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3. TESTIMONY OF DEFENDANT TER MEER CONCERNING FARBEN'S
ROLE IN
THE AUTARCHY AND REARMAMENT PROGRAM AND
DEFENDANT KRAUCH'S POSITIONS IN
FARBEN
AND THE GOVERNMENT |
| |
EXTRACT FROM THE TESTIMONY OF
DEFENDANT TER MEER*
|
| |
| DIRECT EXAMINATION |
| |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
| |
DR. BERNDT (counsel for defendant ter Meer) : Now, what happened
after 1933?
DEFENDANT TER MEER: After 1933, the measures taken by the
new government in combating unemployment led to a quick minimizing of the
results of the depression. A number of laws and governmental orders, which I
shall go into later, brought tax relief for new plants and for replacements.
The purchasing power of the masses rose quickly. That brought Farben increased
sales in all fields. Since, during the depression expenditures for new plants
had been ruthlessly cut back, now, after a three or four-year interruption,
there was a great need for new investments, for improvements and expansion of
production. New officers and new labor could be employed and, in the course of
the work-creating program of the government, we did a great deal to erect homes
and settlements for employees and set up social provisions in the plants. Our
work in the chemical and technical field in the time after 1933 can best be
characterized as a continuation of what we did from 1926 to 1929. That gave us
work for laboratories and long-range developments.
Q. The government
had an autarchy program. What was Farben's attitude on this question of
autarchy?
A. Farben never believed in complete, absolute autarchy, an
autarchy such as Russia, for example, was striving toward, without any regard
to economic considerations. Russia wanted to attain complete autarchy, but we
of course never had any such idea; however, the foreign exchange situation in
Germany forced us to substitute domestic production for imported raw materials
to a certain extent. This autarchy program of the German Government, of course,
furthered, and now and then, hastened our work. We came to some basic decisions
here, too. Our funds were inadequate to do everything that the government had
proclaimed as its program, a program which, considered from the point of view
of chemical production, involved primarily synthetic rubber, gasoline, and
artificial fibers. We could not go along in all these fields. Consequently, at
a meeting of the Central Committee (which at that time still dealt with
technical questions), |
__________
* Further extracts appear
elsewhere in this section and in section VIII, volume VIII, this series.
859 |
. 
