 |
WITNESS SAUR: Yes.
Q. And that from April 1943 until
September they had an opportunity to meet that quota and didn’t do so, and
as a consequence, in September you had to make this decision to get something
done about it?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Now, during that
period, from April until September, had you made any efforts or had Speer or
anyone for you — I assume it was your function —
A. Yes, we
had negotiations with Krupp every month. We always got the promise that now
they had overcome the difficulties or would overcome the difficulties, and by
mobilizing even more highly the reserves from the mother plant at Essen,
Markstaedt would be put in a position to meet their quotas, but we were always
disappointed and the promises were not kept, and that went on until the
beginning of October.
Q. Now what the Tribunal is interested in is if
meeting this production quota was a primary concern, why did you put up with
this from March until September 1943? Why didn’t you put the officials in
a concentration camp?
A. As I said this morning, in answer to the
question of the prosecutor, in the last 3 years I have not been able to find a
single case, or to hear of a single case in which a man, because he did not
meet a production quota, was put into a concentration camp.
Q. Let's
put it this way — what I am trying to get at is, I understand the real
reason why Krupp officials did not meet the production quota originally, in
your opinion, was not due to any lack of willingness on their part, but a lack
of technical experts in mass production, on a large scale?
A. Yes.
Q. Well, now, was there any threat by any government official to put
any of them in a concentration camp?
A. No. What I did, on the other
hand, was to send Krupp the very best expert on the weapon production. He was a
man from the A.E.G.* and his name was Siegmann. I arranged for him to join
Krupp so that they should be more easily able to overcome the difficulties. It
took a lot of persuasion to make the firm accept such a man, because the
prestige of such a large firm would not allow that outsiders should provide
their experts. With the help of General Director Voegler of Vereinigte
Stahlwerke, I was asked to bring about a contact between the A.E.G. and Krupp,
so that Siegmann could be borrowed from the A.E.G. for this |
__________
* This is the abbreviation
for Allgemeine Elektrizitaetsgesellschaft, Germany’s largest combine in
the production of electrical equipment.
795 |
. 
