SCHACHT: I admit it and would like to make a statement.
I have said repeatedly, first, that my foreign friends, as far as I had foreign friends, did not do me a service when they said publicly that I was an adversary of Hitler, because that made my position extremely dangerous. Secondly, I said in that speech I would not do anything which would not be according to my conviction, and that Hitler did everything I suggested to him, that is, that it was his opinion also. If I had said anything to the contrary, that would have been expressed. I was in complete accord with him as long as his policies agreed with mine; afterwards I was not, and left.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I have no more questions, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you wish to re-examine, Dr. Dix?
DR. DIX: I will put only a few questions which arose from the cross-examination.
During the cross-examination, the New Plan was again dealt with without Dr. Schacht’s having had an opportunity of explaining it and of stating what role, if any, that plan had in the economy of rearmament and who was the originator, the responsible originator of the New Plan. Therefore, may I put this question to Dr. Schacht now?
SCHACHT: The New Plan was a logical consequence of the economic development which followed the Treaty of Versailles. I mention again only briefly that by the removal of German property abroad, the entire organization for German foreign trade was taken away and therefore great difficulties arose for German exports.
Without those exports, however, payment of reparations, or such, was out of the question. Nevertheless, all the great powers, particularly those who were competing with Germany on the world market, resorted to raising their tariffs in order to exclude German merchandise from their markets or to make it more difficult for Germany to sell her goods, so that it became more and more of a problem to develop German exports.
When Germany, in spite of this, tried by lower prices, at the cost of lower wages to maintain or to increase her export trade, the other powers resorted to other means to meet German competition. I recall the various devaluations of foreign currencies which were made, again impeding the competition of German products. When even that did not suffice, the system of quotas was invented; that is, the amount of German goods which were imported into a country could not go beyond a certain quota; that was prohibited. Such quotas for German imports were established by Holland, France, and other nations; so here also German export was made increasingly difficult.
All these measures to hinder German export led to the situation that German nationals also could no longer pay even private debts abroad. As you have heard here, for many years I had warned against incurring these debts. I was not listened to. It will be of interest to you to state here briefly that Germany, against my advice, had within five years contracted as large a foreign debt as the United States had throughout the 40 years before the first World War.