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the factory and mines. The purpose of the Commissariat was to
preserve the jobs of these people and to prevent any anarchical conditions
which might have arisen.
Q. I shall come back to your work as Commissar at Aussig later. I
should now like to speak to you about the situation before that time. The
prosecution has offered the minutes of a meeting in Berlin on 17 May 1938, when
the head of the Czechoslovakian dyestuffs agency, Mr. Seebohm was
present.¹ These minutes were offered as Document NI-6221, Prosecution 833,² book 46, page 29.
Another Prosecution Exhibit 1612,³ book 46, page 35a has reference
to this previous exhibit I have just mentioned. You were not present at this
meeting, but since Mr. Seebohm was head of this sales company in
Czechoslovakia, and consequently subordinate to you, I should like to ask you
briefly to comment on this.
A. The prosecution obviously attached great importance to these
minutes of the meeting of 17 May 1938. This meeting has been brought into
connection with events and dates, and as I understand it, the prosecution sees
therein proof of participation in planning of aggressive action. In General
Taylor's opening statement for the prosecution, page 113 of the German text, he
emphasized that I was present at this meeting. You have already said that I was
not present; that this is a case of confusion of names.
MR. SPRECHER: Just so there is no mistake:
I think the prosecution has made its position on that point clear. We did
initially make a mistake because of the umlaut in another gentleman's name, who
is named Kuegler and not Kugler.
JUDGE SHAKE: Yes.
DEFENDANT KUGLER: In order to realize how significant or
insignificant these minutes of the meeting of 17 May 1938 are, one must
consider first of all, the tension in German-Czechoslovakian relations, which
did not start in 1938, but several years before that; and the situation which
resulted from this tension for the German agencies, including the
TEFA4 in Reichenberg. Mr. Seebohm, who was
mentioned in these minutes, was the head of this TEFA firm in Reichenberg, the
dyestuffs sales organization of Farben in Czechoslovakia. One must also
consider the difficulties under which the TEFA was laboring at the time in
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¹ See Document
Kugler 24, Kugler Defense Exhibit 26. an
affidavit by Karl Seebohm concerning the conference in Czechoslovakia,
reproduced in part above in section O 6.
² Reproduced in part above in
subsection O 5.
³ Reference is made to item II of the minutes of the
meeting of Farben’s commercial committee on 24 May 1038, which are
reproduced above in subsection N 3, as a part of Document
NI-9289, Prosecution Exhibit 1069. This item from
the minutes was also included in Prosecution Exhibit 1622, the exhibit number
here mentioned by Dr. Hence.
4
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