dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Siemers, the Tribunal would like to know exactly what your letter means, which they received from you, relating to the following documents which the letter says have been withdrawn. What I want to know is, does it mean that they are not to be translated? Let me read you the numbers: 18, 19, 48, 53, 76, 80, 81, 82, 86, and 101. Now, does your letter mean that those documents are not to be translated?
DR. SIEMERS: No, Your Lordship; that means that the British Delegation informed me yesterday morning that the objections against those documents on the part of the British Delegation are withdrawn.
THE PRESIDENT: I see.
DR. SIEMERS: I had written the letter on 30 April, in the afternoon, after I had had a conversation with Sir David. The following morning I was informed...
THE PRESIDENT: We won't bother with that. You say that their objections no longer exist. If they agree to that, well and good.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, apparently there seems to have been some misunderstanding about three of them, Numbers 80, 101, and 76. The others were not objected to.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, on 76 there seemed to be some misunderstanding between Dr. Siemers and myself. I understood that he did not want to persist in the legal report on the Altmark incident, and I think Dr. Siemers thought that I wasn't persisting. However, I thought Dr. Siemers was withdrawing that.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Well, then, are you still objecting to that?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am still objecting to it if it is not withdrawn, My Lord. However, the other ones in the list Your Lordship mentioned-that is Numbers 18, 19, 48, 53, 81, 82, and 86-there is no objection to.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
DR. SIEMERS: Concerning Document 76, I agree with Sir David. Number 76 can be struck out, as far as I am concerned.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. That's all I wanted to know.
DR. SIEMERS: Number 80 about which I have spoken in detail with the British Delegation...
THE PRESIDENT: You need not tell me about it.
DR. SIEMERS: I assumed there would be no objection. I would like to ask that it be admitted in any case.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that is right. In order that the Translation Division should get on as soon as possible, the Tribunal has decided upon these documents and the only questions upon which the Tribunal has decided is that they shall be translated. The question of their admissibility will be decided after they have been translated, and I will take them in the categories of objection which are set out in Sir David's memorandum. In Category A, the first category, Number 66 will be allowed. Number 76 as Dr. Siemers has now said, goes out. Numbers 101 to 106 will be allowed, the rest are disallowed in A. In B the following documents will be allowed: Numbers 39, 63, 64, 99, and 100. And, of course, Numbers 102 to 107, which are allowed under A. The rest will not be allowed. Category C: The following will be allowed: Numbers 38, 50, 55, and 58. The remainder are not allowed. Category D: The following will be allowed: Numbers 29, 56, 57, 60, and 62. Category E: The following will be allowed: Numbers 31, 32, 36, 37, 39, 41, and of course 99 and 101 which have already been allowed. In the last category, Category F. the Tribunal has very great doubts as to the relevance of any of the documents in that category, but it will have them all translated with the exception of Document 73.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I wonder whether the Tribunal would allow me to mention the document numbers of the additional extracts from Der Sturmer which were put in crossexamination of Streicher. I had the numbers ready to present at a convenient time.
THE PRESIDENT: The exhibit numbers?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean read them?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: With the permission of the Tribunal I have proposed to hand in that schedule, which is in effect a catalogue or index to the two bundles which the Tribunal had- Bundle A and Bundle B-and I proposed then putting this schedule in as an exhibit itself, which will become GB-450, (Document Number D-833), and if the Tribunal agrees, that would save reading any numbers out.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: There is another request I would make. The original of the newspaper, Israelitisches Wochenblatt , was put in, or has been put in. Those volumes I have borrowed from a library, and I was going to ask the Tribunal's permission to have the extracts photographed and to substitute with the Tribunal's Secretariat the photostats, and then take back the originals so that they might be returned.
THE PRESIDENT: There seems no objection to that.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am very much obliged.
THE PRESIDENT: You have no objection to that, Dr. Marx?
DR. MARX: No, Mr. President, I have no objection to that. I reserve the right to submit some counter documents if it should be necessary. But the presentation of these documents is in accordance with what Colonel Griffith-Jones stated in the course of the proceedings-if they are submitted...
THE PRESIDENT: You have a copy of this document here, this exhibit.
DR. MARX: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: I am asking you whether you had any objection to the original of the Jewish newspaper being returned...
DR. MARX: No.
THE PRESIDENT: . . . after it is photographed.
DR. MARX: No, I have no objection to that.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am very much obliged.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, Dr. Dix?
