dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
FUNK: Yes. Herr Von Jagwitz had this liaison office and essentially it was limited to his person. It was a liaison office for collaboration with the Auslands-Organisation, which was a perfectly natural procedure- in many cases. I do not see why this should be unusual or criminal.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: We shall come back to the question at a later stage. Mr. President, I should like to pass over to another part. Would it be convenient to have a short recess now? I have a few more questions to ask.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well; the Tribunal will recess. 1A recess was taken.7
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: You mentioned yesterday that you were the Plenipotentiary for Economy, but not a plenipotentiary in the full sense of the word. Schacht was the true plenipotentiary and you were merely a secondary one. Do you remember your article entitled "Economic and Financial Mobilization"? Do you remember what you wrote at that time?
FUNK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Well, we are not going to waste any time on that question. I shall remind you of it. I submit to the Tribunal in evidence Exhibit USSR-452 (Document Number USSR-452), an article by Funk, published in the monthly journal of the NSDAP and of the German Labor Front, entitled "Der Schulungsbrief," in 1939. Turning to the defendant.] You wrote at that time: "As the Plenipotentiary for Economy appointed by the Fuehrer, I must see to it that during the war all the forces of the nation should be secured also from the economic point of view." Have you found this passage?
FUNK: Yes, I have found it.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Further on you wrote: "The contribution of economy to the great political aims of the Fuehrer demands not only a strong and unified direction of all the economic and political measures, but also above all careful co-ordination.... Industry, food, agriculture, forestry, timber industry, foreign trade, transport, manpower, the regulation of wages and prices, finance, credits must be coordinated, so that the entire economic potential should serve in the defense of the Reich. In order to fulfill this task, the authorities of the Reich in charge of these spheres are included in my authority in my capacity as Plenipotentiary for Economy." Do. you confirm that this is precisely what you wrote in 1939?
FUNK: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Is that question not quite clear to you?
THE PRESIDENT: He said, "Yes."
FUNK: I said, "Yes"; I certainly wrote that.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: You confirm it. You know about the issue in June 1941 of the so-called "Green File" of Goering? It was read into the record here. These are directives for the control of economy or, rather, directives for the spoliation of the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R. How did you personally participate in the planning of these directives?
FUNK: I do not know that. I do not know any more whether or not I participated at all.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: You do not remember? How is it possible that these documents were planned without you, Reich Minister of Economics, the President of the Reichsbank, and Plenipotentiary for Economy and the armament industry?
FUNK: First, at that time I was no longer Plenipotentiary for Economy. I was never plenipotentiary for the armament industry. The powers of the Plenipotentiary for Economy, shortly after the beginning of the war, were turned over to the Delegate for the Four Year Plan. That has been repeatedly confirmed and emphasized and what I did personally at that time concerning economy in the Occupied Eastern Territories can only have been very, very little. I do not remember it because the administration of economy in the Occupied Eastern Territories was in charge of the Economic Staff East and the Delegate of the Four Year Plan, and that office, of course, co-operated with the Rosenberg Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Personally I remember only that, as I mentioned yesterday, in the course of time the Ministry of Economics sent individual businessmen, merchants, from Hamburg and from Cologne, et cetera, to the East in order to secure private economic activities in the Eastern Occupied Territories.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Yes, we have already heard what "activities" you dealt with. Your name for spoliation is "private economic activities." Do you remember the Prague Conference of December 1941-the meeting of the economic organization -or must I remind you of it?
FUNK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Not necessary?
FUNK: During the interrogations my attention was called by General Alexandrov to this speech, and I told him at that time already that there was a wrong newspaper report about me which I had rectified later or after a short time.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Just a minute, Defendant Funk. You are slightly anticipating events. You do not yet know what I am going to ask you. First listen to me and then reply. You have informed the Tribunal that you never attended any meeting of Hitler's at which the political and economic aims of the attack on the Soviet Union were discussed, that you did not know of any purpose and of any declared plans of Hitler for the territorial dismemberment of the Soviet Union, and yet you yourself declared in your statement that "the East will be the future colony of Germany," Germany's colonial territory. Did you say that the East would be the future colonial territory of Germany?
FUNK: No; I denied that in my interrogation. I immediately said, after this was presented to me, that I was speaking of the old German colonial territories. General Alexandrov can confirm that. He questioned me at that time.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: I have no intention of calling General Alexandrov as a witness. I am only asking you if you did say so; was it written as stated?
