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on the part of the leading men of Farben, the destruction had been
desired in order to get rid of files, then it certainly would hardly have been
expedient to take the steps they did. Don't you agree with me that it would
have been far more expedient, at that time of difficulties and confusion, to
remove secretly all other files which had yet to be removed?
A. I can
say that all of the leading men to whom I talked at the time issued
instructions that no documents were to be destroyed, but that everything
requested by the occupation authorities was to be given to
them. |
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| * * * * * * * * * * |
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C. Affidavit, Dated 29 May 1947, of Dr. Struss, Chief of the
Office
of the Technical Committee of Farben's Managing Board
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TRANSLATION OF
DOCUMENT NI-8324
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT
662 |
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AFFIDAVIT, DATED 29 MAY 1947, OF DR. ERNST STRUSS,
CONCERNING THE
DESTRUCTION OF DOCUMENTS |
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| AFFIDAVIT |
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I, Dr. Ernst Struss, Director of IG, Chief of TEA Bureau of Farben,
Secretary of the Technical Committee of the Executive Board of Farben, Manager
of Division II (Sparte II) of the Vermittlungsstelle W, and, since 1943,
Production Manager of the entire German dyestuffs industry within the framework
of the Economic Group Chemical Industry, after having first been warned that I
will be liable for punishment for making a false statement, state herewith
under oath, of my own free will and without coercion, the following:
In
September 1944, Dr. ter Meer, Dr. Loehr and I discussed in Frankfurt the
question of destroying files in the event that the American troops would occupy
the town. Dr. ter Meer was of the opinion that as few files as possible should
be burned.
I discussed this matter some time later once more with Dr.
Loehr, Koenig, Lameth, and Schlitt and we again agreed to burn as little as
possible.
A few days before the occupation of Frankfurt by American
troops, Mr. von Heider, who was Abwehrbeauftragter, instructed us to burn a
greater number of files than we had previously envisaged. We actually burned,
however, only the files previously earmarked by us for destruction.
|
467 |
. 