DR. DIX: Dr. Schacht, I believe you still had to supplement your answer to a question I put to you yesterday. I put to you the point that different memoranda, letters, et cetera from you to Hitler were full of National Socialist phraseology. I said you dealt with letters and memoranda from the date of the seizure of power until later when you went into opposition. The Prosecution, however, specifically in the oral presentation of the charges, as I remember it, referred to at least one letter which you addressed to Hitler before the seizure of power in November 1932, and there is in the files another letter of similar contents of August 1932. I think you should state your position with respect to these two letters, supplementing your answer to my question.
DR. SCHACHT: I explained to you yesterday already that up to the decisive election of July 1932, I had in no way intervened in the development of the National Socialist movement, but remained completely aloof from it. After that movement achieved its overpowering success in July 1932, of which I spoke yesterday, I foresaw very clearly the development which would now result. According to the principles of the democratic political concept there was only one possibility, namely, that the leader of that overwhelmingly large party would now have to form a new government. I rejected from the first the other theoretical possibility of a military government and a possibly resulting civil war, as being impossible and incompatible with my principles. Therefore, after I had recognized these facts I endeavored in everything to gain influence over Hitler and his movement, and the two letters which you have just mentioned were written in that spirit.
DR. DIX: What did you know about his plans against Czecho- What did you know about Hitler's plans against Austria?
SCHACHT: I never knew anything about plans against Austria. Nor did I know in detail the plans Hitler had for Austria. I only knew-like the majority of all Germans-that he was in favor of an Anschluss of Austria with Germany.
DR. DIX: What did you know about his plans against Czechoslovakia?
SCHACHT: I knew nothing of his plans against Czechoslovakia until about the time of the Munich Conference.
DR. DIX: Did you, after the Munich Conference, that is to say, after the peaceful, so far peaceful settlement of the Sudeten question, hear a remark of Hitler's about Munich which was Of importance in your later personal attitude toward Hitler? Will you tell the Tribunal the remark which you heard?
SCHACHT: May I say first that, according to my knowledge of conditions at that time, Hitler was conceded in Munich more than he had ever expected. According to my information-and I expressed this also in the conversation with Ambassador Bullitt at that time-it was Hitler's purpose to gain autonomy for the Germans in Czechoslovakia. In Munich the Allies presented him with the transfer of the Sudeten-German territories on a silver platter. I assumed, of course, that now Hitler's ambition would be more than satisfied and I can only say that I was surprised and shocked when a few days after Munich I saw Hitler. I had no further conversation with him at that time, but I met him with his entourage, mostly SS men, and from the conversation between him and the SS men I could only catch the remark: "That fellow has spoiled my entry into Prague." That is to say made it impossible. Apparently he was not satisfied with the great success which he had achieved in foreign politics, but I mentioned when I spoke about it yesterday the fact that I assumed from that remark that he lacked the glory and a glamorous staging.
DR. DIX: And what were your feelings in regard to your whole political attitude towards Hitler after Munich?
SCHACHT: In spite of the foreign political success I regretted very deeply, and so did my close friends, that by this intervention on the part of the Allied Powers, our attempt to remove the Hitler regime was ruined for a long time to come-we did not know at that time of course what would happen in the future-but, naturally, at that moment we had to resign ourselves to it.
DR. DIX: What did you know about Hitler's plans against Memel?
SCHACHT: I knew nothing at all and never heard anything about it. As far as I know, I learned of the annexation of Memel by Germany on my trip to India, which I had already started at that time.
DR. DIX: And since you were in India at that time, you, of course, heard nothing either about the negotiations, et cetera, which preceded the attack on Poland?
SCHACHT: I had no knowledge about that and therefore I also knew nothing of the May meeting of 1939 which has been discussed several times. In the beginning of March I left Berlin and then stayed for some time in Switzerland; at the end of March I set out for India via Genoa, and so I learned nothing at all about the Hacha affair, that is the establishment of the protectorate in Czechoslovakia, nor of Memel, nor of Poland, since I did not return from the trip to India until the beginning of August.
DR. DIX: The invasions of Belgium, Holland, Norway, and Denmark have been taken up here. Did you approve of these measures and actions?
SCHACHT: Under no circumstances.
DR. DIX: Were you ever able to express that disapproval anywhere and how?
SCHACHT: Before the invasion of Belgium I was visited on the order of the Chief of the General Staff, Halder, by the Quartermaster General, the then Colonel, later General Wagner who after the collapse committed suicide. He informed me of the intended invasion of Belgium. I was shocked and I replied at that time, "If you want to commit that insanity too, then you are beyond help."
THE PRESIDENT: What time?
SCHACHT: Before the march into Belgium. Exactly when it was I could not say. It may have been already in November 1939. It may have been in April 1940. I no longer know exactly when it was.
