Gentlemen, no one in Germany has ever asserted that Funk was one of those fanatical anti-Semites who took part in the pogroms against the Jews or who approved of these proceedings and profited by them; Funk always condemned such actions. This can be explained not only by his natural disposition and the environment in which he grew up, but also by his years of work as a journalist, mainly in connection with that section of the press which dealt with economic policy and consequently kept him in continuous touch with the Jewish circles of importance to economic life. Experts in that field know, and still have respect for, Funk who even at that time showed an attitude that was free of all anti-Semitism, and friendly toward the Jews rather than hostile.
It is tragic to a certain extent that in spite of this the name Funk, of all names, has been repeatedly connected in this Trial with the decree of November 1933, as a result of which the Jews were eliminated from economic life. Whether he liked it or not, all questions concerning the treatment of Jews in the economic life of Germany were under the jurisdiction of his department as Minister for Economics. As an official it was his duty to issue the necessary executive instructions.
This was certainly particularly difficult for Funk, in view of his tolerant attitude. At that time he had already been a civil servant of the Reich Propaganda Ministry and the Ministry for Economics for 8 years, and yet, during all that time, the Prosecution could not cite a single instance of any display of anti-Semitism on Funk’s part or any evidence of his having urged or approved of the use of force, terrorism, or injustice against the Jews. On the contrary, we know from the statements of various witnesses that Funk repeatedly interceded for his Jewish fellow citizens in the course of these years; that he looked after them and tried in their interests to alleviate hardships, to prevent encroachments on their rights, and to spare the lives and careers of human beings, even if they were Jews or political opponents of his own.
It is, therefore, not surprising that this man, with his wide experience in the economic field, this man of far-reaching knowledge, with his frankly tolerant views, was most painfully affected when on 10 November 1938 he had to witness the destruction of Jewish homes and shops in Berlin, and when he received one report after another confirming the fact that Goebbels and his clique, exploiting the indignation of the populace over the assassination of a German by a Jew, were organizing such pogroms throughout Germany, and that these outrages were leading not only to the destruction of Jewish property, but also to the murder of many Jews and to the persecution of many thousands of innocent citizens.
The affidavit of this assistant, Ministerialrat Kallus (Document Book Number Funk-15) of 9 December 1945, and that of Frau Luise Funk of 5 November 1945 (Funk Document Book Number 3), prove clearly that Funk condemned such excesses most severely, that he was incensed to the extent of calling them filthy outrages even when addressing Dr. Goebbels himself, and that he threatened to resign in the event of a repetition. Even at that time he told the mighty Goebbels to his face that one should be ashamed of being a German.
All this, Gentlemen, expressed the justified indignation of a man who for years had made every effort to insure moderation toward Jews and political opponents and had received many a letter of gratitude for so doing—a man who had fought for years to prevent terrorism, to secure for all his fellow citizens the rights to which they were entitled, and to raise the standard of German economic life—and who now saw all his efforts frustrated in a single night by the brutal fanaticism of a Dr. Goebbels.
Funk himself, during his interrogation, gave us a vivid description of how, ever since he entered office as Minister of Economics in February 1938, he had been subjected to continuous pressure by Goebbels and Dr. Ley to eliminate the Jews from the economic life of the country in the same way as they had been eliminated in 1933 from its cultural life.
The witness Dr. Hayler stated here that Himmler also found fault with Funk for this. Funk himself testified to the difficulties which again and again occurred during those years with workers stirred up by propaganda, who were sometimes no longer willing to work under Jewish managers, or did not dare to do so; and how, in these oppressive conditions, numerous Jewish owners sold their businesses—frequently at cut prices—to people who seemed to Funk as the Minister of Economics entirely unfit to acquire or manage such businesses. Funk tried again and again to stem this overwhelming development. He made continual efforts to put a brake on this process of Aryanization; to provide for a reasonable and just settlement for Jewish owners of businesses; and to allow them to emigrate from Germany with their property. But Funk realized more and more clearly every day that he was too weak to stop this movement and that the radical elements around Dr. Goebbels and Dr. Ley were gaining the upper hand, in which they were unfortunately able to rely on Hitler’s authority. Hitler had allowed himself in the course of time to be won over more and more to the policy of radical treatment of the Jewish question by a few irresponsible advisers who are not sitting in the dock today.
The events of 9 November 1938 burst like a bombshell into this fight between Funk and other considerate people on the one side, and Goebbels and Ley on the other. As Dr. Goebbels himself admitted later to Fritzsche, they were aimed directly at the person of the Defendant Funk, who was thus to be confronted with a fait accompli. As the witness Landfried testified, Dr. Goebbels did in fact attain his ends through this operation of November 1938. Goebbels was able to refer later to Hitler’s own order for the Jews to be completely excluded from the economic life of Germany, although Funk, as the minister concerned, repeatedly made allusion to the relations with foreign countries upon which the German Reich and its economy depended.
The orders necessary to carry out this program were given by Göring in his capacity of Delegate for the Four Year Plan, on the direct orders of Hitler. Funk never had any doubt that in this particular affair Göring also was to a certain degree only a puppet, because he had always known Göring to be a man who condemned extreme radicalism in this particular question of the Jews. Funk’s views on this point were shared by wide circles of the German people, and the fateful Göring meeting of 12 November 1938 (Document 1816-PS) proved this to be correct. This document has been mentioned here repeatedly. At a meeting which preceded that of 12 November 1938, Göring sharply condemned the acts of terrorism which had occurred and declared to the Gauleiter present that he would make every Gauleiter personally responsible for acts of violence committed in his district. But what was the good of that?