ernment was working in close collaboration with the German Government. In Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia the German troops had been greeted as liberators, and they fought on together with them. From the Ukraine one also heard of a great sympathy on the part of the population in favor of the war against Soviet Russia. May I remind you of the name of General Vlassov. A school friend of mine, who came home on leave from the eastern front and who was serving with a cavalry regiment, told me that he was now in charge of a brigade of Cossacks who had reported voluntarily to fight against the Soviet Russians. The second reason was that I was told especially by Dr. Kuettner and Walter Tengelmann that the Russians before their retreat had to a large extent destroyed the industrial plants or dismantled them, so that in the industrial areas there was in actual fact a considerable amount of unemployment. The third reason was that Sauckel and Ley again and again announced that these people were coming to Germany voluntarily in order to get to know German conditions and in order to work in Germany, and one also read in the publications, for instance, in the social-political information bulletins of the Reich Association Coal [RVK], that provision had been made. for the families of these workers in cases where the families remained behind. Roughly, I could say that the foreign workers got leave in Germany. They could go out when they wanted. You saw them all over the place, on the street, and everywhere they were active at work; every builder, every gardener had foreign workers. A few were employed as barbers, you were quite often attended by a foreign assistant, the sleeping car attendants, the waiters in the restaurants and hotels, even domestic servants in private households were foreign workers; and in the case of all these people one did not have the impression that they considered themselves slaves. I talked to the foreign workers occasionally who were employed in my plant, and not one of them ever told me that he had been under any duress.

CROSS-EXAMINATION

*

MR. ERVIN: Now, in connection with your testimony on LinkeHofmann, you mention several times that Dr. Putze had some connection with the Speer organization. What was that connection?

DEFENDANT WEISS: Dr. Putze had quite a reputation in the Speer Ministry. On the one hand he was an Armament Chief

* Putze, member of the Vorstand of Flick's Linke-Hofmann firm, signed Document NI-35686, Prosecution Exhibit 173, reproduced in B above, one of four related documents involving the Linke-Hofmann expansion discussed during the direct examination of defendant Weiss.

[Ruestungsobmann] for Lower Silesia which was one of the many local positions established by the Armament Ministry. What were the tasks of the Ruestungsobmann I could not explain to you now, because the organization of the Speer Ministry was rather complicated; but as far as I know his duty was to supervise in some manner the armament plants of the whole district and perhaps to support their claims towards the Speer Ministry and to represent them, but I don't know any details about that. Furthermore, Dr. Putze had a certain part in the Main Committee Rail Vehicles. He had introduced himself very well with Degenkolb by the fact that he had taken a very decisive influence on the construction of the so-called lightweight war freight car which I have already mentioned here once. The construction for this freight car largely came from the Breslau plant, that is from Dr. Putze, and Degenkolb at the time was very happy to have this active support, and Putze in the subcommittees of the Main Committee had a certain part to play; and when later Degenkolb also became chairman of the so-called Special Committee A-4, that was the committee dealing with the production of the V-2 weapons, well then, he also had Mr. Putze join this committee.

Q. Were there other officials, employees, or engineers of BuschBautzen or Linke-Hofmann who served similarly on these committees and subcommittees?

A. I wouldn't know that. Dr. Reichert of Bautzen was very reserved in this respect, and he was only interested in his own plant; and toward the outside and in things of a general economic nature, he did not play a large part. Of course, I deem it possible that Dr. Putze would use one or the other of his coworkers for these tasks, but I couldn't give you any details.

Q. Is this subcommittee of which Dr. Putze was a member the committee which laid down the plan for the use of concentration camp workers in railroad car building?

A. No. I don't think that this special committee had anything to do with this, or the subcommittee. At the time I only heard that the Main Committee Rail Vehicles had dealt with a general allotment. Today I know a little more with respect to that question because now here I have got some information on how the whole matter developed. There I heard that the suggestion had been made by the Reich Railways at the time. May I repeat that these subcommittees and so on, and Putze's work in these subcommittees, dealt only with technical matters, matters of constructive nature, that is, matters of the designing work, and also questions of process of production and methods, etc.

955487-52-56

VIII. SPOLIATION-COUNT TWO-THE ROMBACH CASE

A. Introduction

All the defendants except Terberger were charged under count two of the indictment (sec. I, above) with war crimes and crimes against humanity by criminal participation in plunder of public and private property, spoliation, and other offenses against property in countries and territories under Germany's belligerent occupation after 1 September 1939. The specifications of the charges involved the Rombach enterprises in Lorraine, France; the "Vairogs" plant in Riga, Latvia; and other properties in both occupied western Europe and occupied eastern Europe. The Tribunal, in its judgment (sec. XI), acquitted all the defendants under count two except Flick, and Flick was convicted only upon the charges with respect to the Rombach plant in Lorraine.

