GEARED FOR WAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26541, 16 August 1947, Page 7

GEARED FOR WAR

GERMAN FARBEN COMBINE INVALUABLE AID TO HITLER NUREMBURG, Aug. 1.4 The*l. G. Farben combine was so well organised for war that only a telegram was needed from the military authorities after Germany invaded Poland to put Farben in high gear, said the prosecutor, Brigadier-general Telford Taylor, when the Americans formally arraigned for.war crimes 24 German industrialists who operated I. G. Farben. “Without Farben Germany would have been powerless to start the war, let alone fight one as long as she did,” said Brigadier Taylor. “Farben gave Hitler support from the start in exchange for a free industrial reign.” Brigadier Taylor added that Farben was the industrial heart of the Nazi effort. He charged the Farben directorate with helping to plan the war, synchronising its activities with the military High Command, piling up stocks of war materials during peace years, plundering subjugated countries. and systematically killing off slave labourers with overwork or subjecting them to medical experiments. The prosecutor said the combine consisted of 40 German firms. It owned its own railways, mines, and power plants. Farben also had 500 foreign industrial firms, spreading a virtual blanket over Eur/ope, and stretching its tentacles everywhere else.