VOCKE: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And it was not until Hitler refused to see him at Berchtesgaden that he finally sent him the memorandum?
VOCKE: That I do not know. I have heard here for the first time that Hitler refused to receive Schacht at Berchtesgaden. It may be. I only heard that Schacht was at Berchtesgaden, and after his return, according to my recollection, he talked about his meeting with Hitler and that now the moment had come to send him the memorandum.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, your memorandum is the only source of my information, and according to my translation it says: “Finally, in December 1938, he resolved to sign it after a last attempt to speak with Hitler in Berchtesgaden.”
VOCKE: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: At that time, there was something of a financial crisis.
VOCKE: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Considerable difficulty, inflation was just around the corner, as you might say.
VOCKE: The Government was confronted with the 3,000 million mefo bills which were about to fall due and which had to be covered, and the Minister of Finance had a cash deficit of 1,000 million. The Minister of Finance came to see us and asked us to tide it over, because otherwise he could not pay the salaries on 1 January. We refused. We did not give him a single pfennig. We told him that the best thing that could happen would be that bankruptcy should become manifest in order to show how impossible it was to continue this system and this policy. He then received money from private banks.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And you and Huelse, particularly Huelse, had long warned against this course of the Reichsbank, is that not true?