Afternoon Session
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, General Alexandrov.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Mr. President, taking into consideration the Tribunal’s desire, as well as the fact that Mr. Jackson has already questioned Schacht in detail, and having read the minutes of this morning’s session, it has been possible for me to shorten considerably the number of questions in my examination. I have only two to put to Defendant Schacht.
Defendant Schacht, on 21 May 1935 the Reich Government made a decision with regard to the Reich Defense Council. The decision was as follows, citing Point 1:
“It is the will of the Führer and Reich Chancellor that the Plenipotentiary General for War Economy shall take over this responsible directorate (Leitung), and is, as with the Reich War Minister, holder of the executive power, independent and responsible for his own sphere of activity to the Führer and Reich Chancellor.”
Do you admit that you carried through actively this decision of the Reich Government; and that you took an active part in Germany’s economic preparations for aggressive wars?
SCHACHT: No, Mr. Prosecutor, I definitely do not admit that.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: On the 4th of March 1935, in your speech at the Spring Fair in Leipzig, you said the following, citing Exhibit Number USA-627 (Document Number EC-415):
“My so-called foreign friends are doing neither me nor the cause a service, nor a service to themselves, when they try to bring me into conflict with the impossible, so they say, National Socialist economic theories, and present me, so to speak, as the guardian of economic reason. I can assure you that everything I say and do is with the full consent of the Führer, and I shall neither do nor say anything which he has not approved. Therefore, the guardian of economic reason is not I but the Führer.”
Do you confirm this speech you made at the Spring Fair in Leipzig?