The second half of this report dealt with cultural questions. The Defense and I have tried for months to get this second half of the document from the Prosecution, since they had submitted the first half of the document here as evidence. It has not been possible to obtain that second half. I must therefore confine myself to communicating the contents.
I want to say in advance that, of course, I could only bring forward such charges in regard to the mistaken cultural and legal policy of the Party and of Hitler when reasons originating in my own department gave me the excuse to submit these things to Hitler. I stated that very serious harm was being done to my foreign trade policy by the arbitrary and inhuman cultural and legal policy which was being carried out by Hitler. I pointed in particular to the hostile attitude towards the churches and the illegal treatment of the Jews and, furthermore, to the absolute illegality and despotism of the whole Gestapo regime. I remember in that connection that I referred to the British Habeas Corpus Act, which for centuries protected the rights of the individual; and I stated word for word that I considered this Gestapo despotism to be something which would make us despised by the whole world.
Hitler read both parts of this memorandum while still on board the Scharnhorst. As soon as he had read it he called me and tried to calm me down by making statements similar to those which he had already made to me in July 1934, when he told me these were still the transitional symptoms of a revolutionary development and that as time went on this would be set right again and disappear.
The events of July 1934 had taught me a lesson, however, and consequently I was not satisfied with this explanation. A few weeks afterwards, on 18 August 1935, I used the occasion of my visit to the Eastern Fair Königsberg to mention these very things in the speech which I had to make there; and here I gave clear expression to the same objections which I had made to Hitler aboard the Scharnhorst at the beginning of May.
I did not talk only about the Church question, the Jewish question, and the question of despotism; I talked also about the Free Masons; and I shall quote just a few sentences from that speech (Exhibit Number Schacht-25), with the permission of the Tribunal. They are very short. I am speaking about people, and I now quote...
DR. DIX: Just one moment. I want to tell the Tribunal that this is the Königsberg speech, which I submitted to the Tribunal this morning as a document.
SCHACHT: I am talking about people and I now quote:
“...people who under cover of darkness heroically smear window panes, who brand as a traitor every German who trades in a Jewish store, who declare every former Free Mason to be a scoundrel, and who in the fight against priests and ministers who talk politics from the pulpit, cannot themselves distinguish between religion and misuse of the pulpit.”
End of quotation, and then another sentence. I quote:
“In accordance with the present legislation and in accordance with the various declarations made by the Führer’s Deputy, the Reich Minister of the Interior, and the Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (not to mention the Ministry of Economics), Jewish businesses are permitted to carry on their business activities as heretofore.”