FUNK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: You stated that you did not have to be reminded, but that is precisely what was mentioned in your speech, and I am going to quote verbatim from this speech: "The vast territories of the eastern European region, containing raw materials which have not yet been opened up to Europe, will become the promising colonial territory of Europe." And exactly what Europe were you discussing in December 1941 and what former German territories did you wish to mention to the Tribunal? I am asking you.
FUNK: I have not said that. I said that I did not speak about colonial territories, but of the old colonization areas of Germany.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Yes, but we are not speaking here of old territories; we are speaking here of new territories which you wished to conquer.
FUNK: The area had been conquered already. We did not have to conquer that. That had been conquered by German troops.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: No. It was not known that they were conquered, since you were already retreating from them. You said that you were the President of the Continental Oil Company. This company was organized for the exploitation of the oil fields of the Occupied Eastern Territories, especially in the districts of Grozny and Baku. Please answer me "yes" or "no."
FUNK: Not only of the Occupied Territories-this company was concerned with oil industries all over Europe. It had its beginnings in the Romanian oil interests and whenever German troops occupied territories where there were oil deposits, that company, which was a part of the Four Year Plan, was given the task by the various economic offices, later by the armament industry, of producing oil in these territories and of restoring the destroyed oil-producing districts. The company had a tremendous reconstruction program. I personally was the president of the supervisory board and I mainly had to do the financing of that company only.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: That I have already heard. But you have not answered my question. I asked you if this company had as object the exploitation of the Grozny and Baku oil wells. Did the oil wells of the Caucasus form the basic capital of the Continental Oil Company?
FUNK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: No? I am satisfied with your reply.
FUNK: That is not right. We had not conquered the Caucasus and therefore the Continental Oil Company could not be active in the Caucasus.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: All right. But Rosenberg at that time had already made a report on the conquest and exploitation of the Caucasus. Do you remember that here, before the Tribunal, a transcript of the minutes of a meeting held at Goering's office on 6 August 1942 with the Reich Commissioners of the Occupied Territories was read into the record? Do you remember that meeting?
FUNK: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Did you participate in this meeting?
FUNK: That I do not know. Did they speak about the oil territories of the Caucasus in that meeting? That I do not know.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: No, I do not wish to say anything as yet. I shall ask you a question and you will answer. I ask you: Did you participate in that meeting?
FUNK: I cannot remember. It may very well be.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: You do not remember?
FUNK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: In that case you will be shown a document. It has already been submitted to the Tribunal, and was here read into the record. It is Exhibit Number USSR-170; it has already been presented. As stated at that meeting, the most effective measures for the economic spoliation of the Occupied Territories of the U.S.S.R., Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and other countries were discussed. At this meeting Defendant Goering addressed himself to you. Do you remember whether you were present at that meeting or not?
FUNK: Yes, indeed. I remember that. But what Goering told me then refers to the fact that, a long time after the Russian territories had been occupied, we sent businessmen there to bring into those territories any goods that might interest the population. For instance it says here: "Businessmen must be sent there.... We must send them to Venice to buy up these things in order to re-sell them in the occupied Russian territories." That is what Goering told me on that occasion. At least, that is what can be read here.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: I did not ask you about that, Defendant Funk. Were you present at that meeting or not? Could you answer that question?
FUNK: Of course. Since Goering talked to me, I must have been there. It was on 7 August 1942.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Defendant Funk, you have replied here to certain questions asked by Mr. Dodd regarding the increase of the gold reserve of the Reichsbank; I should like to ask you the following question: You have stated that the gold reserves of the Reichsbank were increased only by the gold reserves of the Belgian Bank; but did you not know that 23,000 kilograms of gold were stolen from the National Bank of Czechoslovakia and transferred to the Reichsbank?
FUNK: I did not know that it had been stolen.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Then what do you know?
FUNK: I stated explicitly here yesterday that the gold deposits had been increased mostly by the taking over of the gold of the Czech National Bank and the Belgian Bank. I spoke especially of the Czech National Bank yesterday.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Yes, but I am not asking you about the Belgian Bank, but about the Bank of Czechoslovakia.
FUNK: Yes, I mentioned it yesterday. I said so yesterday...
THE PRESIDENT: He said that just now. He said that he had spoken about the Czechoslovakian gold deposits.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Mr. President, he did not mention Czechoslovakia yesterday and I am asking him this question today. But if he replies to this question in the affirmative, I shall not interrogate him any further on the matter, since he will have confirmed it. [Turning to the defendant.] I now pass on to the next question, to the question of Yugoslavia. On 14 April 1941, that is, prior to the complete occupation of Yugoslavia, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army issued a directive for the occupied Yugoslav territories. This is Exhibit USSR-140; it has already been submitted to the Tribunal. Subparagraph 9 of this directive determines the compulsory rate of Yugoslav exchange-20 Yugoslav diners to the German mark. And the same compulsory rate of exchange, which had been applied to the Yugoslav diner, was also applied to the Reich credit notes issued by the Reich Foreign Currency Institute. These currency operations permitted the German invaders to export from Yugoslavia at a very cheap rate various merchandise as well as other valuables. Similar operations were carried out in all the Occupied Eastern Territories, and I ask you: Do you admit that such operations were one of the means for the economic spoliation of the Occupied Eastern Territories?
FUNK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Very well.
FUNK: That depends on the relation of the exchange rate. In some cases, in particular in the case of France, I protested against the underevaluation...
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Excuse me just one minute, Defendant Funk. You have already spoken about France and I do not want to take up the time of the Tribunal unnecessarily. I think you ought to answer my question.
FUNK: At the moment I do not know what the exchange rate between the diner and the mark was at that time. In general, insofar as I had anything to do with it-I did not make the directive; that came from the Minister of Finance and from the Armed · Forces-insofar as I had anything to do with it I always urged that the rate should not differ too greatly from the rate which existed and which was based on the purchasing power. At the moment I cannot say what the exchange rate for diners was at that time. Of course, Reich credit notes had to be introduced with the troops because otherwise we would have had to issue special requisition vouchers, and that would have been much worse than introducing an official means of payment, as is now being done here in Germany by the Allies, because working with requisition vouchers is much more disadvantageous and harmful for the population and the entire country than working with a recognized means of payment. We invented the Reich credit notes ourselves.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: In other words, you wish to state that you had nothing to do with it and that the entire matter rested with the Ministry of Finance. Then tell me please, are you aware of the testimony given by your assistant, Landfried, whose affidavit was submitted by your defense counsel? You will remember that Landfried stated and affirmed something totally different. He said that in the determination of exchange rates in the occupied territories yours was the final and determining voice. Do you not agree with this statement?
FUNK: When these rates were determined, I, as President of the Reichsbank, was of course consulted and, as can be confirmed by every document, I always advocated that the new rates should be as close as possible to the old rates established on the basis of the purchasing power, that is to say, no underevaluation.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Consequently, the compulsory rate of exchange in the occupied countries was introduced with your knowledge and according to your instructions?
FUNK: Not on the basis of my directives. I was only asked for advice.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Your advice?
FUNK: I had to give my approval. That is, the Reichsbank Directorate formally gave the approval, but...
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: I am satisfied with your reply. I now go on to the next question. On 29 May 1941 the Commander-in-Chief in Serbia issued an order regarding the Serbian National Bank, which order has already been submitted as Exhibit USSR-135. This order liquidated the National Bank of Yugoslavia and divided the entire property of the bank between Germany and her satellites. Instead of the National Bank of Yugoslavia a fictitious so-called Serbian Bank was created, whose directors were appointed by the German Plenipotentiary for National Economy in Serbia. Tell me, do you know who was the Plenipotentiary for National Economy in Serbia?
FUNK: It was probably the Consul General Franz Neuhausen, the representative of the Four Year Plan.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Yes. It was Franz Neuhausen. Was he a collaborator in the Ministry of Economics?
FUNK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: He never worked in the Ministry of Economics?
FUNK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: He never worked there?
FUNK: Neuhausen? No, he never worked in the Ministry of Economics.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Was he a collaborator of Goering's?
FUNK: Yes, that is correct.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Well, he was a collaborator of Goering's. Do you admit that such specific currency operations, as a result of which the Yugoslavian Government and its citizens were robbed of several million diners, could not have been carried out without your participation and without the co-operation of the departments within your jurisdiction?
