DR. FLÄCHSNER: It is still the same speech, Mr. President, which I just mentioned. The decree is mentioned therein.
THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t get what the year was when you began. What was the year?
DR. FLÄCHSNER: The year was 1942, 10 August; and the speech was given in the year 1944. Therefore, he was referring to a decree which had been in force for some time.
Just how important it was to the defendant to have new non-bureaucratic forces in his Ministry is shown in the passage from his speech which I would like to quote now:
“Any institution which has lasted for some period of time and which exceeds a certain size has a tendency to become bureaucratic. Even if, in one of the first large attacks on Berlin, large parts of the current files of the Ministry were burned, and therefore, for some time, we were lucky enough to have unnecessary ballast taken from us, we cannot expect that occurrences of that sort will continuously bring new vigor into our work.”
Herr Speer, so far as the Tribunal wishes, will you please briefly supplement these statements about the tasks of your Ministry from the technical point of view?
SPEER: I shall try to be very brief.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you, Dr. Flächsner, you read us the speech.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: The speech, yes...
THE PRESIDENT: It seems to be very remote to every issue, even as it is, and why you should want to supplement it, I don’t know.