“Total: as of 31 December 1932, 12,500 million Reichsmark; as of 30 June 1938, 35,800 million Reichsmark.”
The Reich debt thus tripled. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Would you read the next section, beginning with the words “Provisions were made to cover. . .”?
LT. BRYSON: “Provisions were made to cover the armament expenditures for the year 1938 (the same amount as in 1937) as follows:
“Five thousand millions from the budget, that is, taxes; 4,000 millions from loans; 2,000 millions from 6-month treasury notes, which means postponement of payment until 1939; total: 11,000 millions.”
The Reich debt thus tripled under Schacht’s management. More than one-third of the total was financed secretly and through the instrumentality of the Reichsbank by mefo and trade bills. It is clear that this amount of financing outside the normal public issues represented armament debt. I read further from Document EC-436, at the beginning of the last long paragraph:
“These mefo bills were used exclusively for financing rearmament; and when in March 1938 a new finance program discontinuing the use of mefo bills was announced by Dr. Schacht, there was a total volume outstanding of 12,000 million marks of mefo bills which had been issued to finance rearmament.”
The character of Schacht’s credit policy and the fact that it was ruthlessly dedicated to the creation of armaments plainly appear from his own speech delivered on 29 November 1938.
I offer it in evidence as Document Number EC-611, Exhibit Number USA-622; and I quote from Page 6 at the beginning of the last paragraph:
“It is possible that no bank of issue in peacetime carried on such a daring credit policy as the Reichsbank since the seizure of power by National Socialism. With the aid of this credit policy, however, Germany created an armament second to none; and this armament in turn made possible the results of our policy.”