 |
| b. Testimony of Defendant ter Meer |
| |
EXTRACTS FROM THE TESTIMONY OF
DEFENDANT TER
MEER* |
| |
| DIRECT EXAMINATION |
| |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
| |
DR. BORNEMANN (associate counsel for defendant ter Meer):
Dr. ter Meer, as you know, the prosecution charges Farben to have been
leading among the people who drafted these mobilization plans. In this field
especially, Farben is supposed to have taken the initiative and thus prepared a
war of aggression. Does this allegation of the prosecution correspond to the
truth, and why did Farben concern itself with this very extensive field of
work?
A. The prosecution's charge is that Farben allegedly prepared
such mobilization plans for the first time on 1 July 1937. This is correct as
such, but it was not done on the initiative of Farben, but rather upon the
initiative of the authorities. There was a history to this story that has
extended over several years. The prosecution overlooked the fact that, already
in 1934, so-called production investigations were made. These were
investigations about the production of the entire German economy for the year
1933, and they were undertaken by the Statistical Reich Office, an authority
which was part of the Reich Ministry of Economics.
Q. May I ask you,
was the Statistical Reich Office newly created or was it an old institution?
A. It is an old institution. These investigations were undertaken at
the time — they were even compulsory at the time — because reference
was made to a certain regulation. I know that we turned against permitting
these investigations of production at the time, because it was something
unheard-of in Germany for a private industrialist to give to a government
authority a list about his products in detail; and that beyond that, he should
give an exact description of the raw materials and ingredients used; that he
should also include his personal data, statements about current that was used
— electrical current — and also about the sale of products at home,
abroad, and so on. All that material had to be included, and we had never
experienced such a request up to that time. We turned, at the time very
emphatically, against complying with this information regulation. I sent Dr.
Struss, at the time, to Berlin to the Statistical Reich Office, and he talked
to the chairman of his office, a Mr. Leisel, but Leisel told him that there was
a regulation of 12 July 1923 about the obligation |
__________
* Further extracts are
reproduced above in subsections C 5b, E 3. G 3, below in subsections I 7c, J 4,
K 3a, L 3d, M 3, 0 7a, and in section VIII, subsections C 6, D 3, D 6, E 4, and
section IX subsection F 2, volume VIII this series.
1134 |
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