MR. DODD: Well, I ask you to be handed Document Number EC-255.
[The document was handed to the defendant.] Mr. President, this becomes Exhibit USA-839.
[Turning to the defendant.] Now, in this letter from Von Blomberg, I am only concerned now with the last sentence, really. You will notice that Von Blomberg, in this letter, refers to the fact that Schacht had been appointed, but the last sentence says, or in the next to the last paragraph he first urges that you be appointed immediately, and that is underlined in his letter; and in the last paragraph he says:
“The urgency of unified further work on all preparations for the conduct of the war does not admit of this office being paralyzed until 15 January 1938.”
This letter, by the way, was written on 29 November 1937. Certainly Von Blomberg thought that the job that he was suggesting you for would have some very great effect upon the conduct of the war, did he not?
FUNK: That may be, but in the first place, I do not know about that letter and, secondly, I was not immediately appointed Plenipotentiary for Economy but only in the course of 1938. Quite some time after I had been appointed Minister for Economics I asked Lammers why my appointment as Plenipotentiary for Economy had taken so long; he replied that my relationship to the Delegate for the Four Year Plan had to be cleared up first. That was the reason why several months passed before I became Plenipotentiary for Economy, because it had to be ascertained that Göring had the decisive authority for war economy...
MR. DODD: You really do not need to go into all that.
FUNK: I do not know about that letter, and I have never spoken to Von Blomberg about the affair.
MR. DODD: All right. You do recall perhaps that the OKW, after you were appointed, made some objection about the amount of authority that you had. Do you remember that?
FUNK: No.