. NMT06-T0871
Volume VI · Page 871
| and so on, but I had
no information whatsoever with regard to the question of how the management was
carried on. Q. Did you know to what extent the Rombacher Huettenwerke had invested money in order to improve the installations and to keep them in running order? A. Again I have only dim information with regard to that question. I had some information that the Germans had installed a lift; they used an old one and put in a new one; and that they also were building a new machine to break the ore and also an ore deposit machine; but as far as the funds which were invested are concerned, I don't know exactly what amount that was. JUDGE RICHMAN: Dr. Kranzbuehler, before we leave this subject altogether I'd like to ask a question. Witness, are you operating the plant at the present time? WITNESS LAURENT: Yes, I am. I am general manager of the Rombach plant, and I have a director who is in charge of the factory itself. Q. Were those 10 barges there when you came back? A. Some had been sunk with hand grenades, others were lost. We couldn't use any of them immediately. Q. Were they there? A. They were not at Rombach, all of them. Three or four were at Rombach where they had been sunk in the canal; about one or two were near Nancy in one of the canals down there; one was lost in the Rhine, and it took us about 2 years to retrace them all, and another year to get them going again. Q. Do you know who sunk them? A. As far as the indications I received go, they were sunk with hand grenades when the Germans withdrew. The Germans first used them to cross the canal, and then they sank them with hand grenades. Q. That was the military forces? A. Yes, those were the German military forces. JUDGE RICHMAN: That's all I want to know. |
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| DR. KRANZBUEHLER: If we want to continue to use this term spoliation which has been explained once in your testimony, I would like to start from the traditional term spoliation, which means that objects are taken away without being paid for. Therefore, when the German administration of the Rombacher Huettenwerke left the plant in 1944, did they then dismantle machinery, take furniture etc., or did they leave those behind, and did you find those articles in Rombach when you got there on 8 November? |
