FUNK: My first conversation with Adolf Hitler was very reserved. That was not surprising as I came from a world which was entirely strange to him. I immediately received the impression of an exceptional personality. He grasped all problems with lightning speed and knew how to present them very impressively, with great fluency and highly expressive gestures. He had the habit of then becoming absorbed in the problems, in long monologues, so to speak, in this way lifting the problems to a higher sphere. At that time I explained to him my economic ideas and told him especially that I upheld the idea of private property, which for me was the fundamental tenet of my economic policy and which was inseparable from the concept of the varying potentialities of human beings. He, himself, heartily concurred with me and said that his theory of economics was also based on selectivity, that is, the principle of individual productivity and the creative personality; and he was very glad that I wanted to work on those lines in the Party and to arrange contacts and support for him in the economic field—which I actually did. In the meantime, however, my relations with the Führer became no closer then, because he said to me himself, “I cannot, at present, commit myself to an economic policy; and the views expressed by my economic theorists, such as Herr Gottfried Feder, are not necessarily my own.”
The economic policy section which existed at that time was directed by a Dr. Wagner.
DR. SAUTER: The economic policy section of what? Of the Reich Party Directorate?
FUNK: The economic policy section of the Reich Party Directorate was directed by a certain Dr. Wagner. I was not invited to political talks. A close connection with the Führer—or a closer connection with the Führer—I really had only in the year 1933 and the first half of 1934, when, as press chief of the Reich Government, I reported to him regularly. At that time it once even happened that he suddenly interrupted the press conference, went into the music room with me, and made me play the piano for him.
Then our relations became a little cooler again, and when I became Minister of Economics the Führer kept me more and more at a distance—whether he had special reasons for this, as Lammers testified here, I do not know. During my office as Minister, I was called in by the Führer for consultations perhaps four times—five at the most. But he really did not need me because his economic directives were given to the Reich Marshal, the responsible head of economic affairs, and later, from 1942 on, to Speer, since armament dominated the entire economy; and, as I said, I had close connections with him only in 1933 and in the first half of 1934 until the death of Reich President Von Hindenburg.
DR. SAUTER: Dr. Funk, you have got a long way ahead. We would like to return now to 1931 or 1932, to the time when you entered the Party. When was that?
FUNK: In the summer of 1931.
DR. SAUTER: The summer of 1931. You have already told the Court that you did not object to the Leadership Principle for the reasons you have stated.
FUNK: No, on the contrary, the Leadership Principle was absolutely necessary.
DR. SAUTER: On the contrary, you considered the Leadership Principle necessary for the period of emergency that then obtained. Now, I would be interested in knowing: There were other points of view, of course, also represented in the Party program which worked out unfavorably later on and have, in the course of this Trial, been used extensively against the defendants. I point out one example, for instance, the slogan of “Lebensraum”; you have heard it again and again during this Trial. The Defendant Dr. Schacht dealt with this problem also. Perhaps you can give us briefly your own position on this problem and on this question?