Yes, Dr. Dix.
DR. DIX: Witness, I had started to say that it had been pointed out to me that I had asked my questions too quickly after you had given your answers and that you were answering too quickly after I had put the question. The interpreters cannot follow, nor can the stenographers. I ask you, therefore—and I shall do the same—to pause after each question. I am sure that the Tribunal will not interpret these pauses as meaning that you are not sure of your answers.
Yesterday you made detailed statements to the Tribunal regarding the various applications for resignation which Schacht presented to Hitler and regarding various moves and proposals for peace which Schacht made or wanted to make, orally or in writing, during the war to be delivered by you to Hitler. We were speaking about such a memorandum of the summer of 1941, and I had the feeling that the Tribunal have procedural objections because I was putting the contents of the document to the witness and having him confirm them. The copy of this document is in the strong box which has already been mentioned repeatedly and which was confiscated on Schacht’s estate by the Red Army when the Red Army marched in. Despite all efforts the Russian Delegation have not yet succeeded in getting this strong box.
Although some rather good passages are contained therein, I am perfectly willing to break off here and to put these questions to Herr Schacht if the Tribunal would prefer that. May I have the Tribunal’s decision on this question; if necessary I can cease to discuss the memorandum any further.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal had no objection to your asking this witness about it, but they thought you ought not to put a leading question and that you ought to ask the witness if he remembers the document and what the contents of the document were; not to put to him that it was such and such in the document or some other passage in the document, but just to ask him what the contents of the document were.
DR. DIX: The dividing line between leading questions and putting the contents of a document to the witness, a document which the witness does not remember exactly, is rather fluid. Therefore, I should prefer to have Herr Schacht give the rest of the contents of the memorandum; then we would avoid these difficulties. I shall therefore leave this point and proceed to another field.
Witness, you quite correctly stated yesterday in answer to a question in connection with the defense of Funk by my colleague, Dr. Sauter, how it was the practice in 1939, that Hitler simply decreed that the Reichsbank would have to give so much credit. I want to avoid a mistaken impression on the part of the Tribunal as to the former position of the Reichsbank in regard to this question.
You know that by Hitler’s decree, the Reichsbank in January 1939 lost its former independence. In this decree Hitler ordered that he would decide what credits the Reichsbank would have to give; and this restricted decree of Hitler’s was announced and became effective as a law in June 1939.
Therefore, in order that the Tribunal get a proper impression of the general and also of the former position of the Reichsbank, I am asking you how the situation was before January 1939, that is, during Schacht’s term in office as Reichsbank President, which ended, as is known, in January 1939. Was it possible at that time for Hitler simply to decree that so much credit was to be given, or was the Reichsbank still independent and could it refuse such credit or cancel it?
LAMMERS: I do not remember the legal regulations which existed in this connection to such an extent that I can give a complete answer as to when and how they were altered. I can confirm one thing, however; that is that during the period when Herr Schacht was President of the Reichsbank he must have made certain difficulties for the Führer with reference to the granting of these credits. I was not present at the discussions between the Führer and Schacht, but I know from statements made by the Führer that regarding those credits he met with considerable difficulties and restraints on Schacht’s part, restraints which finally brought about Schacht’s resignation from his position as President of the Reichsbank. On the other hand, I know that at the moment when Funk became President of the Reichsbank, these difficulties ceased to exist. These were obviously removed by legal regulations and also by orders which the Führer had given; for when Funk became President of the Reichsbank, these credits were simply handled in the way which I described yesterday, when I described the technical procedure; in the main orders for credits and Reich loans from the Reichsbank were merely a simple matter of signature for the Führer. They were a matter...