 |
| 7. TESTIMONY OF DEFENDANT BUETEFISCH |
| |
EXTRACTS FROM TESTIMONY OF
DEFENDANT
BUETEFISCH* |
| |
| DIRECT EXAMINATION |
| |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
| |
DR. FLAECHSNER (counsel for defendant Buetefisch) Dr. Buetefisch,
under count three of the indictment, I want you, first of all, to speak about
your responsible activity within the scope of Farben’s business, and to
tell me to what extent did the allocation of labor fall within your scope of
responsibility?
A. The administrative work for the allocation of labor
was not part of my duties. I believe that during my testimony I have already
explained that I had to deal with the technical planning and technical work of
Leuna for which I bore responsibility. The over-all organization was such that
the labor allocation, with all its government regulations, was the affair of
the plant leader, who had a number of departments at his disposal for handling
these matters on his behalf.
Q. Did I understand you correctly that,
within your twenty-five years of activity for Farben, you were never the plant
leader, in the sense of the law, in any of the plants that you worked in?
A. No. I wasn't the plant leader. I was only in charge of the technical
leadership, as I have explained already.
Q. Did you belong to the plant
council of Farben?
A. No.
Q. Did you participate in the plant
leaders’ meeting?
A. No, I wasn’t a plant leader.
Q.
Well, I want to ask you whether you didn't have any contact at all with the
staff of workers and employees, since you were managing an enterprise?
A. That would be a wrong assumption. On the contrary, as the technical
chief of a plant, one has to be in constant touch with the workers, especially
where one is personally in charge of technical matters. Practically, one works
all day long in the factory and collaborates with the individual plant leaders
and, since I myself grew up as the director of such plants, I know that they
can only be directed by maintaining close contact with the workers. Thus,
during my inspections, especially in the Leuna plant, I knew the foremen and
workers very well. A number of them knew me personally. In Leuna, for instance,
in our workers' housing project we lived all together — the workers, the
foremen, the plant leaders, the engineers. They were all mixed together; and in
this way, one maintained very close contact and undoubtedly one respected the
work of these people.
Q. Dr. Buetefisch, can you tell the Tribunal what
you know about |
__________
* Other extracts are
reproduced in subsections VII C2, I 7e, L 3c, volume VII, this series.
768 |
. 
