LT. BRYSON: And the next one:
“How, then, can German people ever learn the real dangers of war, if nobody ever presents that side of the question? He once more emphasized his opposition to war and added that he had used his influence with Hitler—‘a very great man’, he interjected—to prevent war. I said, ‘The German papers printed what I said at Bremen about commercial relations between our countries, but not a word about the terrible effects and barbarism of war.’ He acknowledged that and talked very disapprovingly of the Propaganda Ministry which suppresses everything it dislikes. He added, as I was leaving ‘You know a party comes into office by propaganda and then cannot disavow it or stop it.’ ”
The date of his conversation was in September 1934.
THE PRESIDENT: It is a pity that those years are not stated in the document. It is rather misleading as it is.
LT. BRYSON: If the Court please, the exhibit which is in evidence will show the dates.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I am not blaming you; but it is misleading, because it looks like September the 19th and December the 21st, and as there were 3 years’ interval between, it makes a difference. That is right, isn’t it?
LT. BRYSON: Yes, that is right. I am sorry the excerpt simply shows the page numbers from the exhibit, and not the dates.
Schacht admittedly strained all the resources of Germany to build up a Wehrmacht which would provide Hitler with an instrument of realization of his desire for Lebensraum. In this connection I offer in evidence Document Number EC-369, Exhibit Number USA-631, consisting of a memorandum from the Reichsbank Directorate, signed by Schacht, to Hitler, dated 7 January 1939. I wish to read the last paragraph of the first page:
“From the beginning the Reichsbank has been aware of the fact that a successful foreign policy can be attained only by the reconstruction of the German Armed Forces. It—the Reichsbank—therefore assumed to a very great extent the responsibility of financing the rearmament in spite of the inherent dangers to the currency. The justification thereof was the necessity, which pushed all other considerations into the background, to carry through the armament at once, out of nothing and furthermore under camouflage, which made a respect-commanding foreign policy possible.”
It is clear that the “successful foreign policy” which Schacht thus attributed to rearmament included the Austrian and Czechoslovakian acquisitions. I offer in evidence Document EC-297(a), Exhibit Number USA-632, being a speech of Schacht’s in Vienna after the Anschluss in March 1938. I quote from the third page and the second full paragraph: