These were the views of Hitler and his party, and this was the man and the program, widely publicized and well known to the defendants, at the time that Buetefisch and Gattineau went to Muich to discuss Farben's synthetic gasoling program with Hitler.
The Nazi party suffered a setback, however, in the German election of November 1932. Hitler dropped some two million votes, and Nazi representation in the Reichstag fell from 230 to 196 seats. The election was a serious blow to Hitler's aspirations; shortly thereafter, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary:
"Deep depression is prevalent in the organization. Financial worries prevent any consturctive work....In the evening, the Fuehrer was at our house. We could not get into the right spirit. We were all very discouraged, particularly in the face of the present danger that the entire party may collapse and all our work be in vain. We are now facing the decisive test."
But soon after this depressing entry, Hitler's fortunes rose abruptly and decisively. A petition signed by leading industrialists and financiers had been presented to President Hindenburg calling upon him to entrust the Chancellorship to Hitler. Early in January 1933, von Paper and Hitler met in conference at the home of the Cologne banker, Baron Kurt von Schroeder. Thereafter, von Papen conferred with President von Hindenburg, and on January 30, 1933, von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of the Third Reich.
This the Third Reich was born, but the monstrous infant was not yet out of danger. The Nazi party's slender purse, whichhad worried Goebbels some weeks earlier, was a serious obstacle to success in the election which was scheduled for March 1933. But the financial problem was solved, and Hitler's power was assured. These defendants, through Farben, participated in furnishing the necessary funds and thereby assisted in cementing Hitler's power. This took place just three weeks after Hitler had been appointed Chancellor.
On 20 February 1933, Goering invited about twenty leading German bankers and industrialists to his home to obtain financial support for the Nazis in the coming election. Farben was represented at this meeting by the defendant von Schnitzler, and others in attendance included Gustav Krupp von Bohlen and Dr. Hjalmar Schacht. Hitler appeared and delivered a long speech, at the conclusion of which this powerful assemblage subscribed to a fund of three million marks to be put at his disposal in the coming election. Krupp von Bohlen made notes summarizing Hitler's speech, and these notes will be offered in evidence. Inasmuch as Hitler's speech, and these notes will be offered in evidence. Inasmuch as Hitler's speech is compelling evidence of the nature of the man and the program which the industrialists determined to support, substantial portions of it merit quotation. Hitler said in part.
"Private enterprise cannot be maintained in the age of democracy: It is conceivable only if the people have a sound idea of authority and personality. Everything positive, good and valuable, which has been achieved in the world in the field of economics and culture, is solely attributed to personality. When, however, the defense of the existing order, its political administration, is left to a majority, it will irretrievably go under. All the worldly goods which we possess, we owe to the struggle of the chosen.....
"It is not by chance that one person accomplishes more than the other. The principle of private ownership which was slowly gone into general conception of justice and has become a complicated process of economic life, is rooted in this fact. The course which we have to take is clearly indicated. It is, however, not enough to say we do not want communism in our economy. If we continue on our old political course, then we shall perish. We have fully experienced in the past years that economics and politics cannot be separated. The political conduct of the struggle is the primary decisive factor. Therefore, politically clear conditions must be reached.....It is therefore, the noblest task of the leader to find ideals that are stronger than the factors that pull the people together.
I recognized even while in the hospital that one had to search for new ideas conducive to reconstruction. I found them in nationalism, in the value of personality, and in the the denial of reconciliation between nations....Of course, nothing is being accomplished by simple denial of such thought, one has to offer new thoughts. If one rejects pacifism, one must put a new idea in its place immediately. Everything must be pushed aside, everything replaced by something better.....We must not forget that all the benefits of culture must be introduced more or less with an iron fist just as one time the farmer was forced to plant potatoes...."
Still from Krupp von Bohlen's notes:
"Now we stand before the last election. Regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat even if the coming election does not bring about decision. One way or another. If the election does not decide, the decision must be brought about by other means. I have intervened in order to give the people once more the chance to decide their fate by themselves..... The necessity to make sacrifices has never been greater than now. For business, I have the one wish that it go parallel with the internal structure to meet a calm furture. The restoration of the Wehrmacht will not be decided at Geneva but in Germany, when we have gained internal strength through internal peace....There are only two possibilities, either to crowd back the opponent on constitutional grounds, and for this purpose once more this election, or a struggle will be conducted with other weapons, which may demand greater sacrifices. I would like to see them avoided. I hope the German people thus recognise the greatness of the hour. It shall decide over the next ten or probably one hundred years. It will become a turning point in German history to which I pledge myself with glowing energy.
THE PRESIDENT:I wonder, Counsel, if this would not be a convenient place for our morning reedss.
The Tribunall will rise for a few minutes.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL:Persons in the courtroom will be seated.
Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT:Before we resume, map we inquire if it will be agreeable to run the session until about twelve-fifteen and then adjourn until one-thirty for lunch. Will that be satisfactory?
Counsel for the Prosecution may proceed.
MR. DU BOIS:That was Hitler speaking, and that is what the defendant von Schnitzler heard Hitler say on 20 February 1933, less than two weeks before the March election. Goering followed Hitler with a request for financial support and concluded by saying: "The sacrifices asked for surely would be so much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March 5 will surely be the last one for the next ten years--probably even for the next one hundred years." Schacht then said: "On this table we must raise a fund of three million marks."
Schnitzler went back and reported what he had heard to the other Farben officials. Farben contributed 400,000 marks for Hitler's camaign -- the largest single contribution by any of the firms represented at the meeting. The payment was made on 27 February 1933. The next day the Reichstag building was set on fire, and on that same day Hitler and his cabinet, utilizing the fire as a pretext, promulgated a decree suspending the constitutional guarantees of freedom. By this decree, certain sections of the German constitution were indefinitely suspended and, as the decree stated;
"....restrictions on personal liberty, on the rightof free expres sion of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the right of assembly and the right of association, and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications, and warrants for house-searehes, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed."
This was the first act of the man and the party after receiving the subsidy which Farben had so generously provided. The decisive election was held with the constitutional guarantees in a state of suspension one week later; the Nazi party received seventeen million votes out of thirty-nine million cast, and 288 Reichstag seats out of a total of 647.
Still lacking a majority, Hitler applied the "other methods" which he had threatened to use in the speech which von Schnitzler had heard on the 20th of February. Opposition members in the Reichstag were taken into "protective custody" and in their enforced absence the Reichstag on 24 March 1933 passed the Enabling Act which gave Hitler full legislative power, including the power to deviate from the constitution. Thus perished democracy and liberty in Germany; the Third Reich had come to stay for twelve long and terrible years.
Were the defendant shocked, disappointed,or even surprised at the swift and brutal course of dictatorship? In April 1933, Hermann Goering founded the Gestapo. In that same month, the Reich Association of German Industry, of which Carl Duisberg was a founder and Farben a member, submitted to Hitler a plan for the re-organization of German industry according to the "fuehrerprinzip" or "leadership principle". In transmitting the plan, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen stated that:
The turn of political events is in line with the wishes which I myself, and the board of directors, have cherished for a long time.
In re-organizing the Reich association of German Industry.
I shall be guided by the atm of bringing the new organization into agreement with the political aims of the German government.
In July 1933, a law was passed declaring the NSDAP to be the only political party, and making it criminal to maintain or form any other political party. Three days earlier, representatives of the Du Pont Company of Delaware had met with Carl Bosoh, then charman of the Farben Vorstand, who told them that:
Just now it is a question of Fascism and Bolshevism, and industry must support the present government to prevent further chaos.
In the beginning, Hitler did not consult industrial leaders, but in recent weeks he has shown his stability by curbint the more extreme elements of the party and bringing the industrial leaders into consultation with him.