This section contains selections from the evidence offered principally in connection with the charges concerning the Rombach plant. This evidence is arranged as follows: extracts from the deposition and testimony of prosecution witness Laurent (sec. B); contemporaneous documents (sec. C); and extracts from the testimony of defendants Flick and Burkart (sec. C and D, respectively).

Extensive evidence concerning charges of spoliation in various parts of occupied Europe is reproduced in later volumes of this series devoted to other trials; the Farben case (vol. VIII, sec. VIII); the Krupp case (vol. IX, sec. VII); and the Ministries. case (vol. XIII, sec. X).

B. Deposition and Testimony of Prosecution Witness Laurent

PARTIAL TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NI-5396

PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 512

DEPOSITION OF JACQUES LAURENT, DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE "SOCIÉTÉ LORRAINE DES ACIÉRIES DE ROMBAS", 21 DECEMBER 1946 *

Deposition [Procès Verbal]

In the year one thousand, nine hundred and forty-six on 21 December.

We, Charles Gerthoffer, Deputy of the Public Prosecutor at the Tribunal de la Seine [Tribunal, Department Seine] detailed to the International Military Tribunal for War Crimes, assisted by Mr. Laurent Clement, age 25, on official duty with the above Tribunal, who has sworn to carry out faithfully the duties of court recorder with which we have entrusted him, being on official duty in Paris;

In view of the investigations which are taking place for the purpose of discovering the actions of the directors and managers of the Flick firm;

Summoned one Jacques Laurent, age 56, administrator and Director General of the "Société Lorraine des Aciéries de Rombas," residing in Paris, 23 Rue D'Aumale, to appear before the Tribunal, who, having sworn to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, deposes as follows:

By the Treaty of Frankfurt, victorious Germany had cut off from France, Alsace and a part of Lorraine, but had left her the regions of Longwy, Briey, and Nancy, whose riches in iron ore were not yet known.

After 1871, with the development of their heavy industry, the Germans suffered inconvenience from the insufficient reserves of iron ore in that part of the iron fields which they had allocated to themselves (Department of the Moselle). It is public knowledge that one of the war aims of Germany in 1914 was the annexation of the mining district of Briey. The defeat of 1918 put an end to these ambitious aims, and instead deprived Germany of any share at all in the ores of Lorraine.

In June 1940, thinking herself victorious, once and for all, Germany immediately took up her plans again; she considered the Department of the Moselle (together with the two departments of Alsace) as simply reincorporated into the Reich. It is to be

*Extracts from Laurent's testimony concerning this deposition and related matters are reproduced immediately below.

noted that the steel production of this department represents approximately one-third of the total steel production of France.

The Department of the Moselle with the adjacent German territories formed a "Gau" under the direction of Gauleiter Joseph Buerckel in Saarbruecken, who urged on the assimilation with all his might.

The big industrial companies were dispossessed of all their movable and immovable property situated in the Moselle, without receiving any compensation. Their personnel suffered numerous forms of ill-treatment, e.g., expulsion, arrest, imprisonment, seizure and sale of their movable property, etc.

The Société Lorraine des Aciéries de Rombas" was organized on 26 November 1919, at the liquidation of German property, to act as purchaser of the mines and factories of the German company Rombacher Huettenwerke [Rombach Steel Works]. The property of the latter, situated in the Department of the Moselle and liberated by the Allied victory in November 1918, had been sequestrated by the French Government in January 1919.

By virtue of Articles 74 and 243 of the Treaty of Versailles, the proceeds of the liquidation of German property by the French Government were credited to Germany at the Office of Private Property and Interests. The German citizens who were dispossessed by this measure of liquidation were to receive an indemnity directly from their government.

The capital of the new French company (150 million Francs) was subscribed almost entirely by the French metallurgical companies which had suffered losses as a result of the war 1914-18: Société Aciéries de la Marine, & d'Homécourt, Aciéries de Micheville, blast furnaces of Pont-à-Mousson, etc.

The new company took possession of the plants on 1 January 1920 and exploited them until June 1940.

The company exploited the mines of Rombach, Sainte-Marie and Rosselange whose areas cover 1,764, 645, and 252 hectares, respectively, and contain reserves of approximately 150 million tons of ore. It exploited the Rombach Steel Works comprising 8 blast furnaces with a daily production from 220 tons to 380 tons of cast iron. It exploited one Thomas oven, one open hearth oven, one electrical steel oven, and ten rolling mills. It also exploited a steel work at Mezières-les-Metz containing four blast furnaces. The total production of the plant was approximately 1 million tons of steel per year, that is to say, approximately 8 percent of the total French steel production. It employed normally from six to seven thousand workers and some six hundred [office] employees.

Furthermore, the company had participations in several enterprises both in France and in other countries; it was thus enabled