FUNK: I do not know in detail the directives according to which the liquidation was carried out and by which the new Serbian National Bank was founded, but it goes without saying that the Reichsbank participated in such a transaction.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: I want to ask you two more questions. Together with the unconcealed spoliation, consisting in the confiscations and requisitions which the German invaders carried out in the Occupied Territories of Eastern Europe, they also exploited these countries to the limit of their economic resources by applying various exchange and economic measures, such as depreciation of currency, seizure of the banks, artificial decrease of prices and wages, thus continuing the economic spoliation of the occupied territories. Do you admit that this was precisely the policy of Germany in the Occupied Territories of Eastern Europe?
FUNK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: You do not admit this?
FUNK: In no way whatsoever.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: I now submit to the Tribunal Document USSR-453. This is a new document, consisting of notes on a conference held by the Reich Commissioner for the determination of prices on 22 April 1943. Price experts from all the occupied territories attended this conference. I shall now read into the record some excerpts from this document. It says on Page 2: "The 5.5 million foreign workers are composed of: 1.5 million prisoners of war, 4 million civilian workers." The document further says: "1,200,000 from the East, 1,000,000 from the former Polish territories. . . 200,000 citizens of the Protectorate. . . 65,000 Croatians, 50,000 remainder of Yugoslavia (Serbia)"-and so on. Further this document also says in connection with the equalization of prices: "Price equalization should be operated to the debit of the producer countries, that is, through the Central Clearing Office, which for the most part is to the advantage of the occupied countries." On Page 14 it is stated: "These price deliberations were of no importance for the occupied territories, since the main interest did not lie in the welfare of the population but in the utilization of all the economic forces of the country." On Page 16 we find the following excerpt: "Concerning the Occupied Eastern Territories, Ministerial Counselor Roemer has stated that prices there are far below German prices, and so far the Reich has already reaped large import profits." Mention is made, on Page 19, of Germany's clearing debt, which amounted to 9,300,000 marks. At the same time the clearing balance for Czechoslovakia showed a deficit of 2,000,000; for the Ukraine of 82,500,000; for Serbia of 219,000,000; for Croatia of 85,000,000; and for Slovakia of 301,000,000 marks. And finally, on Page 22 of the document, it says: "The prices in the Occupied Eastern Territories are kept at the lowest possible level. We have already realized import profits which are being used to cover Reich debts.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: Wages are generally only one-fifth of what they are in Germany." You must admit that the planned robbery perpetrated by the German invaders on so gigantic a scale could never have been carried out without your active participation as Minister of Economics, President of the Reichsbank, and Plenipotentiary for Economy?
FUNK: I must again stress that during the war I was no longer Plenipotentiary for Economy. But may I state my position to this document? First, there is the figure of the number of the workers which were brought from the occupied territories and other foreign countries into Germany. I have emphasized, myself, and it has been confirmed by other statements, that I was basically against bringing in foreign manpower from occupied territories to such an extent as to impair the economic order in those territories. I am not even speaking about recruitment of forced labor. I also opposed that. When an expert whom I do not know says that the deliberations about price policy were of no importance for the occupied territories, because the main interest did not lie with the welfare of the population but in the exploitation of economic forces, I must contradict that point of view. In any case, it is not my point of view. I do not know who the man was who said that, but it is a matter of course that a territory cannot produce well unless the economy is kept on a good footing and prices are fixed at a level which enables the people to exist and to maintain social order. So I have to oppose this point of view also. As far as the clearing debt is concerned, I explained yesterday in detail that the clearing system was in common usage for Germany, and that I have always recognized and confirmed that these clearing debts were genuine debts which, after the war, had to be repaid in the currency in which they were incurred, based on the purchasing power at that time. I do not see any spoliation here. Moreover, I must again stress the fact that I was not competent for the economy in the occupied territories, that I had no power to give a directive there and that I participated only insofar as I detailed officials to individual offices, just as all other departments did, and that, of course, there was co-operation between these offices and the department at home. But I cannot assume responsibility for the economy in the occupied territories.
FUNK: The Reich Marshal definitely admitted that as far as economic questions are concerned, it was his responsibility.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: I understand. You collaborated, and now you do not wish to bear the responsibility. You say that the expert has made the statement. But do you remember your testimony which you gave on 22 October 1945?
FUNK: I do not know what interrogation. . .
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: When you were asked about the compulsory mobilization of foreign workers you were also asked if you knew about it and if you had ever protested against it. Is that correct? You replied, "No, why should I be the one to protest against it?"
FUNK: That is not correct. I protested against the compulsory recruitment of workers and against so many workers having been taken out of occupied territory that the local economy could no longer produce. That is not correct.