Fuer Ihre freundlichen Bemuehungen sagen wir Ihnen unseren verbindlichsten Dank und empfehlen uns Ihnen in Erwartung Ihrer gefaelligen Rueckaeusserung. Freundschaftlichst, CIA. TECNICA Y MERCANTIL, S. A., STEEL UNION SHEET PILING, INC., New York City: CIA. TECNICA Y MERCANTIL, S. A., Mexico, D. F., September 8, 1939. In reference to yesterday's letter we should like to ask you again today to kindly send the enclosed letters to Germany by the quickest and the safest way you know of. EXHIBIT No. 490 [Letter from H. Hack, Steel Union-Sheet Piling, Inc., New York, to Cia. Tecnica y Mercantil S. A., Mexico, D. F., dated September 12, 1939] CIA TECNICA Y MERCANTIL, S. A., Merico, D. F. (Attention: Mr. A. Heuer.) SEPTEMBER 12, 1939. GENTLEMEN: We wish to acknowledge receipt of your letters of September 7 and 8 enclosing letters to the Stahlunion-Export, G. m. b. H., Duesseldorf. We have forwarded these letters in what we felt is the safest way for them to reach their destination; however, in view of present conditions in Europe, we cannot assume any guaranty that they actually will reach their addressee, although we trust that this will be the case. SEHR GEEHRTER HERR ZEISS: Ich habe Ihnen noch fuer Ihren freundlichen Brief vom 28. Oktober ds. Js. zu danken und bitte die Verspaetung freundlichst zu entschuldigen. Ihre Ausfuehrungen habe ich bestens vorgemerkt und habe sie gern zur Kenntnis genommen, dass die frage der Stahlunion-Wechsel sich inzwischen aufgeklaert hat. Ausserdem habe ich die mir anhand gegebenen Kopien Ihrer Rundschreiben No. 1 und 2 vom 15, und 28. 10. bestens bemerkt. Ich hoffe, dass in dieser Beziehung nun in Aubetracht der lage alles klar geht und will nur hoffen, dass der europoeische Krieg doch noch ehestens beigelegt wird. Um die Verbindung der Stahlunion-Vertreter in meinem Arbeitsgebiet mit der kundschaft fuer die Dauer des Krieges nicht abreissen zu lassen und so wertvollen Boden zu verlieren, habe ich mich einerseits mit meinem Stammhaus, der Stahlunion-Export G. m. b H., Duesseldorf, und audererseits mit unserer USA-Vertretung, der Steel Union-Sheet Piling, Inc., 21 West Street, New York City, entsprechend in Verbindung gesetztn und ich darf annehmen, dass Sie in der Zwischenzeit von New York bereits gehoert haben. Ich moechte Sie daher bitten, mid darueber gelegentlich zu unterrichten. Anderarseits liegh mir von der Stahlunion das prinzipielle Einverstaendnis vor, dass sich unsere Vertretungen in meinem Arbeitsgebiet, wie oben angedeutet, mit der Steel Union Sheet Piling, New York, in erbindung setzen. Ich stelle Ihnen daher anheim, diesen Schritt zu tun, wobei zu bemerken ist, dass sich diese Zusammenarbeit zwischen Ihnen und der Steel Union Sheet Piling, Inc., lediglich fuer die Dauer des Krieges verstehen kann, und das aus dieser Ge schaeftsbeziehung fuer die Steel Union, New York, keinerlei itsiko entstehen darf. Die Steel Union wird daher fuer Sie lediglich Angebote bezw. Materialien besorgen, welche Sie oder Ibre Kundschaft kaufen wollen. Ich darf annehmen, dass ich in Ihrem Interesse gehandelt habe, und gruesse Sie. freundschaftlichst, D.: St. E.-Duesseldorf. D.: Steel Union, New York. R. SCHAUR. RS/SP. EXHIBIT No. 491 [Translation and letter, Rudolf Schaur, traveling representative of Stahlunion-Export G. m. b. H., Düsseldorf, to Anton Zeiss, Habana, Cuba, dated November 18, 1939] [Translation] RUDOLF SCHAUR STAHLUNION-EXPORT G.M.B.H. ROHREN-VERBAND G.M.B.H. Düsseldorf Herrn ANTON ZEISS, Habana, Cuba. VERY HONORED HERR ZEISS: I have received your friendly letter of October 28. I have taken note of your explanations that the matter of Stahl Union-Export has been cleared up. I find that I have taken note of your circulars 1, 2, 15, 28, and 10. I hope that in this respect the condition has all been cleared up and everything will go along smoothly and that the European war will end quite soon. In order not to lose contact with Stahl Union representatives in my field of work and lose the customers for the duration of the war and to lose valuable ground on the one hand I have contacted the parent firm Stahl Union-Export G. m. b. H., Dusseldorf, and on the other hand their United States representatives, Steel Union-Sheet Piling, Inc., 21 West Street, New York City, and I take it for granted that you have heard from New York in the meantime. I would like to ask you to let me know about this at your convenience. On the other hand, I have the agreement of the Stahl Union that our representatives in my field, as I have mentioned above, will contact Steel UnionSheet Piling, Inc., in New York. I will entrust you to make this step at which time I must make the observation that this cooperation between you and Steel Union-Sheet Piling, Inc., is definitely only for the duration of the war and that out of this business relations no risk must be allowed to develop for the Steel Union in New York. Therefore the Steel Union will only supply you with material which you and your customers wish to buy. I take it for granted that I have acted in your interest and send you my greetings. EXHIBIT No. 492 [Air mail letter from Edward Barreau, president, Steel Union-Sheet Piling, Inc., New York, N. Y., to Stahlunion, Ltda., São Paulo, Brazil, dated December 1, 1939] By air mail. Copy by regular mail. Ref. material for your warehouse. STAHLUNION, Ltda., Sao Paulo, Brazil. DECEMBER 1, 1939. GENTLEMEN: In reply to your letter No. 5011 of November 3, it was by no means our intention to question your word when we described your direct purchases from the American representatives down there as fantastic. Your statement at that time sounded quite unusual to us in view of the situation that prevailed in the American steel industry when we wrote you. Conditions in the steel industry here seem to be loosening up somewhat more than we had expected. While