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don't think we are any longer interested in the individual measures
that were taken for keeping things secret." Therefore, I shall take it upon
myself not to ask Dr. ter Meer too much in details about this field.
Dr. ter Meer, what did you have to do with the field of secrecy; did
you have any close contact with these questions by reason of your position in
Farben?
DEFENDANT TER MEER: I personally had not much to do with this,
since I was not plant director or manager. I had my office in the
Administration Building in Frankfurt, and that was probably the reason why, as
far as I remember, I was not obligated to keep anything secret before the war.
Of course, I knew such regulations classified as “secret matters of the
Reich” [top secret], secret letters, etc. At a later time I also signed a
certificate that obligated me to keep matters secret, but I do not remember
when that was. I do remember, however, that such obligations to keep matters
secret existed already before the war, and that people were so obligated. For
instance, my colleagues in my own Sparte, as a result, were not permitted to
speak to me about certain things any longer. Of course, I also knew the
regulations of the draft of a bill regarding economic treason and the
extensions of the regulations about military treason, which Dr. von Knieriem
has discussed in detail on the witness stand.*
Q. As far as you know,
was Farben particularly active in keeping matters secret?
A. In 1929
through 1932/33, my main office was in the Leverkusen plant, and in the
Leverkusen plant we had the so-called Central Office for Questions of Military
Economy and Policy of Farben for such questions. This Central Office combatted
the disclosure of process secrets and business methods secrets, it investigated
falsification of trademark goods, it was used when we found any of our patents
and our trademarks to have been violated, and kept under surveillance certain
black market firms that occupied themselves with crooked measures in
pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. These measures were, of course,
contemplated against domestic and foreign occurrences. This agency was under
the direction of a certain Mr. Merbeck, who had previously been a
criminologist, and in one case of economic espionage worked successfully for
Leverkusen and was hired as a result of the work. The institution of the
Central Office of Farben under Mr. Merbeck's direction in the Leverkusen plant
was carried out in 1921, because of the events which I just mentioned.
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* Further extract, from the
testimony of defendant von Knierien, are reproduced above in subsections IV D
1, VII I 6b, K 3b, L 3b and below in subsection M
6b.
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