“Funk is responsible for the much-quoted saying that the press must not be a ‘barrel-organ,’ with which he protested against the uniformity”—to use a German word, the one-sided modeling and leveling—“of the press and demanded individuality for it. But he also protected the press from efforts made by various offices to ‘grind their own ax....’ ”
Is that correct?
FUNK: Yes; I probably did write that; and that was my opinion. So far as it lay within my power, I tried to protect the press from standardization and arbitrary treatment, especially at the hands of the government offices.
DR. SAUTER: You have already said, I believe, that you took no part in the political direction of the Propaganda Ministry—I stress, the political direction of the Propaganda Ministry—or in the actual work of propaganda. Is that correct?
FUNK: Yes, that is correct.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I turn now to a new complex. Do you wish to have the recess now, Your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: I think we will go straight on. We are going to adjourn at 12 o’clock.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I come now to your attitude on the question of anti-Semitism. I do so because you are held more or less responsible, along with others, for the excesses committed against the Jews. Will you tell us on what principles your attitude was based?
FUNK: I was never anti-Semitic on the basis of racial principles. At first I thought that the anti-Semitic demands of the Party program were a matter of propaganda. At that time the Jews in many respects held a dominant position in widely different and important fields of German life; and I myself knew many very wise Jews who did not think that it was in the interest of the Jews that they should dominate cultural life, the legal profession, science, and commerce to the extent that they did at the time...
The people showed a tendency toward anti-Semitism at that time.