formerly the mills were withholding quotations ex84949-44-pt. 16-18 cept for old the difficulties in obtaining steel products are now considerably less than they used to be. For well-fitting specifications there is not much difficulty in getting tonnage, but there is little interest in detailed specifications; for example, where 1 or 2 tons are required of each size for a tonnage of about, let us say, 50 tons. Our business with you in steel products has no been very successful so far, and we sincerely trust that we shall be able to get started with you very soon, which, with mutual cooperation and good will, ought not to be impossible. Your message of good will in the second to the last paragraph of your letter is very much appreciated indeed, and you may rest assured that we shall not fail to support your endeavors as far as this is possible under the prevailing circumstances. Regarding your request that we correspond with you in German, we are up against the same problem as you are. As you know, this office was organized solely for the purpose of handling the American market, and except for the management the entire staff consists of native Americans. For this reason we hope you will realize that it is very difficult to comply with your wishes relative to German correspondence without overburdening our staff, which is taxed to capacity with work already. However, we shall do our best to accommodate you whenever possible. We noted that you mailed a copy of your letter to the Stahlexport in Duesseldorf. Your letter contains certain references about our mutual relationship. which under the present political conditions should not be discussed with anyone abroad for certain obvious reasons. Neither you nor we know whether someone may not be opening the mail while it is in transit to Europe who is not entitled to do so. We are making this statement to you without the slightest idea of withholding information from Duesseldorf, but merely as a precautionary measure to safeguard our business. You are aware of the fact that you are on the blacklist and if anyone unqualified should get hold of your letter, which evidences a direct relationship between you and us, the next thing that would happen would be that we would also be on the blacklist. This being the case, we trust that you will understand when we caution you to use the utmost care in regard to your correspondence with Germany. Assuring you of our continued cooperation, we are STEEL UNION-SHEET PILING, INC., President. CC-Stahlunion, Ltda., Rio de Janeiro, Argentine, by air mail, by regular mail. EXHIBIT No. 493 [Letter from E. Barreau, president, Steel Union-Sheet Piling, Inc., New York, to Material Ferroviario e Construccoes, Sao Paulo, Brazil, dated March 12, 1940 Re: Shipments. MATERIAL FERROVIARIO E CONSTRUCCOES, LUIZ HOREYSECK, Sao Paulo, Brazil. MARCH 12, 1940. GENTLEMEN: In your letter of February 24 you expressed the opinion that the Allied Powers have recently assumed the practice of seizing and censoring air mail direct from the United States to South America. Upon investigation of this matter with the Government in Washington, the Assistant Postmaster General of the Post Office Department in Washington writes us, as follows: "With reference to your letter addressed to the Postmaster General March 6, I have to state that mails originating in the United States for the LatinAmerican countries are not being censored. "The British authorities proposed a few weeks ago to censor the mails in transit to Port of Spain, but that proposition was abandoned. Also, it appears that a short time ago a small package of letters addressed to Colombia was missent to the post office at Kingston, Jamaica, which office censored the letters contained in that package while in its custody. The through air mails for South America are not taken from the plane at Kingston." which we believe will sufficiently enlighten you on the subject and will give you some sort of reassurance that your direct mails to the United States are not subjected to censorship, at least not for the time being. As for the rest of your letter we wish to advise that none of our shipments to any destination is made in our name, but always in the name of some neutral party. Whether we have the name of the manufacturers appear as shippers, or whether we select for this purpose other companies than the manufacturers, must be left entirely to our discretion. As far as insurance is concerned, we prefer that you cover marine insurance, war risk, capture, seizure, etc., at your end, just the same as other buyers do it; for instance, Rio, Buenos Aires, and Chile. So far it was impossible to cover capture and seizure in the insurance market here. Some change in this respect may be expected in the near future, but for the moment insurance against capture and seizure is out of the question as far as we are concerned. We know, however, that capture and seizure can be insured in South America and as far as we are informed by the Assicurazioni General di Trieste. The assumption, therefore, that you must take this risk yourselves and that you must expose yourselves to a total loss in case of seizure is somewhat beyond our comprehension. We want to place ourselves on record herewith that as a general rule and unless something different is agreed upon between you and us on individual transactions, we expect that you will cover capture and seizure yourselves on each and every shipment that we may make to you in the future. If, as your letter seems to infer, you have so far taken chances by not protecting yourselves against capture and seizure through proper insurance, it seems to us that you are on a gambling expedition and that you apparently underrate the dangers of the blacklist. In order to be perfectly clear and not to let any misunderstanding come up