What did Farben regard as "stability" and what was it that seemed to them preferable to "chaos"? During the remaining months of 1933, the grip of tyranny grew even tighter. The independence of the judiciary was fatally undermined, special political counts were established, and the concentration camp made its appearance.
Jews were eliminated from the civil service and otherwise persecuted, the trade unions were strangled, and the Hitler Youth was organized on military lines. Joseph Goebbels established the Ministry of Peoples' Enlightenment and propaganda to insure distortion and suppresion of the truth. Within Goebbel's Ministry, Walther Funk established a "Publicity Board of the German Economy", on which the defendants von Schnitzler, Mann, and Gattineau were pleased to serve. Germany withdrew from the International Disarmament Conference and from the League of Nations. Germany's foreign policy was "ratified" by a so-called "election" in November, 1933. At this same "election", the defendant Schmitz, as a Nazi nominee, was elected to the Reichstag. As government turned into dictatorship and Germany set her feet on the road to war, Farben became ever more closely integrated with and vital to the Third Reich, which it had helped to create.
COUNT ONE: PLANNING AND PREPARING INVASIONS AND WARS OF AGGRESSION In appraoching the defendants career of partnership with Hitler and the Wehrmacht during the years prior to the outbreak of the war, we may profitably remind ourselves that the preparation of a war against major powers is an undertaking of staggering magnitude.
It cannot be done by one man or by any single group of men. It must be organized among all the leaders of a nation, and it calls for the most meticulous and deliberate planning all down the line. Mr. Justice Jackson set this forth with admirable clarity before the International Military Tribunal:1 This war did not just happen.
It was planned and prepared for over a long period of time and with no small skill and cunning.
The world has perhaps never seen such a concentration and stimulation of energies of any people as that which enabled Germany twenty years after it was defeated, disarmed, and dismembered, to come ------------------1. Vol.
II, Trial of the Major War Criminals, pp. 104, 131.
so so near to carrying out its plan to dominate Europe. Whatever else may be said, of those who were in organization.
..
Financiers, economists, industrialists, joined in the plan, and promoted elaborate alterations in industry and finance to support an unprecedented concentration of resources and energies on the preparations for war.
...These preparations were of a magnitude which surpassed all need of defense, and every defendant, and every intelligent German, well understood them to be for aggressive purposes.
Farben' s full scale collaboration in the program of the Third Reich was abundantly manifested immediately after Hitler' s seizure of power. In outlining the evidence today, we will lay principla stress upon its participation in re-arming Germany for aggressive purposes, but it must not be thought that this was the only field in which Farben found common ground with the Nazis. Farben continued to give the NSDAP generous financial support, and carefully adapted its sales and publicity programs in accordance with Nazi ideas. If any doubts lingered in the minds of the defendants, they were not manifested by word or by deed. We will outline the proof of these charges chronologically.
The Tribunal will recall that, when Farben first established contact with Hitler through Gattineau and Buetefisch in 1932, Farben nhad been chiefly concerned with securing Hitler's support for the continuation and expansion of its synthetic oil program.
Hitler gave them satisfactory assurances, and soon after the seizure of power, in the spring of 1933, Hitler invited Carl Bosch, then chairman, of the Farben Vorstand, to meet Nth him and discuss the details of the program which Buetefish and Gattineau had outlined in 1932. The meeting was not without its bargaining aspects; Hitler was chiefly interested in quantity production, whereas Farben was anxious for government guarantees relating to prices and for the purchase of Farben' s output. While the full details of this meeting are not known to the prosecution, it is clear that Farben received assurances which led them to develop a program for expansion of the Leuna plant.
Farben immediately proceeded to establish close relations pith the German Air Ministry, in order to develop the aviation market for synthetic gasoline. In the spring of 1933, the defendant Krauch, at that time the head of Sparte I (the Sparte concerned with nitrogen and synthetic fuels), wrote to Erhardt Milch, the State Secretary and second in command of Hermann Goering's Air Ministry. Krauch outlined the basis for expansion of Farben's synthetic fuel facilities on the basis of a "four year plan". This concept of a four year plan was later adopted by Hitler and Goering for Germany as a whole, as will subsequently appear. Krauch's letter contained the following:
It will, of course, be easily possible to accelerate the speed of this expansion so as to reach the production target in a shorter time.
