SCHACHT: At the moment, I do not know which meeting that is, but I did not in any way take part in any meeting in May 1941, as during the entire period when I was Minister without Portfolio, I never took part in any official conference.
DR. DIX: Then you also did not get any information about the conferences which the Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka had in Berlin?
SCHACHT: I did not have the slightest knowledge of the Matsuoka conference except what may perhaps have been said on the radio or in the press.
DR. DIX: Mention has been made in some way that you at one time had made available 200,000 marks for Nazi propaganda purposes in Austria. Is there any truth in this?
SCHACHT: I have not the slightest knowledge of that.
DR. DIX: Now we come to your dismissal as President of the Reichsbank. As you have heard, the Prosecution asserts that you finally brought about your own dismissal in order to evade the financial responsibility. I ask you to reply to that accusation and to tell the Tribunal briefly but exhaustively the reasons and the tactical deliberations leading to your dismissal and that of your assistants. They appear here in the memorandum of the Reichsbank Directorate which has been under consideration several times.
SCHACHT: I should like to divide the question into two parts: The first question is whether I tried to rid myself of my office as President of the Reichsbank. My answer to that question is a most emphatic “yes.” Since the middle of 1938, we in the Reichsbank always considered that if there were no change in policy, we in no event wanted to continue in office, because—and that brings me to the second part of the question—we did not want to assume the responsibility which we were then expected to bear.
For everything which we did previously and for a defensive rearmament in order to achieve equal rights for Germany in international politics, we gladly assumed responsibility, and we assume it before history and this Tribunal. But the responsibility for continuing rearmament which possibly in itself constituted a serious potential danger of war or which would ever aim at war intentionally—that responsibility none of us wanted to assume. Consequently, when it became clear that Hitler was working toward a further increase in rearmament—and I spoke about that yesterday in connection with the conversation of 2 January 1939—when we became aware of that we wrote the memorandum which was openly quoted and is in the hands of this Tribunal as an exhibit. It indicates clearly that we opposed every further increase of state expenditure and would not assume responsibility for it. From that, Hitler gathered that he would in no event be able to use the Reichsbank with its present Directorate and President for any future financial purposes. Therefore, there remained only one alternative; to change the Directorate, because without the Reichsbank he could not go on. And he had to take a second step; he had to change the Reichsbank Law. That is to say, an end had to be put to the independence of the Reichsbank from government decrees. At first he did that in a secret law—we had such things—of 19 or 20 January 1939. That law was published only about 6 months later. That law abolished the independence of the Reichsbank and the President of the Reichsbank became a mere cashier for the credit demands of the Reich, that is to say, of Hitler.
The Reichsbank Directorate did not want to continue along this line of development. Therefore, on 20 January the President of the Reichsbank, the Vice President, and the main financial expert, Reichsbank Director Huelse, were dismissed; three other members of the Directorate of the Reichsbank, Geheimrat Vocke, Director Erhard, and Director Blessing pressed insistently for their resignation from the Reichsbank until it was also granted. Two other members of the Reichsbank Directorate, Director Puhl, whose name has been mentioned here already, and an eighth director, Director Poetschmann, remained in the Directorate even under the new conditions. They were both Party members, the only ones in the Directorate, and therefore they could not easily withdraw.
DR. DIX: That is one accusation which is made by the Prosecution concerning your reasons for writing the memorandum, that is to say, to evade the financial responsibility. The second accusation is that not a word of this memorandum expressly mentions limitation of armaments, but that it essentially treats only matters of currency, technical questions of finance, and economic considerations; and that it was therefore the Dr. Schacht who in his capacity of Bank Director was concerned about the currency, rather than the opponent of rearmament, who made himself heard by this memorandum.