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to turn over information, and that it provided for fines (monetary),
as well as deprivation of liberty, if anybody refused to give this information.
I submitted this question to Professor Bosch at the time, who listened to it
and who said, "Well, I don't want you to go to prison. You have to give the
information. There is nothing you can do." Nevertheless, I charged Dr. Struss
— and also asked Dr. Hoerlein — to try to get this obligation (of
turning over information) mitigated in Berlin; and we never turned over certain
special secrets like the contact agents in our modern catalyst process.
Q. Were these contact agents of your catalysts anything that dealt with
military things?
A. No, they had nothing to do with military things.
These are our own production questions. These contact agents are materials that
activate and speed up and accelerate chemical reaction, but they have nothing
to do with military matters. The production investigations of the Statistical
Reich Office concerned the entire industry. On 9 October, Dr. Struss was
interrogated about this and he made the statements about this point.* The
Statistical Reich Office carried out these production investigations over a
period of several years until, finally, it was at least given a different
designation, because Department 7, dealing with industrial production
statistics from a certain moment on, was called the Reich Office for Military
Economic Planning. That, of course, expressed the purpose of these production
investigations quite clearly. It can be seen unequivocally from this that
Farben did not take any initiative in this field.
Q. What are these
mobilization plans really?
A. I explained the thing as follows: During
the First World War, we had no preparations made in the field of military
economic supplies. At that time we had a very strong Army, as is well known. We
had a strong fleet. We had cannon and guns and machine guns, but the industry
which was to furnish supplies for all sorts of material was not worried about
it at all. No provisions were made for supply of raw materials; and since, in
1914, when the war broke out, the railways were exclusively reserved for
military purposes, a large number of plants were paralyzed in their operations
— because of lack of coal and raw materials — in a comparatively
short time. There were no officers or other employees who were deferred by the
Army authorities, since we had general conscription in Germany; and on the
first mobilization days, since we had no more important task, most of our
employees were drafted on that very day. An organization |
__________
* Dr. Struss testified on
this point as a prosecution witness on 9 October 1947. See mimeographed
transcript, pp. 1849-1927.
1135 |
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