...It is quite possible to more or less replace the contemplated increase in the production of crude oil and low temperature lignite tar, through the direct hydrogenation of lignite and bituminous coal.
This would give us the advantage of enabling us to start from an assured raw material basis and of independence from by-products.
.....
As far as hydrogenation is concerned, we have worked for quite some time on the production of suitable aviation gasoline.
We can now state that according to the condi tions of technical methods, it would easily be possible to produce aviation gasoline as well as lubricants suit able for airplanes by German production.
At this time the Lufthansa is making extensive tests with our gasoline.
If there are any points arising out of this matter requiring additional elucidation, I shall be glad to furnish them to you with further verbal information.
On the basis of the Krauch report, Milch called a special meeting at the Air Ministry with Lt. General von Bockelberg, Chief of Army Ordnance, and Lt. Colonel Thomas (who later became the chief of the Military Economy Staff), and reported to them on his conference with Krauch. The minutes of this meeting state:
Secretary of State Milch handed over to Lieutenant General von Vockelberg a memorandum of the I.G. (Dr. Krauch) concern ing the expansion of the domestic basis of raw materials and proposed that both of their offices vigorously sponsor the project before the appropriate government agency.
The appoint ment of a Commissar with authority to take necessary measures to carry the project into effect was considered necessary.
Three months later, in December 1933, Farben received a formal contract from the government for synthetic gasoline production. The contract was approved for the Government by Hitler personally. Farben undertook to enlarge its Leuna plants so that during the second half of 1934 a minimum production of 80,000 tons could be reached, and by 31 December 1937 a minimum production of 300,000 to 350,000 tons. For this the Reich guaranteed Fargen for ten years - until 30 June 1944a price corresponding to the cost of production. The Reich pledged itself to take measures assuring the sale of the gasoline manufactured.
With the synthetic gasoline program successfully launched, Farben turned its attention to synthetic rubber. Again the military authorities were called to the council table. In August, 1933, Farben wrote to the Army Ordnance Office reporting on the status of synthetic rubber experimentation. After detailing its work on rubber during the first World War and pointing out that research had been curtailed because of the financial risk, Farben's letter stated:
Of importance, furthermore, would seem to be certain indications that the new product surpsases natural rubber tires in non-skid properties.
On these grounds the manufacture of synthetic rub ber would seem to hold out some promise once again, so that the I.G. would be willing to resume their experiments on a large scale.
.... In order to avoid misunderstandings, it should be stated once more that it is impossible to manufacture synthetic rubber at a price approximating, however remotely, that of the present prince of natural rubber, but that it is hoped to counter-balance higher costs by higher quality.
After several months and more conferences, the Reich Minister for Economic Affairs wrote to Farben:
I am very much interested indeed in the manufacture of synthetic rubber in view of the decrease in imports of raw materials from abroad, and, more generally, because of the opportunities it might offer for the provision of employment.
I, therefore, appreciate it very much that your firm is prepared to restart the manufacture of synthetic rubber on a larger scale.
.. I shall, moreover, approach the Reich departments concerned, as soon as the tires are available, so that they can be subjected to extensive practical tests.
Should the tests produce favorable results, I shall gladly give further support to the matter by requiring government departments and public institutions to use synthetic tires provided prices are satisfactory.
