LT. MELTZER: If the Tribunal please, those two sentences do not refer to the meeting. Those two sentences refer to the biography which sums up the Defendant Funk’s general contribution to the Nazi accession to power and I thought it might be of interest to the Tribunal to see the attitude of a German writer on this aspect of the defendant’s career.
THE PRESIDENT: It seems to me you referred to the meeting.
LT. MELTZER: I was referring Your Honors to Pages 32 and 33 of the document book, and to clarify this point may I read briefly from the biography:
“No less important than Funk’s accomplishments in the programmatic field in the years 1931 and 1932 was his activity at that time as the Führer’s liaison man to the leading men of the German industry, trade, commerce, and finance. On the basis of his past work his personal relations to the German economic leaders were broad and far-reaching. He was now able to enlist them in the service of Adolf Hitler and not only to answer their questions authoritatively but to convince them and win their backing for the Party. At that time that was terribly important work; every success achieved meant a moral, political, and economic strengthening of the vitality of the Party and contributed toward destroying the prejudice that National Socialism is merely a party of class hatred and class struggle.”
THE PRESIDENT: Again, I don’t see that that has helped the Tribunal in the least.
LT. MELTZER: After Funk had helped Hitler become Chancellor, as Press Chief of the German Government, he participated in the early Cabinet meetings, in the course of which the conspirators planned the strategy by which they would secure the passage of the Presidential Emergency Decree, which was passed on 24 March 1933. Funk’s presence at these meetings is revealed by Document 2962-PS which has already been received in evidence and by Document Number 2963-PS, offered as Exhibit Number USA-656. Your Honors will recall that this decree marked the real seizure of political power in Germany.
Soon after this the Defendant Funk assumed an important role in the Ministry of Propaganda. The record shows that the Ministry became one of the most important and vicious of Nazi institutions and that propaganda was fundamental to the achievement of the Nazi program within Germany and outside of Germany. We do not propose to review those matters to you but rather to present evidence showing, as we have said, that the Defendant Funk took a significant part in the propaganda operations.
The Ministry was established on 13 March 1933, with Goebbels as Chief and Defendant Funk as undersecretary, second in command.
As undersecretary Defendant Funk was not only Goebbels’ chief aide but was also the organizer of the large and complex propaganda machine. I wish to offer in evidence Document Number 3501-PS, which will be found on Page 47 of your document book as Exhibit Number USA-657. This document is an affidavit signed on 19 December 1945 by Max Amann, who held the position of Reich Leader of the Press and President of the Reich Press Chamber. I should like to read the second sentence of the first paragraph and the entire second paragraph:
“In carrying out my duties and responsibilities I became familiar with the operation and the organization of the Reich Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment. Funk was the soul of the Ministry, and without him Goebbels could not have built it up. Goebbels once stated to me that Funk was his ‘most efficient man.’ Funk exercised comprehensive control over all of the media of expression in Germany; over the press, the theater, radio, and music. As Press Chief of the Government and later as undersecretary of the Ministry, Funk held daily meetings with the Führer and a daily press conference in the course of which he issued the directives governing the materials to be published by the German press.”