[The Tribunal adjourned until 7 May 1946 at 1000 hours.]
ONE HUNDRED
AND TWENTY-THIRD DAY
Tuesday, 7 May 1946
Morning Session
[The Defendant Funk resumed the stand.]
MR. DODD: Witness, you had a conference with Dr. Sauter last night after we recessed Court, did you not, for about an hour?
FUNK: Yes.
MR. DODD: Now we were talking yesterday, when the Tribunal rose, about the gold deposits in the Reichsbank, and I had asked you when you started to do business with the SS, and as I recall, you said you did not do any business with the SS. And then we went along a little further and you did say that the SS did deposit some materials, some property belonging to people in concentration camps. Do I properly understand your testimony to have been, in substance, as I have stated it?
FUNK: No. I said that Herr Puhl—I do not remember in what year—told me one day that a gold deposit had arrived from the SS and he also told me—and he said it somewhat ironically—it would be better that we should not try to ascertain what this deposit was. As I said yesterday, it was impossible in any case to ascertain what was deposited. When something was deposited, the Reichsbank had no right to look into it to see of what it consisted. Only later, when Herr Puhl made another report to me, did I realize that when he used the word “deposit” it was a wrong term; it was not a deposit but it was a delivery of gold. There is of course a great difference. I personally assumed that it concerned a gold deposit, that this gold consisted of gold coins or other foreign currency or small bars of gold or something similar, which had been brought in from the inmates of the concentration camps—everybody in Germany had to hand these things over—and that it was being handed to the Reichsbank, which would use it. Since you mentioned this matter, I remember another fact of which I was not conscious until now. I was asked about it during my interrogation, and during this interrogation I could not say “yes” to it because at that time I did not remember it. I was asked during my interrogation whether I had the agreement of the Reichsführer that the gold which was delivered to the Reichsbank should be utilized by the Reichsbank. I said I did not remember. However, if Herr Puhl makes such a statement under oath, I will not and cannot dispute it. It is evident that if gold were delivered which should come to the Reichsbank, then the Reichsbank had the right to utilize such gold. I certainly never spoke more than twice or at most three times to Herr Puhl about this matter. What these deposits or these deliveries consisted of and what was done with these deliveries, how they were utilized, I do not know. Herr Puhl never informed me about that either.
MR. DODD: Well now, let us see. You were not ordinarily in the habit, in the Reichsbank, of accepting jewels, monocles, spectacles, watches, cigarette cases, pearls, diamonds, gold dentures, were you? You ordinarily accepted that sort of material for deposit in your bank?