 |
| [de…] fendant ter Meer concerning the financial and technical
relation between Farben and DAG (3 below) ; a number of contemporaneous
documents (4 below) extracts from the testimony of Defendant Gajewski (5 below)
; and extracts from the record of the tax litigation, together with extracts
from the testimony of defendant von Knieriem concerning the making of false
declarations in formal petitions in litigations of this kind. |
| |
| |
2. TWO AFFIDAVITS AND TESTIMONY
OF DR. STRUSS |
| |
| a. Affidavit of Dr. Ernst Struss, Chief of the Office of Farben's
Technical Committee, Introduced by the Prosecution |
| |
| |
COPY
OF
DOCUMENT NI-8313
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 325 |
| |
AFFIDAVIT OF DR. ERNST STRUSS,
3 JUNE 1947 |
| |
I, Dr. Ernst Struss, director of I.G. Farben, chief of TEA Bureau of
IG, Secretary of the Technical Committee of the Vorstand of IG, Manager of
Division II [Sparte II] of the Vermittlungsstelle W, and, since 1943,
production manager of the entire German dyestuffs industry within the framework
of the Economic Group Chemical Industry; after having first been warned that I
will be liable for punishment for making a false statement, state herewith
under oath, of my own free will and without coercion, the following:
I.
Nitrate is the essential raw material for the production of gunpowder and
ammunition. The basic element in nitrates production is nitrogen, I.G. Farben
developed the Haber-Bosch process for the fixation of nitrogen from air. It
thus made Germany self sufficient in nitrates. Farben became the largest
nitrates producer in the world and, by exporting on a large scale displaced
Chile, which up to then had been the main source for nitrate supplies on the
world markets. It was Farben's unique position in the nitrate field which
prompted the biggest German producer of gunpowder and ammunition, the Dynamit
A.G. vormals Alfred Nobel in Troisdorf, to come to a community-of-interests
agreement with IG. Farben in 1926.*
IG. Farben soon succeeded in
dominating the Dynamit A.G. In the first place, the Dynamit A.G. (DAG) was
dependent on IG for nitrates. Moreover, IG held over 50 percent of the voting
rights in the DAG. Furthermore, IG was represented in the Auf-
[…sichtsrat] |
__________
* Concerning the
community-of-interests agreement between Farben and DAG, see the extract from
the "Handbook of German Joint Stock Corporations," Document NI-7221.
Prosecution Exhibit 323, reproduced below as the first document in subsection M
4.
1337 |
. 
