“At the occasion of your recall from office as President of the Reichsbank Directorate I take the opportunity of expressing to you my most sincere and warmest gratitude for the services which you have rendered repeatedly to Germany and to me personally in this capacity during long and difficult years. Your name, above all, will always be connected with the first epoch of the national rearmament. I am happy to be able to avail myself of your services for the solution of new tasks in your position as Reich Minister.”
In fact, Schacht continued as Minister without Portfolio until January 1943.
I wish to conclude by saying that the evidence shows: First, Schacht’s work was indispensable to Hitler’s rise to power and to the rearmament of Germany; second, Schacht personally was favorably disposed towards aggression and knew Hitler intended to and would break the peace; and, third, Schacht retired from the scene for reasons wholly unrelated to the imminence of illegal aggression.
As long as he remained in power, Schacht was working as eagerly for the preparation of aggressive war as any of his colleagues. He was beyond any doubt most effective and valuable in this connection. His assistance in the earlier phase of the conspiracy made their later crimes possible. His withdrawal from the scene reflected no moral feeling against the use of aggressive warfare as an instrument of national policy. He personally struggled to retain his position. By the time he lost it he had already completed his task in the conspiracy, namely, to provide Hitler and his colleagues with the physical means and economic planning necessary to launch and maintain the aggression. We do not believe that, having prepared the Wehrmacht for assault upon the world, he should now be permitted to find refuge in his loss of power before the blow was struck.
This concludes our case against the Defendant Schacht, and Lieutenant Meltzer follows me with the presentation of the American case against the Defendant Funk.
LIEUTENANT (j. g.) BERNHARD D. MELTZER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, the documents bearing upon Defendant Funk’s responsibility have been assembled in a document book marked “HH,” which has been filed with the Tribunal and has also been made available to Defense Counsel. The same is true of the brief. The documents have been arranged in the book in the order of their presentation. Moreover, to facilitate reference, the pages of the document book have been numbered consecutively in red. I wish to acknowledge the invaluable collaboration of Mr. Sidney Jacoby, who sits to my right, in the selection and analysis of these documents.
We propose to submit evidence concerning five phases of Defendant Funk’s participation in the conspiracy:
First, his contribution to the Nazi seizure of power; second, his role in the Propaganda Ministry and in the related agencies and his responsibility for the activities of that ministry; third, his responsibility for the unrelenting elimination of Jews, first from the so-called cultural professions and then from the entire German economy; fourth, his collaboration in the paramount Nazi task to which all other tasks were subordinated—preparation for aggressive war; and finally, we propose to mention briefly the evidence concerning his active participation in the waging of aggressive war.
We turn now to the evidence showing that Defendant Funk actively promoted the conspirators’ accession to power and their consolidation of control over Germany. Soon after he joined the Nazi Party in 1931 Defendant Funk began to hold important positions, first within the Party itself and then within the Nazi Government. Funk’s positions have, in the main, been listed in Document Number 3533-PS, which is a statement signed by both Defendant Funk and his counsel. This document has been made available in the four working languages of these proceedings, and a copy in the appropriate language should be available in each of Your Honors’ document books. It is accordingly requested that this document, which is Exhibit Number USA-651, be received into evidence without the necessity of its being read in its entirety.
Your Honors will observe that there are some deletions and reservations after some of the items listed in Document Number 3533-PS. These were inserted by Defendant Funk. The words which he wished deleted are enclosed in parentheses. His comments are underscored and followed by asterisks.