Having secured these assurances, Farben intensified its experimental work with synthetic rubber, which came to fruition several years later. Far more than any other two things, Germany needed synthetic gasoline and synthetic rubber to enable it to fight a war under the economic pressure of enemy naval superiority. Accordingly, these were the two fields in which Farben's efforts were primarily concentrated. Less significant but more obviously warlike activities were not lacking. As early as March 1933, gas masks were issued to Farben employees, and training programs for defense against air raids and gas attacks were launched. Experimentation with smoke screens was begun in collaboration with the Reich War Ministry. The German Air Ministry, having noticed an article in a French technical periodical with respect to a new and highly lethal poison gas which Farben was said to have discovered, sent an inquiry to Farben, and the defendant Krauch dispatched one of Farben's leading scientists to Berlin "to give the required explanation."
On the political front, Farben supported Hitler and the Nazi party wholeheartedly and energetically throughout these months, when concentration camps were being established, and one tyrannical decree after another issued from Berlin. Farben made numerous financial contributions in 1933 to the party and its various organizations, and Carl Duisberg assured the Reich Association of German Industry that "on account of their absolutely positive attitude to the whole matter" Farben was "naturally prepared" to contribute to the Adolf Hitler fund, which Gustav Krupp von Bohlen had organized. In April 1933, Farben's plant leader at Leverkusen, the defendant Kuehne, exhorted all his employees to participate in the May Day Rally, stating that "the main issue is that on this day of all, Germany should stand behind its government." In May still in 1933, a circular was issued to all Farben plants stating that the management would "welcome suitable representation of National Socialist aims within the National Socialist factory cell organization."
In June, a Farben committee determined "that it should be a matter of course, when engaging new people, to give preference to members of semi-military organizations", with obvious reference to the SS, SA, and other Nazi uniformed gangs. In July, 1933, Carl Bosch was appointed byHitler to a small and select economic council of government officials and prominent industrialists. Later that same month, the defendant Schmitz became chairman of one of Hitler's pet projects, called the "House for German Art", and, in soliciting funds for its construction he explained that:
The Reich Chancellor r will be present at the laying of the foundation stone and will proclain the cultural construction program in a manifest.
For the construction of the building, six million Reichsmarks have to be raised.
This task will not be easy. It may, however, be easier owing to the fact that it is the execution of a personal favorite idea of the Reichschancellor' s. The "House of German Art" is, therefore, planned as a gift of the German people to the Reichschancellor.
Farben's viewpoint abroad paralleled its outlook at home. Hitler's brutal dictatorship, and in particular the anti-Semitic outrages of the Third Reich, caused public opinion to react violently in other countries especially in the United States, Spontaneous bycotts of German goods injured German trade. Some of Farben's foreign agents endeavored to persuade the Vorstand to use its influence to soften the anti-Jewish policies, in the interests of Farben's export trade. But Farben was playing for bigger stales, and its reaction to the American boycott was the launching of a vigorous and insidious propaganda campaign which would have done credit to Goebbels himself. They retained a well-known public relations expert, Ivy Lee, to devise methods for countering the boycott and organizing pro-German propaganda. Farben's pharmaceutical Sales Combine, headed by the defendant Mann, had extensive connections in the United States, and at the end of 1933 it distributed a circular letter to its American representatives, which contained the following:
.....We are particularly desirous of describing to you in detail the actual conditions as they prevail under the new National Socialist Government in Germany; we wish to express the hope that this report will supply you with important data, enabling you to continue to assist us in our struggle for the German conception of law.
We ask you expressly, in connection with your collaborations and your personnel, to make use of these datas in a manner which appears appropriate to you, to the end that all co-workers in our pharmaceutical business become familiar with these general, economic, and political conceptions.
************** Within Germany, the Reichstag fire gave the signal for the fight against Communists and Marxists, who, in armed revolt were intent upon bringing Germany again to the brink of the abyss.
The Government stepped in and cleaned the country with an iron hand.
Peace and quiet was established.....
************** Achievement, not connection and party membership, was the means of securing office; order and honesty again became the guiding principles in German public life."
In January 1934, Hitler signed a mutual non-aggression pact with Poland. Later that year, Mjalmar Schacht submitted a report to Hitler which began with these words:
With the foundation of the Reich Defense Council and of its permanent committee, the Reich Ministry of Economics has been charged with the job of economic preparation for war.
