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of the Central Committee, and a member of the TEA. Which of these
three positions did he retain?
A. He retained all of his positions.
Until 1940, he remained a member of the Vorstand. He also remained a Sparte
leader, and a member of the TEA. But Dr. Krauch made only very slight use of
these offices. I have no doubt that he himself felt that his activity in a
Reich agency would be hard to reconcile with his activity in our firm, and
because of this quite correct feeling he attended no more meetings of the TEA
— I believe that was from the fall of 1936 on. He did not attend any more
Vorstand meetings either. I, personally, in 1938, asked Mr. Krauch to resign as
head of Sparte I, because, as I told him frankly, it would be better if he gave
such an important position in our firm to one of his colleagues, since he had a
lot of business with our competitors and he would not like any difficulty to
arise here. However, I can confirm that Mr. Krauch avoided any such
difficulties in a very proper way. In those years, I repeatedly heard
complaints from younger associates that Professor Krauch had made decisions in
the interest of competitors and not in Farben's interest. Therefore, I can
confirm from this, and from my own observation, that Dr. Krauch strictly
observed the separation between his official business on the one hand and his
position in Farben — which was only on paper — on the other hand.
Q. When did Professor Krauch leave the Vorstand?
A. In 1940,
upon the death of Mr. Bosch.
Q. Nothing was changed then in the
relation between Professor Krauch on the one hand and Farben on the other hand?
A. Nothing was changed, as he had to a large extent already held
himself aloof from Farben business matters before, and that continued to be the
case. There was another change, however. He became chairman of the
Aufsichtsrat.
Q. Yes, but, as he told us here, he made no use of this
office. He was present at Aufsichtsrat meetings only on formal occasions.
A. Actually the position of a member or chairman of an Aufsichtsrat is
not of very fundamental importance according to German corporation law. I
cannot tell you at how many Aufsichtsrat meetings he presided. I recall only
one. That was the one at which was celebrated an anniversary or a birthday of
Mr. Schmitz.
Q. You know that the prosecution charges Farben with
having participated to a great extent in the rearmament of the Third Reich. Can
you tell me what share Farben had in rearmament?
A. Before the
war? |
__________
* The defendant Schneider
succeeded Krauch as head of Farben's Sparte I.
861 |
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