SCHACHT: I knew nothing at all and never heard anything about it. As far as I know, I learned of the annexation of Memel by Germany on my trip to India, which I had already started at that time.
DR. DIX: And since you were in India at that time, you, of course, heard nothing either about the negotiations, et cetera, which preceded the attack on Poland?
SCHACHT: I had no knowledge about that and therefore I also knew nothing of the May meeting of 1939 which has been discussed several times. In the beginning of March I left Berlin and then stayed for some time in Switzerland; at the end of March I set out for India via Genoa, and so I learned nothing at all about the Hacha affair, that is the establishment of the protectorate in Czechoslovakia, nor of Memel, nor of Poland, since I did not return from the trip to India until the beginning of August.
DR. DIX: The invasions of Belgium, Holland, Norway, and Denmark have been taken up here. Did you approve of these measures and actions?
SCHACHT: Under no circumstances.
DR. DIX: Were you ever able to express that disapproval anywhere and how?
SCHACHT: Before the invasion of Belgium I was visited on the order of the Chief of the General Staff, Halder, by the Quartermaster General, the then Colonel, later General Wagner who after the collapse committed suicide. He informed me of the intended invasion of Belgium. I was shocked and I replied at that time, “If you want to commit that insanity too, then you are beyond help.”
THE PRESIDENT: What time?
SCHACHT: Before the march into Belgium. Exactly when it was I could not say. It may have been already in November 1939. It may have been in April 1940. I no longer know exactly when it was.
DR. DIX: Even though you did not approve of that action, Germany was after all engaged in a life and death struggle. Did not that cause you to put your active co-operation at her disposal, since you were still Minister without Portfolio, though you no longer held a special office?