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special duty of supervising technical questions of organic chemistry
within Francolor. You know that Francolor did only organic chemistry work, that
is to say, dyestuffs and their intermediates, and all the organic chemicals,
detergents, tanning agents, resins, and lacquers, and the field that I have
been talking about in the last few days. That was the reason why I was put on
this board as a representative of organic chemistry.
Q. Did you have
anything to do with the previous contractual negotiations concerning Farben's
participation in any influential capacity ?
A. I did not participate in
any negotiations. I had nothing to do with the negotiations.
Q. You
said that it was your duty, if I understood you correctly, to advise Francolor
as a chemist and to help them during the negotiations. What did you do to help
Francolor in this respect?
A. It was a difficult situation for the
French industry, after the end of the campaign. We learned to know the
situation personally only a year after the Armistice of Compiégne. Now
we were confronted with four factories whose raw materials supply was not yet
secured, and where one did not know at first how these factories were to be
employed. That was the first task, to get to know what it was practicable to do
at that time to attain full employment for these French firms.
Q. Mr.
Ambros, was it possible to give Francolor any assignments to keep it going in
its capacity as a chemical works?
A. In the first moment, we suggested
that part of our dyestuffs manufacture should be turned over to France. If I
remember correctly there were 12,000 tons of dyestuffs which were to be
produced in France instead of in our own plants. I do not know whether you can
realize what it means for a manufacturer to give up some of his volume of
production. From our point of view, as technical men, it was a sacrifice to
give up a volume of our dyestuffs from our factories to the French; but that
was the simplest and above all, the quickest remedy, in order to give Francolor
sufficient occupation quickly. But things did not turn out as we had hoped,
because at that time France was short of everything. There wasn't enough coal;
the intermediates were lacking, and the occupation authorities had no
understanding, of course, and did not want to use the small coal stocks or the
small coal production of the northern provinces for dyestuffs manufacture.
Therefore, my second task, which I worked out together with Dr. ter
Meer, was to find out how we technical men could succeed in employing the
French factories with orders for which we could get a permit or certificate for
coal allocation, or get permission to operate at all. I may say now that we
succeeded, absolutely, in this. |
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