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TRANSLATION OF
DOCUMENT EC-l44
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 602
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MEMORANDUM FROM FARBEN FILES, FEBRUARY 1939,
CONCERNING PROGRESS
IN THE SUPPLY OF CHEMICAL
RAW MATERIALS FROM 1933 TO 1939
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[Handwritten Note]
Handed to Major Dref an 15 February 1939
Thi
[Regierungsrat Thierer of the OKW] |
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| Progress made, since the seizure of power in 1933, in the
procurement of chemical raw materials, especially through the execution of the
Four Year Plan |
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Owing to the very limited military potential in the year 1933, only
the very center of Germany — in the West extending up to the Weser River
(consequently excluding the Ruhr area) — could be included in the
procurement plans of the military economy. This, as far as national defense was
concerned, resulted in a hopeless situation in the field of chemical industry
as well as other fields. Since regaining our right to rearm, our military power
has increased, which automatically brought about a considerable improvement in
this realm, because gradually important chemical plants, formerly situated in
the border zone, could be regarded as safe, and because the chemical industry,
especially as the Four Year Plan progressed, was expanded considerably. The
progress of this expansion is shown by a few examples:
Sulphur,
found as a natural product in tremendous quantities in Italy and in the United
States, was in Germany, up to some time ago, a product which had to be imported
at an average rate of 50,000 tons, and in 1938 even 80,000 tons. We do not have
any sulphur deposits in Germany, but German coal contains a little sulphur
(about 2-5 percent). These amounts of sulphur, during the coking process,
formerly became part of the waste gases and were burned with them. We can find
the same waste gases, containing sulphur, in the hydrogenation plants, which
have been established in the course of the extension of German mineral oil
production. The obvious next stop was to extract from these waste gases the
sulphur they contain, similar to the former procedure of extracting ammonia,
tar, benzene, etc. Tremendous progress, especially through the Four Year Plan,
has been made through the desulphurization installations, which work according
to all sorts of processes. The increase in [sulphur] consumption in Germany and
the increase in our own sulphur |
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