But it was the purport of this order that these directives could only be of a subordinate nature, which on the whole applied solely to the sphere of activity of the offices involved. Legislation for more important matters was made either by the Ministerial Council for Defense of the Reich—later only by way of circulating the bill from one minister to the other—or by Führer decrees. As far as I know there were only three, four, or five meetings of this body. Later, the decrees of the Führer were the real, the essential way of issuing laws. They were issued by the Führer personally, and the offices involved were frequently only informed of the same. Therefore the three-man committee is only a fiction.
DR. NELTE: Thank you. I have no further questions.
DR. DIX: Dr. Funk, you spoke of the law for the regulation of national labor and you said that that law was issued under your predecessor. You spoke about “my predecessor.”
FUNK: No, you are wrong; I said “predecessors.”
DR. DIX: Predecessors. Can you tell the Tribunal under which Reich Minister of Economics that was issued?
FUNK: This law was issued under Reich Minister of Economics Dr. Schmitt, as far as I remember. And the subsequent agreement with the German Labor Front probably took place in part under Schacht. I particularly remember the so-called Leipzig Resolutions.
DR. DIX: Then you also mentioned that there was an office subordinate to Schacht as Plenipotentiary for War Economy. You will remember that the witness Vocke denied the existence of such an office of Schacht’s as Plenipotentiary of War Economy, and Schacht did the same thing. Which office did you mean? Describe the office that you mean.
FUNK: It was not an office in the sense in which it might have been interpreted here. It was a committee of experts of the various departments which was led by the representative of the Plenipotentiary for War Economy, who was Schacht, and later by my representative as Plenipotentiary for War Economy. Under Schacht’s term of office it was State Counsellor Wohlthat and in my term of office it was Schacht’s former State Secretary, Posse.
DR. DIX: Certainly. Now is it identical with the working committee which originated on the basis of the old Reich Defense Law and which existed before 1933?
FUNK: I am not familiar with that.