DR. DIX: Even though you did not approve of that action, Germany was after all engaged in a life and death struggle. Did not that cause you to put your active co-operation at her disposal, since you were still Minister without Portfolio, though you no longer held a special office?
SCHACHT: I did not do that.
DR. DIX: Did anyone ask you to do that?
SCHACHT: The visit, which I have just mentioned, of Quartermaster General Wagner, upon order of the Chief of General Staff Halder, was intended to persuade me to act in Germany's interest during the expected occupation of Belgium. I was to supervise and direct currency, finance, and banking matters in Belgium. I flatly refused that. Later I was approached again by the then Military Governor of Belgium, General Von Falkenhausen, for advice concerning the Belgian financial administration. I again refused to give advice and did not make any statements or participate in any way.
DR. DIX: When did you for the first time. . .
SCHACHT: I could perhaps relate another instance when I was approached. One day, shortly after America was drawn into the war, I received a request from the newspaper published by Goebbels, that, on account of my knowledge of American conditions, I should write an article for Das Reich, to assure the German people that the war potential of the United States should not be overestimated. I refused to write that article for the reason that precisely because I knew American conditions very well, my statement could only amount to the exact opposite. And so I refused in this instance also.
DR. DIX: When did you hear for the first time of the meeting which we call here simply the Hossbach meeting, or the meeting concerning the Hossbach protocol?
SCHACHT: To my great surprise, I was informed of that meeting on 20 October 1945, here in my cell, and I was extremely \ astonished that during all previous interrogations I had never been asked about this record, because it can be seen clearly from it that the Reich Government was not to be informed of Hitler's intentions for war and therefore could not know anything about them.
DR. DIX: Did you take part in similar conferences which were preparatory to attacks, for instance the meeting of November 1940 in which the attack on Russia was discussed? I do not wish to be misunderstood-the Speer document which you spoke of yesterday discusses an attack which according to Hitler was threatened by Russia. I am speaking now of discussions in which the subject was an attack on Russia.
SCHACHT: The fear of an attack from Russia dates back to the fall of 1936 and therefore has as yet nothing to do with the war. I never took part in any conference which indicated intentions of war, consequently not in the conference on the intended attack on Russia, and I never heard anything about it.
DR. DIX: Does that also apply to the meeting of May 1941?
SCHACHT: At the moment, I do not know which meeting that is, but I did not in any way take part in any meeting in May 1941, as during the entire period when I was Minister without Portfolio, I never took part in any official conference.
DR. DIX: Then you also did not get any information about the conferences which the Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka had in Berlin?
SCHACHT: I did not have the slightest knowledge of the Matsuoka conference except what may perhaps have been said on the radio or in the press.
DR. DIX: Mention has been made in some way that you at one time had made available 200,000 marks for Nazi propaganda purposes in Austria. Is there any truth in this?
SCHACHT: I have not the slightest knowledge of that.
DR. DIX: Now we come to your dismissal as President of the Reichsbank. As you have heard, the Prosecution asserts that you finally brought about your own dismissal in order to evade the financial responsibility. I ask you to reply to that accusation and to tell the Tribunal briefly but exhaustively the reasons and the tactical deliberations leading to your dismissal and that of your assistants. They appear here in the memorandum of the Reichsbank Directorate which has been under consideration several times.
SCHACHT: I should like to divide the question into two parts: The first question is whether I tried to rid myself of my office as President of the Reichsbank. My answer to that question is a most emphatic "yes." Since the middle of 1938, we in the Reichsbank always considered that if there were no change in policy, we in no event wanted to continue in office, because-and that brings me to the second part of the question-we did not want to assume the responsibility which we were then expected to bear. For everything which we did previously and for a defensive rearmament in order to achieve equal rights for Germany in international politics, we gladly assumed responsibility, and we assume it before history and this Tribunal. But the responsibility for continuing rearmament which possibly in itself constituted a serious potential danger of war or which would ever aim at war intentionally-that responsibility none of us wanted to assume. Consequently, when it became clear that Hitler was working toward a further increase in rearmament-and I spoke about that yesterday in connection with the conversation of 2 January 1939-when we became aware of that we wrote the memorandum which was openly quoted and is in the hands of this Tribunal as an exhibit. It indicates clearly that we opposed every further increase of state expenditure and would not assume responsibility for it. From that, Hitler gathered that he would in no event be able to use the Reichsbank with its present Directorate and President for any future financial purposes. Therefore, there remained only one alternative; to change the Directorate, because without the Reichsbank he could not go on. And he had to take a second step; he had to change the Reichsbank Law. That is to say, an end had to be put to the independence of the Reichsbank from government decrees. At first he did that in a secret law-we had such things-of 19 or 20 January 1939. That law v.Tas published only about 6 months later.
