GÖRING: This is absolutely correct.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, Hilgard objected to your plan of releasing the insurance companies from paying the claims, did he not?
GÖRING: Yes, this is also correct.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And he gave the reasons:
“Hilgard: If I may give the reasons for my objection, the point is that we do a large international business. Our business has a sound international basis, and in the interests of the foreign exchange position in Germany we cannot allow the confidence in the German insurance business to be shaken. If we were now to refuse to fulfill commitments entered into by legal contracts it would be a blot on the escutcheon of the German insurance business.
“Göring: But it would not be if I were to issue a decree or a law.”
Am I quoting correct?
GÖRING: Yes, and in Hilgard’s reply—and that is the reply I wanted to come to—he pointed out that the insurance companies could not get out of paying claims unless a law provided for it. If the sovereign state passes a law to the effect that the insurance sums must be forfeited to the state, then the insurance companies are no longer under any obligation.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, I suggest to you that that is not correct, but that even though you proposed to issue a decree absolving the German insurance companies, the companies insisted on meeting their obligations; and then Heydrich interposed and said: “By all means, let them pay the claims and when payment is made it will be confiscated. Thus we will save our face.”
Correct?