Now we come to the memorandum which you have already mentioned. I want you to describe to the Tribunal the reasons which caused the Reichsbank Directorate, with Schacht at the head, to submit that memorandum to Hitler, and what the tactical purposes were which the Directorate, and therefore Schacht, hoped to achieve by that memorandum.
VOCKE: If we had been able to speak frankly, of course, we would have said: You must stop armaments. But the Reichsbank itself could not do this. Instead, we had to limit ourselves to the question of our responsibility for the currency. Therefore, the Reichsbank memorandum dealt with the question of currency. It said: If the financing of armaments is continued, German currency will be ruined and there will be inflation in Germany.
The memorandum also spoke of limitless credits, of unrestrained expansion of credits, and unrestrained expenditure. By expenditure we meant armaments. That was quite clear.
THE PRESIDENT: We have all seen the memorandum, have we not?
DR. DIX: He is not speaking about the contents of the memorandum, but of the reasons, the tactical reasons.
[Turning to the witness.] You understand, Herr Vocke, the Tribunal knows the text of the memorandum, so please confine yourself to what I have asked you.
VOCKE: The memorandum had to deal with the question of currency, but at the same time, we made quite clear what we wanted: Limitation of foreign policy. That shows clearly what we wanted: Limitation of expenditure, limitation of foreign policy, of foreign policy aims. We pointed out that expenditure had reached a point beyond which we could not go, and that a stop must be put to it. In other words, the expenditure policy, that is the armaments program must be checked.
DR. DIX: Now tell us, did you anticipate the effect that that memorandum would have on Hitler? What did you expect, tactically?
VOCKE: Either the memorandum would result in a halt of this intolerable expenditure which had brought us to ruin—for at the end of 1938 there was no more money available, instead there was a cash deficit of nearly 1,000 million. That had to be faced, and the Minister of Finance was on our side. If this was not recognized, then the smash would come and we would have to be released. There was no other alternative. We took the unusual step of getting the whole Directorate to sign this document.
DR. DIX: That, in my experience, is quite unusual, because generally an official document of the Reichsbank is signed by the President or his deputy, is it not?