MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: When you were asked about the compulsory mobilization of foreign workers you were also asked if you knew about it and if you had ever protested against it. Is that correct? You replied, “No, why should I be the one to protest against it?”
FUNK: That is not correct. I protested against the compulsory recruitment of workers and against so many workers having been taken out of occupied territory that the local economy could no longer produce. That is not correct.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: I have one last question to ask you. Do you remember an article published in the newspaper Das Reich, dated 18 August 1940, in connection with your 50th birthday? This article is entitled, “Walter Funk, Pioneer of National Socialist Economic Thought.” I shall read into the record a few excerpts from this article:
“From 1931 on, Walter Funk, as personal economic adviser and Plenipotentiary of the Führer for Economics, and therefore the untiring middleman between the Party and German economy, was the man who paved the way to the new spiritual outlook of the German industrialists.
“If in the outbreak of 1933 the differences which had existed for more than a decade in the public life of Germany between politics and economy, and especially between politics and the industrialists, disappeared overnight, if from the outset, the guiding rule of all labor has been an ever-increasing contribution towards a common end, this is due to the pioneering work of Funk, who since 1939 has directed his speeches and his writings to that end.”
And in the last paragraph of this article:
“Walter Funk remained true to himself because he was, and is, and will remain a National Socialist, a fighter who dedicates all his work to the idealistic aims of the Führer.”
The whole world knows what the ideals of the Führer were.
Do you admit that this article gives a correct appreciation of your personality and your activities?
FUNK: Generally, yes.