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firm in this letter, asking for a clarification with regard to
Krupp's intentions. Our position had been clarified at that time. My factory
told me, "We want to keep these machines," and we had no information yet from
the other party. Krupp hadn't stated any intention yet as to what they wanted
to do with these machines; so what we wanted to know was what were the
intentions of Krupp. But under no circumstances can you construe from this
letter that at that time I had any intention of selling these machines.
Q. How did you know that the firm of Krupp had the final right of
disposal with regard to this machine?
A. I don't understand your
question.
Q. You approached the firm of Krupp in this letter of 11 July
1941. How did you know that Krupp could make the final decision regarding the
fate of this machine?
A. You see on the letter that we have written to
Krupp the words, “care of Director Schmidt,” you must conclude from
this that he was the man who told us that Krupp would be the agency to decide.
JUDGE WILKINS, Presiding: May I ask you a question, just a minute. Mr.
Mandellaub, I suppose you are quite anxious to finish with this witness so that
he may be released?
MR. MANDELLAUB: Yes, Your Honor.
JUDGE
WILKINS, presiding: We are running over now, but I think, to accommodate him,
we will continue unless it is going to be too long.
MR. MANDELLAUB:
Thank you.
JUDGE WILKINS, Presiding: Do you have any more questions,
Dr. Behling?
DR. BEHLING: Only very brief questions. Mr. Witness,
Director Schmidt wasn’t an employee of the firm of Krupp after all, was he
now?
WITNESS KOCH: No, he wasn’t an employee of Krupp, but for us
he was the only liaison officer. The only channels we could use to approach any
German authority, an authority of the occupation force or any German firm via
this Director Schmidt; that is why this letter is headed care of Director
Schmidt, and that is why he was the man who told us that we should address the
letter to Krupp.
Q. Then it is more of an accident that the letter was
addressed to Krupp?
A. I hardly think that you can term it a mere
accident, because we had to write to somebody, and I think it is rather
comprehensible that we would address our letter to the firm which had our
machines, because we had seen the freight cars and we |
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