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2. THE MEETING OF DEFENDANTS BUETEFISCH AND GATTINEAU WITH HITLER
IN NOVEMBER 1932 AND THE SUBSEQUENT EXPANSION OF FARBEN'S SYNTHETIC
GASOLINE PRODUCTION |
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PARTIAL TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NI-14304 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT
1977 |
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EXTRACTS FROM THE FARBEN PUBLICATION "TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AT THE
LEUNA WORKS" CONCERNING THE MEETING OF THE DEFENDANTS BUETEFISCH AND
GATTINEAU WITH HITLER IN 1932, AND OTHER MATTERS¹ |
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THIRD PART, 1926-1932, PREPARES THE WAY FOR THE NEW TECHNIQUES IN
SPITE OF THE WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS |
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Mysterious haste historic compulsion. The men who
created Leuna gasoline between 1926 and 1932 acted as if someone were standing
behind them driving them on to the greatest speed. Actually this was not the
case by any means. All the agencies which might have had a say in the matter
rather had the effect of brakes. Neither the Aufsichtsrat which had to approve
the funds, nor the "System government" (Systemregierung) 2 which levied a
special mineral oil adjustment tax on each kilogram of gasoline produced, would
have had any objections to a somewhat slower speed. But Geheimrat Bosch and
Director Krauch seemed as if possessed by an inner restlessness. They shortened
all time limits as much as at all possible; they speeded up the construction of
the plants in such a way as to cause people who only knew the commercial point
of view to shake their heads.
We know now that this haste was necessary
from a historical point of view. The historians of more peaceful times will one
day imagine what world history would have been if the gasoline plant in Leuna,
still unfinished, had been caught by the world economic crisis and the project
had been dropped. The men who urged haste at the time could themselves not have
anticipated, however, that in this way they would one day in the not too far
distant future make one of his most important decisions easier for the
recreator of the German people, the Fuehrer Adolf |
__________ ¹ Testimony of the
defendant Buetefisch concerning the statements made in this publication is
reproduced immediately hereinafter. ² The Weimar Republic.
536 |