“At that time we were able to extend our bases for raw materials and production toward the West: Longwy, Briey, Tourcoing, Roubaix, Antwerp (textiles), and toward the East, Lodz, and Southeast (ore mines in Serbia and Turkey, mineral oils in Romania). Today we have to reckon with the possibility of being thrown back in our own country and even of being deprived thereby of most valuable industrial and raw material in the West and in the East.”
I think that if anyone wanting to prepare an aggressive war had calculated in September 1934 that one would have to protect oneself against the possibility of such a situation arising, that this is the best proof that there can be no question of an aggressive war at all.
DR. DIX: In that connection, under the heading of “peaceful efforts,” can you perhaps also tell the Tribunal what your peaceful efforts were, to have the reparations clauses of the Versailles Treaty modified or even abolished?
SCHACHT: From the very first moment, after the reparations were determined in 1921 or so, I fought against this nonsense with the argument that the carrying out of those reparations would throw the entire world into economic chaos. One cannot, during one generation, pay 120,000,000,000 Reichsmark or about 2,000,000,000 Reichsmark yearly, as at that time...
DR. DIX: We would like to make it brief. Will you please talk only about your peaceful efforts and not about national economy?
SCHACHT: All right, I will not talk about national economy.
I fought against it and, as time went by, I did succeed in convincing the people of almost all the countries that this was sheer nonsense. Therefore in July of 1932, if I am not mistaken, the then Reich Chancellor Papen was in a position to affix his signature to an agreement at Lausanne, which reduced reparations, de jure, to a pending sum of 3,000,000,000, and which, de facto, canceled reparations altogether.
DR. DIX: Did you then continue your definitely peaceful efforts in other fields? You have already touched upon the negotiations in Paris regarding the colonial question. I wonder if you have anything to add to that in this connection?
SCHACHT: I do not remember at the moment how far I had gone at the time, but I think I reported on the negotiations in detail, so I need not repeat.
DR. DIX: George Messersmith, the often-mentioned former Consul General of the United States in Berlin, states in his affidavit Document Number EC-451, Exhibit Number USA-626, to which the Prosecution have referred, that he is of the opinion that the National Socialist regime could not have been in a position to stay in power and build up its war machine if it had not been for your activity. At the end of the case for the Prosecution, the Prosecution present that thesis of Messersmith. Therefore I should like you to make a statement on this subject.