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A. No, that is not true; in any case, not all of them. There
were many old standard fields that were often reported on only rarely; in many
cases these were well-established fields that were running by themselves, so to
speak, which were directed by the numerous competent technical boards
autonomously. On the other hand, sometimes relatively unimportant (in the sense
of monetary value) questions were brought up because of their novelty or
because of their fundamental significance.
Q. Did the individual
Vorstand member report these matters by desiring all the participants to
criticize what he had to say, or did he report in such a way that all his
colleagues should assume that everything that he reported on had been
thoroughly checked and sufficiently weighed and that they could then agree to
what he said, unless there were some fundamental misgivings about it; is that
correct?
A. The latter, of course, was the case. For instance, a
commercial man would consider himself presumptuous if he were to criticize a
technical plan that had passed a whole number of technical commissions,
committees, and subcommittees, and consequently had been investigated several
times as to the most varying aspects. I, myself, would have been very
astonished, in my capacity of a commercial man, if a technical expert made
fundamental statements about questions of finance; that was not the function of
the Vorstand meeting.
Q. But it could happen, couldn't it, that some
basic difference of opinion came up?
A. That really did not happen, or,
it hardly ever happened, because all offices that had to do with one and the
same thing had already voted on it previously. If, nevertheless, some
difference did arise, then that was really a breakdown in the system. Then the
chairman tabled the question and the Vorstand members competent for this point
convened after the Vorstand meeting for new deliberations. |
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392 |
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