THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Dix, the Tribunal thinks that this is being given in far too great length.
DR. DIX: Well, we can leave out the individual examples. The late Field Marshal Von Blomberg made a statement to the effect that the Reichsbank received every year from the Reichswehr Ministry a written communication about the state of the armaments. Do you, who were a member of the Directorate, know anything about this communication?
VOCKE: No, I have never heard anything about it.
DR. DIX: From the whole of your experience in the Reichsbank and your experience with Schacht’s attitude to his colleagues, do you consider it possible that Schacht personally received that information, but did not pass it on to any of his colleagues in the Reichsbank Directorate?
VOCKE: It may be, but I consider it highly improbable.
DR. DIX: Now, when did Schacht start to try to stop the financing of armaments and thereby check rearmament; and, if he did try, and if you can affirm it, what were his reasons?
VOCKE: Schacht made the first attempts to limit armaments, I believe, about 1936, when economy was running at top speed and further armament seemed an endless spiral. The Reichsbank was blocked and, I believe, in 1936, Schacht himself started making serious attempts to put an end to armaments.
DR. DIX: And do you know from your own experience what these attempts were?
VOCKE: These attempts continued throughout the following years: First, Schacht tried to influence Hitler and that proved to be in vain. His influence decreased as soon as he made any such attempt. He tried to find allies in the civic ministries, and also among the generals. He also tried to win over Göring, and he thought he had won him over, but it did not work. Schacht then put up a fight and at last he succeeded in stopping the Reichsbank credits for armaments. That was achieved at the beginning of March 1938. But that did not mean that he discontinued his efforts to stop rearmament itself, and he continued to use every means, even sabotage.
In 1938 he issued a loan at a time when he knew that the previous loan had not yet been absorbed—when the banks were still full of it; and he made the amount of the new loan so big that it was doomed to failure. We waited eagerly to see whether our calculations were correct. We were happy when the failure became obvious and Schacht informed Hitler.