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particularly bearing in mind the fact that witness Schwab has already
given a brief survey about the chemical industry of Poland.
DEFENDANT
TER MEER: I personally do not know the Polish chemical industry well, but if
the indictment speaks of the Polish chemical industry, this is the same mistake
as in the case of France. The Polish dyestuffs plants were enterprises of small
and medium size and constituted only a fraction of the entire chemical industry
of Poland.
Q. Before the war broke out, did you know the Polish
dyestuffs plants?
A. I knew them only by name. Once, in 1934, I was in
Warsaw at the cartel conference mentioned by Mr. Schwab, but I did not visit
any plants on that occasion. I did not even go to see the Winnica plant, which
is situated close to Warsaw. The Polish dyestuffs industry was created by
artificial high tariff barriers. It was not a large industry, and I was not
interested in it at all.
Q. Did you or Farben, before the war broke
out, have any plans in regard to the dyestuffs industry of Poland?
A.
No. We did not consider them at all and certainly had no plans. You know that I
did not expect war.
Q. The prosecution however, has shown us a VOWI
pamphlet published at the end of July 1939, which related to the Polish
chemical industry. How do you explain that?
A. From my own positive
knowledge, I cannot say anything about that. The Office of the Technical
Committee [TEA] never collaborated very closely with the VOWI in Berlin,
because we generally interested ourselves in technical things, and the VOWI
actually collected only economic problems from newspapers, magazines, and so
on. Therefore, I can only express my opinion about the origin of this pamphlet
on Poland. The chief of VOWI was a very ambitious person and certainly wanted,
on various occasions, to show that his department was up to date. Just as a
newspaper or a magazine will publish an article about a country where there
happens to be some political or other event of interest, I think that the chief
of VOWI, here again for journalistic reasons, perhaps wanted to produce
something about Poland when the first friction between Germany and Poland
became known. About the value of this piece of work Mr. Schwab has already made
very clear statements.
Q. You had nothing to do with the pamphlet then,
and you did not issue any instruction about it?
A. No, I issued no
instructions about it. I do not even know if I read it; that is possible,
however. You know that at that time I was in Karlsbad taking waters, in August.
Q. Shortly after the war broke out, two commissioners were appointed
for the Polish dyestuffs factories. Who appointed these commissioners?
A. The Reich Ministry of Economics. |
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