The tremendous importance of this task really ought not to require any further explanation.
The terrible con sequences of the lack ox any economic war preparations in the World far are still vividly remembered.
Schacht went on to list a number of "urgent difficulties" and to explain what steps had been taken to overcome them. He explained that the plants which manufactured highly concentrated nitric acid, a prerequisite for the production of ammunition, were concentrated all along the Rhine near the western border of Germany. He thought it imperative to set up another large plant in the safer zone of central Germany. The construction of such a plant had been commenced at Doeberitz, and was to fe finished by next spring. The Doeberitz plant was a secret plant, financed by the Reich, but it was built by Farben and operated by Farben.
Schacht expressed similar worries with respect to ferrous alloys necessary for the production of high grade steel. Again, Farben had been only too obliging; part of its facilities for the production of ferrous wolfram, which Schacht described as being "exclusively located in the danger zone" near Aachen, were transferred to central Germany, Schacht then discussed the light metals situation.
This problem Court No. I, Case No. VI.
was met in part by Farben's construction of a large plant in eentral Germany for the manufacture of magnesium and alluminum. It was built by Farben in close collaboration with the German Air Force, which carefully examined the site from the standpoint of security against air raids, and also absorbed the entire production.
Schacht was also concernin in the year 1934 about the lack of sufficient stocks of essential chemicals and critical war materials:
In view of the uncertain duration of a war, these stocks have to be saved most carefully right from the beginning.
.Pyrites are the basic raw material of sulphuric acid, which is an indispensable chem ical intermediate product.
In Germany, it can only be produced in the danger zone.
The I.G. Farben industrie A.G. has been asked to complete the stock pile of an additional amount of pyrites during this winter.
Furthermore, the conversion of a large plant of this concern to the production of sulphuric acid from gypsum is going to bring considerable relief in this respect.
In 1934, Farben participated in this stock-piling program. Not only were pyrites stocked at the Wehrmacht's request, but also huge amounts of stabilizers for explosives, and other chemicals. At one plant, the entire output of magnesium was stored in incendiary bomb tubes which were packed in ordinary boxes and labeled "textile cases" for the purposes of camouflage.
Schacht was also worried about stocks of motor fuels, and wanted to build and full large underground storage tanks which would be immune from air raids. But in this field Farben was chiefly interested in synthetic production which would make Germany independent, once and for all, of imports.
In 1934 a government-sponsored corporation known ah Brabag (the letters tood for Brown Coal and Benzin A.G.) was established to derive synthetic gasoline from brown coal by means of the Farben Hydrogenation process. The technical head of Brabag was the defendant Buetefisch.
In 1934, Schacht was also making detailed plans for industrial mobilization, and established a series of "economic groups" to make plans in conjunction with the German army. Above these groups was the Reichsgruppe Industrie (Reich Group Industry), in which the defendants Schmitz, von Schnitzler, and Jaehne were very active. Farben was also well represented in the underlying committees for particular industries, and in the Economic Group Chemical Industry, the defendants von Schnitzler, Ter Meer, Wurster, Oster, and Ambros all played important parts.
Plans for the protection of Farben Plants against arr raids continued to be made, and were tried out in training, with the utmost energy and seriousness. All Farben plants engaged in maneuvers which were called "war games." On the map of a particular plant, an umpire would mark various points where bombs of a certain weight were assumed to have fallen. The works management devised plans for the speedy repair of the damage, and made estimates as to the length of time that various parts of the plant would be out of operation. For greater protection, for example at the Leuna plant, production was organized in independent units, so that it could continue despite bomb damage to individual units. High ranking officers of the Wehrmacht attended these games and consulted with the Farben officials. These precautions, it might be added, paid good dividends during the recent war, at the conclusion of which only 13% of Farben's productive capacity had been eliminated by bombing.
