MR. DODD: Well, it is not too important. I say, don’t you remember telling these gentlemen, Lieutenant Meltzer, Lieutenant Margolis, don’t you remember making this statement that Himmler wouldn’t talk to you as Vice President of the Bank, but that he would talk to Funk. You were quite upset when we told you that Funk had said that you were the man who originated this.
PUHL: Yes.
MR. DODD: You got terribly upset about it. Don’t you remember that?
PUHL: Yes.
MR. DODD: Finally, this question: Are you serious in saying that you didn’t know about these deposits until you were interrogated in Frankfurt, or what the nature of them was? In view of the Thoms affidavit, this exhibit that I have just shown you, and the whole examination this morning, do you want your testimony to close with the statement that you actually didn’t know what was in these deposits at any time?
PUHL: I saw the statement put before me today, the statement by the treasury official put before me today, for the first time in Frankfurt, and never before. Moreover, I did not and could not, as Vice President, concern myself with the details of this transaction, for I was responsible for general economic and currency policy and for credits and such things. Besides, we had a whole staff of highly qualified officials in our treasury office; and if it had been necessary, they would have had to make a report to the Directorate of the Reichsbank.
MR. DODD: Of course you don’t deny that you knew there were jewels and silver and all these other things in the deposits, do you?
PUHL: The German term “Schmucksachen,” jewelry, was always used.
MR. DODD: All right! Let’s see what you did know was in the deposits? You knew there was jewelry, some jewelry, there. You knew there was some currency. You knew there were coins. You knew there were other articles. Now, the only thing you didn’t know was the dental gold; is that so?
PUHL: That is true, certainly. It was known from the outset, and Herr Pohl had told me, that the greater part of these deposits contained mainly gold, foreign currency, silver coins, and, he added, also “some jewelry.”