SCHACHT: Because I was not then in the Cabinet. I received my official nomination as Minister on 3 or 4 August. I did not take part in the deliberations on that law. I did not vote for it, and did not sign it.
DR. DIX: But in the Indictment it is stated that you were a member of the Reichstag. Then as a member of the Reichstag you would have voted for these laws, inasmuch as, actually, after 1933 only unanimous votes were cast in the Reichstag?
SCHACHT: Yes. Unfortunately, there is much in the trial brief which is not correct. During my entire life I was never a member of the Reichstag. One look into the Reichstag Handbook could have enlightened the Prosecution that also during that time I was not a member of the Reichstag.
I had nothing to do with all these laws either as member of the Cabinet or of the Reichstag, because I had been neither during that time.
DR. DIX: Did Adolf Hitler actually take an oath to the Weimar Constitution?
SCHACHT: Of course Hitler took an oath to the Weimar Constitution when he became Reich Chancellor, to Reich President Von Hindenburg. In taking that oath he swore not only to respect the constitution but also to observe and fulfill all laws unless they were lawfully changed.
DR. DIX: Was the Weimar Constitution ever formally repealed?
SCHACHT: No, the Weimar Constitution has never been repealed.
DR. DIX: In your view was the Leadership Principle established anywhere legally or constitutionally?
SCHACHT: The Leadership Principle was not established by a single law, and the subsequent attempt to reduce the responsibility of the individual ministers—and that affects me, too—by saying that it had become prescriptive law, is not correct. The responsibility of the ministers continued to exist, my own also, and was kept down only by the terror and the violent threats of Hitler.