Farben's devotion to the Nazi party and the Third Reich continued to be ironclad. The Farben directors at Leverkusen distributed Hitler's speeches and other propaganda to thousands of foreign distributors. They withdrew their advertising from foreign newspapers that published articles critical of the Nazis. Farben agencies in Civile and Argentina supported financially and otherwise, the establishment of local chapters of the Nazi party and the dissemination of propaganda through German chambers of commerce.
In 1935, the Nazi pace quickened, and the Third Reich took the first open steps in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. In March, Goering publicly announced that Germany was building a military air force. Later that month, compulsory military service was instituted and the German army was established with a peacetime strength of 500,000 men. In May, on the same day that hitler recounced the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty, paying lip service to the territorial limitations of that treaty and to the Locarno pacts, the Secret Reich Defense Law was passed, defining the powers and duties of the Reichschancellor and the other Ministers in case Germany should become involved in war. As the Internationsl Military Tribunal found "It is clear from this law that by May of 1935, Hitler and his government had arrived at the stage in the carrying out of their policies when it was necessary for them to have in existence the requisite machinery for the administration and government of Germany in the event of their policy leading to war." Intransigence abroad was accompanied cy a tightening of the vise of dictatorship at home. September 1935 was the month of the infamous Nurnberg laws.
Farben's concentration on armament matters was correspondingly intensified. The activities of the defendants their purchases, sales, production, expansion, and research fell so exclusively in the military domain that the Vorstand established in Berlin a Farben military liaison agency, the Vermittlundsstelle W. In September, the defendant Krauch sent a confindetial letter to all Plant Directors explaining this new agency:
The Central Committee of the Vorstand has determined to create an Agency (W) in our place of business in Berlin NW 7, Unter den Linden 78, in order to provide systematic cooperation within the I.G. in the current development of military economy, and, particularly to assure central treatment of all questions of military economy, military policy and military technique.
.....
From now on, all correspondence - even spout matters still in the balance - with the Reich Ministry of War ....., the Navy Office.
.., the Reich Air Ministry..., and, for military economic questions, with the Reich Ministry for Economy also, is to be addressed, exclus ively to the Vermittlungstelle.
....
The liaison agency is ready to give any informa tion about and make arrangements in connection with military economic and military policy questions, which are part of its sphere of work.
...
With the establishment of the Vermittlungsstelle W, Farben synchronized all its activities with the military plans of the German High Command. The extent to which the defendants committed their entire organization to military purposes is set forth in a report prepared by the defendant Krauch in December 1935. The report states, in part:
With the creation of the army, German industry was given the task of bringing its plants and its organ ization in line with building up the defenses of the country, which meant to reorganize its existing plants and offices from the point of view of arma ment .The newly founded Vermittlungsstelle W has as its task the simplifying and coordinating of these matters inside the I.G. The aim of this work is the building up of a tight organization for arma ment in the I.G....In case of war, I.G. will be treated by the author ities concerned with armament questions as one big plant which in its task for armament, as far as it is possible to do so from the technical point of view, will regulate itself without any organiza tional influence from outside.
....
To the field of the work of Vermittlungsstelle W belongs, besides the organizational set-up and long range planning, continuous collaboration with regard to armament and technical questions between the authorities of the Reich and the plants of the I.G.The continual and detailed joint planning between Farben and the Wehrmacht which precipitated the establishment of Vermittlungsstelle are exemplified in the "strictly confidential" minutes of a conference held at Farben plant in 1935 with officials of the Army Ordnance office the the Reich Air Ministry.
The army was interested in the use of methanol for automobile motors, and the Luftwaffe in the synthetic production of Iso-octane. The use of synthetic lubricating oil for airplane engines was then discussed in the light of the high cost of its production. The conferees noted:
Rejection of these processes due to the fact that they are uneconomical cannot be a primary consider ation for the purpose of the Reich Air Ministry, if production of the extremely high quality materials for a limited sphere of utilization can be achieved with their help.