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| b. Affidavit and Testimony of Defendant ter
Meer |
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TRANSLATION OF
DOCUMENT NI-8148
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT
1881 |
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| AFFIDAVIT OF DR. FRITZ TER MEER, 23 APRIL 1947 |
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| AFFIDAVIT |
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I, Friedrich Herman ter Meer, 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:
Before going into details about conditions in Russia and, especially,
those in the buna plants, I shall first define in general terms the respective
spheres of responsibility of Ambros and myself: My task was more the
management, whereas Ambros was more the builder of the plants and he supervised
the smooth running of the production. Later, approximately from 1942 on, this
changed somewhat, as Ambros also started to participate in questions of
contracts.
In reference to the Russian question, a meeting took place
in July 1941 in the Reich Ministry of Economics (RWM) in which the RWM
explained the Reich’s plans. The Reich's viewpoint was that German
industry in Russia was not to acquire any property in the industrial
installations located there, but that German industry was only to assist, the
Reich as trustee in running the plants which fell into German hands.
I
have at hand a protocol of the meeting of the IG Vorstand on 10 July 1941,
which reads: |
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“After this, Ilgner reports
on two meetings at the Reich Ministry of Economics at which Oster, Buetefisch,
Ambros, and he, himself, had taken part. The matter primarily dealt with was
the enumeration of associates now drafted for service in the Wehrmacht who
appear suitable to take part (in a technical or administrative capacity) in the
work of keeping the chemical industry going in the former Soviet Union. * * *
Farben will be appointed as trustee for rubber * * *. In principle, Farben
declares it is ready to give assistance * * *.”* |
From this wording, also, I deduce that the initiative came from the
RWM.
Had the factories come to be controlled by IG, we probably would
have converted the Russian process into the second phase of our German buna-S
process. That would have led to a better and more perfected technique for the
Russian factory, in regard to both process and apparatus. We therefore attached
importance, in such a case, |
__________
* The excerpt quoted is
from NI-8077 which to reproduced above in section
E 2.
294 |
. 
