
