FUNK: He did a good deal of writing; he treated the problem of the lowering of the rate of interest, for example, in great detail.
DR. SAUTER: Dr. Funk, those were your real or supposed Party offices. Now I turn to your State offices. After the seizure of power—that is, at the end of January 1933—you became press chief under the Reich Government. In March 1933, when the Propaganda Ministry was created, that being a State Ministry, you became State Secretary in this Propaganda Ministry under Minister Goebbels. How did that come about?
FUNK: May I give a short summary of these matters?
DR. SAUTER: One moment...
FUNK: It would go much faster than asking each question separately.
DR. SAUTER: Then I would ask you to consider at the same time the question of why you entered the Propaganda Ministry and were made press chief of the Reich Government, although you were usually always occupied with economic questions.
FUNK: The Reich Marshal has already stated in his testimony; firstly, that he never knew that I had been active in the Party at all before 1933, and secondly, that, as he himself rightly believed, my appointment as press chief of the Reich Government came as a complete surprise. On 29 January 1933 the Führer told me that he had no one among the old Party members who was intimately acquainted with the press and that he, therefore, wanted to ask me to take over the position of press chief, especially as this appointment involved regular reports to the Reich President. The Reich President knew me and, as I may mention again later on, very much liked me. I was often a guest at his home and was on friendly terms with his family.
DR. SAUTER: That is, Hindenburg?
FUNK: Yes, Hindenburg.
These were the reasons which prompted Hitler to make me press chief of the Reich Government. The press chief of the Reich Government was also a ministerial director in the Reich Chancellery, and I did not like the idea of suddenly becoming a civil servant, for I never had any ambitions in that direction. But I accepted the appointment, influenced by the general enthusiasm of that period and in obedience to the Führer’s summons.