 |
| 1938, a week before the Munich Agreement, of 100,000 reichsmarks for
the "Sudeten German Aid" and the "Sudeten German Free Corps." The latter was a
guerrilla organization which was established for creating frontier incidents
and executing sabotage attacks in preparation for the invasion of
Czechoslovakia. |
| |
H. With the Approach of War and in Connection With
Each New
Act of Aggression, Farben
Intensified its Preparation for and
Participation in, the Planning and Execution of Such
Aggressions and
the Reaping of Spoils Therefrom |
| |
67. In 1936, when the Four Year Plan was announced, the road to
aggressive war was already foreshadowed. Thereafter, the inevitability of war
as a result of Hitler's aggressive plans and intentions grew increasingly
manifest, and the dictatorship of the Third Reich ever more brutal and
tyrannical. As the shape of things to come grew clearer and war more imminent,
a few prominent supporters of Hitler parted company with the leaders of the
Third Reich. Fritz Thyssen, who dominated the great Vereinigte Stahlwerke
(United Steel Works), the largest coal and steel trust in Germany, and who had
been one of Hitler's earliest supporters, became opposed to certain Hitler
policies. When Germany attacked Poland, Thyssen fled from Germany. Hjalmar
Schacht, onetime president of the Reichsbank, Minister of Economics, and
Plenipotentiary General for War Economy, resigned from the latter two positions
in November 1937. Because of disagreements with Hitler and Goering,
particularly over the enormously expensive synthetic program and the
promulgations of the Four Year Plan, Schacht became increasingly disaffected
and lost influence in the Third Reich.
68. In sharp contrast with
Thyssen, Schacht, and others, the close collaboration between Farben leaders
and the political and military leaders of the Third Reich became even closer as
the time for committing aggressive acts and launching aggressive wars grew
nearer. Farben was the chief protagonist and executor of the synthetic program
and profited enormously thereby. Farben played a leading role in the Four Year
Plan and in directing the economic mobilization of Germany for war. Prior to
the invasions and wars, Farben took radical measures to cloak and conceal its
assets abroad and marshaled its resources in Germany to enable the Wehrmacht to
attack at the appointed time. Hard on the heels of the invading German armies,
Farben officials followed with plans carefully prepared in advance for the
exploitation of industry in the occupied countries in accordance with the needs
of the German war machine and the ambitious designs of Farben to expand its
economic empire. |
34 |
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