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going on leave have to furnish guarantors!] Was that your suggestion;
was it Tscherter’s suggestion, or was that discussed during one of the
department or plant leader conferences? Tell us quite briefly.
A. That
was neither a suggestion by Tscherter, nor did it come from me. It was merely a
reference to the official directive to put up trustees.
Q. Underneath
that, it says: “Private Agreement.” After that a question mark. Did
you mean to say that you could not imagine on what basis something like that
could be arranged? What did you imagine?
A. Well, that is very clear.
In order to assure the return of these people from their leaves, agreements
were to be made with the firms who supplied these loaned workers, so-called
Montage firms, and ironically they were designated here as “slave
traders.”
Q. Dr. Buergin, in Farben, was it absolutely customary,
was it a very ordinary expression, to call these Montage firms in a more or
less jocular form, “slave traders”?
A. To what extent that
was actually customary, I cannot tell you today. At any rate if it is my job,
as I know it was the Montage firm’s job, to get people and to send them to
work, and if the people maintain that they did not come quite voluntarily, then
in my way of expression, a joke like that could perhaps be understood.
Q. Did you think perhaps, Dr. Buergin, that this Montage firm which
gave you their workers, as so-called loan workers, that they themselves did not
undertake any risk but that they got quite a bit of money paid for themselves
— a middle man’s fee of the salary?
A. If they did not employ
these workers in a group but assigned and distributed them individually, and
under those circumstances it was quite clear that they made some profit on the
people they supplied. |
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| (Recess) |
| |
DR. SCHUBERT: Dr. Buergin, one more question about this document that
we have just been discussing, Prosecution Exhibit 1965. If I understand you
correctly, when you say “slave trader,” you are referring to the
construction and assembly firms that supplied workers on a loan basis, is that
right?
A. Yes, I was speaking ironically.
Q. I didn't
understand your answer. Would you mind repeating it?
A. Yes — and
not the people.
Q. Did you mean to say that the workers supplied by
these construction and assembly firms, so-called loan workers, were not
voluntary workers?
A. That really has nothing to do with this question.
Only the circumstance that somebody is profiting from the work of another
without working himself. That is what was meant. |
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| * * * * * * * * * * |
767 |
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