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[mm.] antiaircraft guns. Productions not strictly in the armament
field were geared to the war production requirements of Germany. Definite
instructions called for continuous full production of military tractor parts
and full utilization of local labor for this purpose. To carry out this task
additional machinery was requisitioned by special searching missions.
That the Krupp firm desired ultimately to permanently acquire the ELMAG
plant there can be little doubt. In the minutes prepared by the defendant
Eberhardt of the Berlin meeting, 27 March 1943, and distributed to defendants
Krupp, Mueller, and Janssen, there appears the following comment: “As
regards Ministerialrat Sauer’s suggestion for Krupp’s purchasing
ELMAG, this can be handled in negotiations; this must not, however, hold up the
relocation.” Eberhardt made the following notation of portions of a
telephone conversation between himself and the civil administrator for Alsace
on 6 April 1943; “I replied in the affirmative to the question whether the
new company would come forward as a buyer if the works to be taken over and now
in operation, would be sold.”
Whatever the ultimate intention of
the Krupp firm towards ELMAG might have been, the turn in the fortunes of war
forced the Krupp firm to evacuate the ELMAG plants because of the advance of
the Allied armies. In view of this situation, the exploitation of the ELMAG
plants was substituted by outright physical looting.
The evacuation of
the Krawa plant from Alsace was decided by Reich Minister Speer in early
September 1944. The plant was hurriedly evacuated and re-established in
Bavaria. The program for the acquisition of machinery was greatly accelerated.
Machinery which was the property of the ELMAG plant, including machinery which
was in the plant when it was seized by the German authorities, and machines
acquired from other sources were evacuated along with Krupp’s own
machinery. Nine machines originally owned by the old S.A.C.M. company were
included. The antiaircraft gun plant was moved to the Groeditz plant of
Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke. A total of 100 to 102 machines were shipped to this
plant of which 31 were the property of the S.A.C.M. company and 55 the property
of ELMAG A.G. In late September the antiaircraft gun plant was moved to central
Germany. Special equipment designed at ELMAG was taken as well as regular
machinery and tools belonging to the plant prior to the occupation. Additional
machines would have been taken at the time of the evacuation except for the
necessity of continued war production at ELMAG itself. Even after evacuation of
the Krawa plant the production of military tractor parts, |
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