The Tribunal finds that Streicher is not guilty on Count One, but that he is guilty on Count Four.

FUNK

Funk is indicted under all four Counts. Funk, who had previously been a financial journalist, joined the Nazi Party in 1931, and shortly thereafter became one of Hitler’s personal economic advisers. On 30 January 1933 Funk was made Press Chief in the Reich Government, and on 11 March 1933 became Under Secretary in the Ministry of Propaganda and shortly thereafter a leading figure in the various Nazi organizations which were used to control the press, films, music, and publishing houses. He took office as Minister of Economics and Plenipotentiary General for War Economy in early 1938 and as President of the Reichsbank in January 1939. He succeeded Schacht in all three of these positions. He was made a member of the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich in August 1939, and a member of the Central Planning Board in September 1943.

Crimes against Peace

Funk became active in the economic field after the Nazi plans to wage aggressive war had been clearly defined. One of his representatives attended a conference on 14 October 1938, at which Göring announced a gigantic increase in armaments and instructed the Ministry of Economics to increase exports to obtain the necessary exchange. On 28 January 1939 one of Funk’s subordinates sent a memorandum to the OKW on the use of prisoners of war to make up labor deficiencies which would arise in case of mobilization. On 30 May 1939 the Under Secretary of the Ministry of Economics attended a meeting at which detailed plans were made for the financing of the war.

On 25 August 1939 Funk wrote a letter to Hitler expressing his gratitude that he was able to participate in such world-shaking events; that his plans for the “financing of the war”, for the control of wage and price conditions and for the strengthening of the Reichsbank had been completed; and that he had inconspicuously transferred into gold all foreign exchange resources available to Germany. On 14 October 1939, after the war had begun, he made a speech in which he stated that the economic and financial departments of Germany working under the Four Year Plan had been engaged in the secret economic preparation for war for over a year.

Funk participated in the economic planning which preceded the attack on the U.S.S.R. His deputy held daily conferences with Rosenberg on the economic problems which would arise in the occupation of Soviet territory. Funk himself participated in planning for the printing of ruble notes in Germany prior to the attack to serve as occupation currency in the U.S.S.R. After the attack he made a speech in which he described plans he had made for the economic exploitation of the “vast territories of the Soviet Union” which were to be used as a source of raw material for Europe.

Funk was not one of the leading figures in originating the Nazi plans for aggressive war. His activity in the economic sphere was under the Supervision of Göring as Plenipotentiary General of the Four Year Plan. He did, however, participate in the economic preparation for certain of the aggressive wars, notably those against Poland and the Soviet Union, but his guilt can be adequately dealt with under Count Two of the Indictment.

War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity

In his capacity as Under Secretary in the Ministry of Propaganda and Vice-Chairman of the Reichs Chamber of Culture, Funk had participated in the early Nazi program of economic discrimination against the Jews. On 12 November 1938 after the pogroms of November, he attended a meeting held under the chairmanship of Göring to discuss the solution of the Jewish problem and proposed a decree providing for the banning of Jews from all business activities, which Göring issued the same day under the authority of the Four Year Plan. Funk has testified that he was shocked at the outbreaks of 10 November, but on 15 November he made a speech describing these outbreaks as a “violent explosion of the disgust of the German People, because of a criminal Jewish attack against the German People”, and saying that the elimination of the Jews from economic life followed logically their elimination from political life.