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fact in the year 1936. Even today up to 0.7 percent Oppanol is added
to our army motor oil. It is evident here too, that the Americans are not
properly informed about developments here, which is explained by the fact that
we left them in ignorance of the fact that, using coal as a base, we ourselves
produce the raw materials for Oppanol production.
4. Buna
The conditions in the buna field are such that we never gave technical
information to the Americans, nor did technical cooperation in the buna field
take place. On the basis of the contractual agreements, the Americans had only
the right to reach a technical cooperation with IG at some undetermined date.
Even the agreement reached in September 1939 and mentioned by Mr. Haslam, did
not give the Americans any technical information, but only that which was
contractually their due, that is, a share in the patents. Moreover, at that
time a different division of the patents was decided upon, which seemed to be
in the interests of both partners. The Americans did not at that time receive
anything important to war economy; besides, they could have procured the
patents without our agreements in wartime, for, during war a state will never
be kept from production by enemy patents.
A further fact must be taken
into account, which for obvious reasons did not appear in Haslam’s
article. As a consequence of our contracts with the Americans, we received from
them, above and beyond the agreement, many very valuable contributions for the
synthesis and improvement of motor fuels and lubricating oils, which just now
during the war are most useful to us; and we also received other advantages
from them.
Primarily, the following may be mentioned:
(1) Above
all, improvement of fuels through the addition of tetraethyl-lead and
the manufacture of this product.* It need not be especially mentioned that
without tetraethyl-lead the present method of warfare would be impossible. The
fact that since the beginning of the war we could produce tetraethyl-lead is
entirely due to the circumstances that, shortly before, the Americans had
presented us with the production plans, complete with their know-how.
Thus, the difficult work of development (one need only recall the poisonous
property of tetra-ethyl-lead which caused many deaths in the U.S.A.) was spared
us, since we could take up the |
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* Evidence concerning
Germany's acquisition of 500 tons of tetraethyl lead from the Ethyl Export
corporation is reproduced above in subsection I, “Stockpiling, Storage of
Material. Dispersal of Production.”
1309 |
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