LAMMERS: You mean my own?
DR. PANNENBECKER: Yes.
LAMMERS: I was State Secretary in the Reich Chancellery and I was the intermediary between the Führer and the Reich ministers, with two exceptions: the Führer either had direct communication with these gentlemen or the men in question had a way prescribed to approach the Führer other than through me. There were a number of things which did not go through my hands, but which the ministers submitted to the Führer directly. These were all matters of high policy, particularly of high foreign policy. Only in 1937, on the occasion of certain changes in the Cabinet, did I receive the title “Reich Minister,” but my tasks did not change. In particular, I also had no departments.
DR. PANNENBECKER: Can you tell me when the very last meeting of the Reich Cabinet took place?
LAMMERS: The Reich Cabinet met for the last time in November 1937. To be sure, in 1938, at the beginning of February, there was one more so-called “information conference” of the ministers, during which the Führer announced the change which had been made in the Cabinet involving Herr Von Blomberg and Herr Von Neurath. The last Cabinet meeting in which actual consultation took place, namely in regard to the draft of a penal code, took place in November 1937.
DR. PANNENBECKER: Can you tell me something about any attempts after that date to get the ministers together?
LAMMERS: After that date I continuously attempted to effect a concentration of the Reich Cabinet, a reactivation, I might say. This was continuously refused by the Führer. I had even prepared a draft, a draft for a decree according to which ministers should at least come together to consult with each other once or twice a month under the chairmanship of Reich Marshal Göring, or, if he were prevented from attending, with me as acting chairman. The ministers were to come together and hear informal reports. That was turned down by the Führer. Nevertheless, the ministers had an urgent desire to meet. My next suggestion was that I invite the ministers once or twice a month to a social evening, a beer party, so that we could get together and talk. To that the Führer replied, “Herr Lammers, this is not your concern; it is my concern. The next time I go to Berlin, I will do that.”
THE PRESIDENT: What are all these details about beer drinking? If they did not meet and he applied to the Führer, asking them to meet, and they never did, that is sufficient. What is the good of going into detail?
DR. PANNENBECKER: Is it correct, therefore, to say that the Reich Ministers had to work on their own in their departments, in their special field of activity, and that a Reich Cabinet as such, which decided questions of policy and was informed and held discussions, did not exist any more at all?
LAMMERS: Actually the ministers were no more than the highest administrative chiefs of their departments. They could no longer act in the Cabinet of the Reich Government as political ministers. I tried to describe that earlier. No more meetings took place; conferences were even forbidden. So, how could it have been possible for them to exchange views?