between you and us, we expect that you will cover yourselves against capture and seizure on each and every one of our shipments to you unless as we said above we should agree to something different in the case of individual transactions. In the event that you should fail to heed this advice, we shall look to you for full indemnity in the event that one of our shipments to you should be seized. We are sending a copy of this letter to the office in Rio de Janeiro for the`r guidance. We should appreciate receiving your confirmation of this letter. [Letter from E. Barreau, president, Steel Union-Sheet Piling, Inc., New York, to Doits. Seiko Kabushiki Kaisha (German Steel Works), Tokyo, Japan, dated October 10, 1939 (via air mail, copy by regular mail)] Via air mail. Copy via regular mail. OCTOBER 10, 1939. DOITSU SEIKO KABUSHIKI KAISHA, Tokyo, Japan. GENTLEMEN: Like all other foreign branches, it is assumed by this company that you are also cut off from supplies from Germany, and we are now engaged upon servicing the various foreign branches with material from the United States. This does not only embrace iron and steel products, but also fuel as, for instance, coal and coke. The thought has occurred to us whether we could not also be of service to your company, in which case we suggest that you submit us your bona fide inquiries, either by air mail or by cable. If you should fall in line with our suggestion, it is of course understood that you secure the approval of your headquarters in Düsseldorf. Assuring you of our earnest desire to cooperate fully with you during the critical period, we remain, Yours very truly, E. Barreau/hea. STEEL UNION-SHEET PILING, INC., EXHIBIT No. 496 [Letter from Edward Barreau, president, Steel Union-Sheet Piling, Inc., to Doitsu Seiko K. K., Tokyo, Japan, dated January 16, 1940] GENTLEMEN: Your letter of December 1 on the above subject has been received, and we wish to thank you for your comprehensive explanations on the subject. The fact that your company and subsidiaries are on the British blacklist was known to us, but we think that this should not throw any material difficulties into our future negotiations. It is very easy to get around that by using the names of your local friends as consignees, just as we do it with other branches, for instance, in South America, with whom we have developed a tremendous business. Nor would our company, as a matter of protection, appear as shippers. For that purpose we ourselves are using our forwarding agents who are strictly American concerns. During the first 2 months of the war the American steel industry was very heavily engaged, so much so that practically all the mills were sold out and refused to book any additional business. This condition was primarily due to a heavy buying wave by the domestic consumers, mostly on speculation, because everyone expected shortages of material due to the war. These expectations have not materialized, and there are no longer difficulties in obtaining material, and even the prices which were very strong during the first part of the war have in the meantime eased off considerably. We are able to supply you with all the materials enumerated in the third paragraph of your letter at competitive prices, and the supplies which we would have to offer, you may rest assured, would come from very responsible manufacturers, which should eliminate any doubt from your mind in regard to questions of quality and finish. The fact that the large Japanese firms like Mitsubishi, Mitsui, etc., are represented in this country should have little bearing on our mutual business. These firms are in no better fix, as far as relations with the American steel mills are concerned, than we are. In fact, we have sold substantial quantities of steel to various important South American markets where the American industry maintain their own offices, and the results of our dealings in these countries, in spite of direct representation of the steel mills there, have been beyond any expectation. Let us start our dealings on the simple principle that there is nothing in the world that other people do that we cannot do also. A lot can be accomplished by mutual cooperation. Offhand we would say that the cancelation of the American-Japanese trade treaty cannot influence our business very much. Before the war started we were operating our business exclusively with the United States, and in spite of a considerable number of set-backs our dealings were always successful, even though the political relations between the United States and Germany during the past years have been none too pleasant. We can make our shipments to you either f. a. s. North American ports or c. i. f. Japanese ports; just as you want it. So far we know of no difficulties in obtaining freight space to the Far East. The American producers, almost without exception, demand letters of credit from the exporters; that is to say, we as exporters have to pay for merchandise sight against railroad order bill of lading, and our usual practice is to demand from our overseas friends a letter of credit in New York, against which we can draw sight with ocean documents, etc., attached. So far we have had no difficulties in this respect, and we believe that you also will be able to go along with us on these lines. If we ask for letters of credit from our buyers, like yourselves and other branches of the concern, this is not done so much as a matter of security for ourselves, nor should it be considered as a reflection upon your credit standing. The reason why we have to ask for letters of credit is that, in the first place, our suppliers demand it, and we have to pay for the material before it leaves the country, and, secondly, the capitalization of our company is not sufficient to finance such large sums as are involved. |