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Q. Who was that? What persons were they?
A. They were Mr.
Schwab and Mr. Schoener.
Q. Were these Farben people?
A. Yes,
Mr. Schwab was a commercial man, and Mr. Schooner was a technical expert of
Farben. The suggestion to appoint these two men as commissioners was based on
the fact that the dyestuffs trade, from both a business and a technical angle,
is a specialized industry which in Germany was practically dominated by Farben.
Consequently, if one wanted to appoint reasonable people for trustees in
Poland, one had to take people who knew the business, and they were only people
from Farben.
Q. Who suggested Mr. Schoener as technical commissioner?
A. I was asked at the time for a suitable technical expert, and I named
Mr. Schoener.
Q. Can you tell me why you especially selected Mr.
Schoener as technical commissioner?
A. Mr. Schoener was the plant
leader of the Wolfen plant. He had had a great deal of practical experience in
the dyestuffs field and knew particularly well those groups of dyestuffs that
were predominantly produced in Poland. Also, Schoener was a very calm and
objective person. He was not a pushing man in any way, and for that reason too,
I considered him suitable for a trustee.
Q. Did you give any
instructions to Mr. Schoener for his work?
A. As far as I remember,
before Mr. Schoener made his first trip to Poland in September 1939, I talked
to him only over the phone. He did not receive any instructions from me. That
was the affair of the Reich Ministry of Economics. I want to make one thing
quite clear. As far as I was concerned, Schoener was a commissioner, a
commissioner of the government, and he had to act according to the instructions
given to him by the Reich Ministry of Economics, and later by the Main Trustee
Office East.
Q. Did you maintain that point of view later?
A.
Yes. Schooner tried repeatedly to discuss his trusteeship activity in Poland
with me, and I always said to him, “Schoener, you are a commissioner; that
is your affair. I don't bother about that. You must make your own
decisions.”
Q. In accordance with what did he have to decide?
A. In accordance with the instructions he was given by the Berlin
authorities.
Q. Did Schoener send you the reports that he prepared for
the Reich Ministry of Economics in his capacity as commissioner?
A. As
Mr. Schwab has already testified, the first four reports about the inspections
of the plants were sent to Frankfurt, and I took cognizance of these reports at
the time; but later no more reports arrived. Mr. Schwab has testified to that
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