SCHACHT: That law abolished the independence of the Reichsbank and the President of the Reichsbank became a mere cashier for the credit demands of the Reich, that is to say, of Hitler. The Reichsbank Directorate did not want to continue along this line of development. Therefore, on 20 January the President of the Reichsbank, the Vice President, and the main financial expert, Reichsbank Director Huelse, were dismissed; three other members of the Directorate of the Reichsbank, Geheimrat Vocke, Director Erhard, and Director Blessing pressed insistently for their resignation from the Reichsbank until it was also granted. Two other members of the Reichsbank Directorate, Director Puhl, whose name has been mentioned here already, and an eighth director, Director Poetschmann, remained in the Directorate even under the new conditions. They were both Party members, the only ones in the Directorate, and therefore they could not easily withdraw.
DR. DIX: That is one accusation which is made by the Prosecution concerning your reasons for writing the memorandum, that is to say, to evade the financial responsibility. The second accusation is that not a word of this memorandum expressly mentions limitation of armaments, but that it essentially treats only matters of currency, technical questions of finance, and economic considerations; and that it was therefore the Dr. Schacht who in his capacity of Bank Director was concerned about the currency, rather than the opponent of rearmament, who made himself heard by this memorandum. It is necessary that as co-author of the memorandum-as its main author-you state your position with regard to this incriminating interpretation of the memorandum.
SCHACHT: Even at an earlier time I said here that every objection which I made and had to make to Hitler-and that applies not only to myself but to all ministers-could only be made with arguments arising out of the particular department administered. Had I said to Hitler, "I shall not give you any more money because you intend to wage war," I should not have the pleasure of conducting this animated conversation here with you. I could then have consulted a priest, and it would have been a very one sided affair because I would have lain silently in my tomb, and the priest would have delivered a monologue.
DR. DIX: This memorandum is certainly very important, and therefore we have to pause here for a moment. In summarizing -and please check me-I believe I can express your views in this way: This memorandum at the end contained demands such as further means of raising funds by increase of taxation or else by making use of the stock market-both impossible. Taxation could not be increased any more. The stock market had just unsuccessfully attempted a loan. If these actually impossible demands had been granted, the Reichsbank would have created guarantees that no further funds would be used for one or another form of rearmament. This success was not to be expected; rather you could expect your dismissal. Did my brief but comprehensive summary of this matter express your views correctly?
SCHACHT: That entire letter was composed in such a way that there were only two possible answers to it; either an alteration of financial policy-and that meant a stop to rearmament, which would have amounted to a complete change of Hitler's policy-or else the dismissal of the Reichsbank President; and that happened. We expected it because at that time I no longer believed that Hitler would change his policy so completely.
DR. DIX: Therefore, the Prosecution are right in saying that your mission ended with your dismissal?
SCHACHT: Hitler certainly confirmed that himself and in the letter of dismissal to me said it expressly. We heard from the testimony of Herr Lammers in this Court that Hitler with his own hand wrote that addition into the letter, that my name would remain connected with the first stage of rearmament. The second stage of rearmament I rejected and Hitler understood that very clearly, because when he received that letter from the Reichsbank he said to those who were present: "This is mutiny."
DR. DIX: How do you know that?
SCHACHT: The witness Vocke who will, I hope, appear in this Court will testify to that.
DR. DIX: Furthermore, the Prosecution asserted that your exit from the political stage could not be attributed to your policy of opposition to a war but to disputes with Hermann Goering over power and rank. As such, that accusation seems to me to have been refuted already by statements which Goering and Lammers have made up to now. We do not wish to recapitulate. I merely want to ask you whether you have anything to add to the statements made on this subject by Goering and Lammers, or whether you disagree with them.
SCHACHT: In his oral presentation the prosecutor said that throughout the entire material which he had studied he could not find one piece of evidence for my opposition to a policy of war. I can only say in this respect: If someone on account of his shortsightedness does not see a tree on a level plain, there is surely no proof that the tree is not there.
DR. DIX: You have heard from the Prosecution that you are accused of having remained a member of the Cabinet as a Reich Minister without Portfolio. That was also the cause for misunderstanding yesterday. I merely wanted to express yesterday that you had resigned as an active minister and head of a department, that you resigned as Minister of Economy and His Lordship correctly pointed out, that of course you remained a Minister without Portfolio, that is without a special sphere of activity until January 1943. Of that you are accused by the Prosecution. What caused you to remain Reich Minister without Portfolio? Why did you do that? Did you have any particular financial reasons? Excuse my mentioning that, but the trial brief, on Page 5, charges you with that motive.