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then we can identify it on the transcript if you just assign the
number, and we will give you time to make a supplement and to supply it for the
record.
DR. SEIDL: I will offer it for identification, designated as
Document Duerrfeld 1450, Duerrfeld Defense Exhibit 125.
PRESIDING JUDGE
SHAKE: Very well.
DR. SEIDL: Now. Dr. Duerrfeld, you have described the
job that you were given. Did this job remain the same in the course of the
planning, or did something change in the years following?
A. In the
course of time, during the construction conferences, my task, as that of many
other people, was gradually made more specific and also expanded. Thus, for
example, in the prosecution's Exhibit 1426, that is the minutes of the first
construction conference, which is Document
NI-11115,¹ and which is in
Book 72, English page 98, German page 158, in this document it says Duerrfeld,
together with Santo and Mach, takes over the coordination of all of the
questions of the plant in total planning, and the combining of the buna and the
gasoline plant, and the negotiations with the authorities about water and
power.
Furthermore, in Prosecution Exhibit 1428, this is the record of
the minutes of a second construction conference, and this is in Book 72, as
Document NI-11116,² English
page 111, German page 182, the job is expanded to include the setting up of the
entire organizational planning, questions of the salaries and wages in Upper
Silesia, et cetera. Thus in the following conferences, all according to need,
individual or special orders or measures or tasks were assigned by the
construction management, and orders were given to negotiate with firms or
authorities or agencies, and special missions such as determining appropriate
firms and work shops in Upper Silesia, preparation for seeing that there were
enough skilled metal workers, retraining of unskilled workers into skilled
workers, and many similar questions.
Q. Dr. Duerrfeld, in the course of
the proceedings, the so-called construction conferences were repeatedly
mentioned and the prosecution has introduced a large number of minutes of these
conferences, when your case in chief was presented.
Now I would like to
ask you personally what were these construction conferences; can you just
describe them briefly?
A. The construction conferences were, briefly,
the leadership instrument in the hands of the Managing Board [Vorstand] members
or their representatives and assistants in reference to the construction of
this new Auschwitz plant.
Q. You said that this was the leading
instrument of the competent |
__________
¹ Reproduced in part
above in subsection D.
² Ibid.
789 |
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