DR. SAUTER: So Göring himself was to all intents and purposes the head of the Reich Ministry for Economics for a period of about 3 months.
FUNK: The reorganization was effected under his control. The control of economic policy was in his hands then as well as later.
The main control offices under the Four Year Plan were maintained; for instance, the Foreign Currency Control Office, which gave directives to the Reichsbank; there was the Food Control Office, which gave directives to the Food and Agriculture Ministry; the Allocation of Labor Control Office, which gave directives to the Labor Ministry; and also the plenipotentiaries for the separate branches of economics: coal, iron, chemicals, et cetera, which were under the direct control of the Delegate for the Four Year Plan. Some offices were also transferred in this way to the Ministry of Economics from the Four Year Plan, which continued to function quite independently. They included the Reich Office for Economic Development and Research, which was under the direction of Professor Strauch, and the Reich Office for Soil Research, directed by State Secretary Kempner, mentioned here in connection with Slovakia and Austria.
I tried to restore the independence of these offices. I am still in ignorance of what these offices did. In any case, they thought themselves responsible to the Four Year Plan rather than to the Minister of Economy.
DR. SAUTER: Dr. Funk, the essential point of what you have just said seems to me to be that you received the title of minister but that in reality you were not a minister, but might have had the position of a state secretary and that your so-called Ministry of Economics was completely subordinated to the directives of the Four Year Plan—your Codefendant Göring in other words—and was compelled to follow these directives.
Did I understand it correctly?
FUNK: The latter point is correct. The Reich Marshal has clearly expressed and confirmed that here. But the first statement is not correct because formally, at least, I held the position of minister, which involved a gigantic administrative domain to which the Reich Marshal, of course, could not pay attention. The very purpose of the reorganization was that the Reich Marshal reserved for himself the direction and control of economic policy in the most important and decisive matters and gave me corresponding directives, but the execution of these was naturally in the hands of the Ministry and its organizations. But it is true that the position of minister, in the usual meaning of the term, did not exist. There was, so to speak, a higher ministry. But that has happened to me all my life. I arrived at the threshold, so to speak; but I was never permitted to cross it.
DR. SAUTER: That is not the case as far as this Trial is concerned.
Dr. Funk, the Prosecution asserts that, although you were not really a minister with the usual responsibility and independence of a minister, you, as Dr. Funk, Reich Economic Minister, still exercised supervision over those parts of the German economy which were grouped under war and armaments industry, that is, in particular, raw materials and manufactured materials as well as mining, the iron industry, power stations, handicrafts, finance and credit, foreign trade and foreign currency. I refer you, Dr. Funk, to the statements on Page 22 of the German translation of the trial brief, which I discussed with you several days ago.
FUNK: That is formally correct. But I have already explained how matters really were. I had nothing to do with the armament industry. The armament industry was at first under the High Command of the Armed Forces, under the Chief of the Armament Office, General Thomas, who was a member of Schacht’s conspiracy, of which we have heard here. The Armament Minister Todt, who was appointed in 1940, at once took over from me the entire power economy; and later on I turned over all the civilian production to Armament Minister Speer.