Schacht was opposed to the Treaty of Versailles, says the Prosecution. That he was indeed. The Prosecution does not hold this opposition in itself against him. However, it concludes from this that Schacht wanted to do away with the treaty by force. Schacht favored colonial activity, says the Prosecution. He did so indeed. They do not reproach him for this, either, but conclude from this fact that he wanted to conquer the colonies by force, and so it goes on.
Schacht as President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics co-operated with Hitler, consequently he endorsed Nazi ideology. Schacht was a member of the Reich Defense Council, consequently he was in favor of a war of aggression. Schacht helped to finance rearmament during its first phase until early in 1938, consequently he wanted war. Schacht welcomed the union with Austria, consequently he approved of a policy of violence against that country. Schacht devised the “New Plan” in commercial policy, consequently he wanted to procure raw materials for armament. Schacht was concerned about the possibilities of livelihood for the excess population in central Europe, consequently he wanted to attack and conquer foreign countries and to annihilate foreign peoples. Over and over again Schacht warned the world against an anti-German policy of oppression and the moral defamation of Germany, consequently Schacht threatened war. Because no written evidence has been found that Schacht resigned from his official positions as a result of his antagonism to war, the conclusion is that he resigned from these official positions merely because of his rivalry with Göring.
The list of these false conclusions could be continued ad infinitum. It finds its culmination in the fallacy that Hitler would never have come to power if it had not been for Schacht, that Hitler would never have been able to rearm if Schacht had not helped. But, Gentlemen, this kind of evaluation of evidence would convict an automobile manufacturer because a taxi driver, while drunk, ran over a pedestrian. In his speeches or writings Schacht never advocated violence or even war. It is true that after Versailles he pointed out again and again the dangers which would result from the moral outlawing and economic exclusion of Germany. In this opinion he is in the best international company. It is not necessary for me to cite before this Tribunal the numerous voices, not of Germans, but of members of the victor states, heard soon after the Versailles Treaty and all in the same tone as the warnings of Schacht. Moreover, the correctness of these objections to that treaty will be absolutely valid for all time. At no time did Schacht however recommend, or even declare possible, other ways than those of a peaceful understanding and collaboration. As an avowed economic politician, it was clearer to him than to anybody else that war can never solve anything, not even if it is won. In all of Schacht’s utterances his pacifist attitude was expressed again and again; perhaps the shortest and most striking of them was that statement at the Berlin Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce, when Schacht in the presence of Hitler, Göring, and other exponents of the Government called out to the assembly: “Believe me, my friends, all nations desire to live, not to die!” This pronounced pacifist attitude of Schacht is indeed confirmed by all witnesses and affidavits.
For the few in the world—and I purposely say in the world, not only in Germany—who from the very beginning recognized Hitler and his Government for what they were, it certainly was a cause for anxiety and sorrow, or at the very least puzzling, to see a man like Schacht placing his services and his great professional ability at the disposal of Adolf Hitler after he had come to power. The witness Gisevius also shared this anxiety, as he has testified here. Later on he convinced himself of Schacht’s honorable intentions through the latter’s upright and courageous behavior in 1938 and 1939. In his interrogation Schacht outlined for us the reasons which caused him to act in this manner. I need not and do not wish to repeat them in the interest of saving time. The evidence has not shown anything which would refute the veracity of this presentation by Schacht. On the contrary, I only refer for example to the affidavit of State Secretary Schmid, Exhibit Number 41 of my document book, containing detailed statements on this subject on Page 2, which are in complete agreement with Schacht’s description. A consideration of the remaining testimony and affidavits as a whole leads to the same result. In order to understand the manner in which Schacht acted at that time both directly after the seizure of power as well as after he had recognized Hitler and his disastrous activity, it is absolutely necessary to form a clear picture of Adolf Hitler’s pernicious spell and his system of government. For both are the soil in which Schacht’s actions grew, and by which alone they can be explained. I realize that one could speak about this for days and write volumes about it if one wished to treat the subject exhaustively. However, I also realize that before this Tribunal short references and spotlights will be sufficient in order to gain the Tribunal’s understanding.
The disintegrating collapse of imperial Germany in 1918 presented the German people, who were heterogeneously composed and had never become an organic unit, with a parliamentary democratic form of constitution. I venture to assert that all political thinking which is not directed by selfish motives must strive for democracy, if this is also understood to include the protection of justice, tolerance toward those of different convictions, freedom of thought, and the political development of humanity. These are the highest timeless ideals which, however, in their very constitutional forms actually harbor dangers in themselves. When democracy appeared for the first time on the European continent, reactionary political thinkers like Prince Metternich and the like opposed every democratic impulse, because they saw only the dangers of democracy and not its educative qualities and historical necessity. In pointing to these dangers they were unfortunately right. Perhaps the cleverest nation which ever lived, the Greeks of antiquity, had already pointed out the danger of democracy developing through demagogy to tyranny; and probably all philosophizing political thinkers from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas, and down to the present time, have pointed out the danger of this development. This danger becomes all the greater if democratic freedom in the theoretical constitutional sense does not arise and grow organically, but becomes more or less a chance gift to a nation.
En fait d’histoire il vaut mieux continuer que recommencer, a great French thinker once said. Unfortunately, this has made Germany the latest and, it is to be hoped, the last example of a tyranny of a single despot established by means of a diabolical demagogy. For there is no doubt that the Hitler regime was the despotism of an individual, whose parallel is to be found only in ancient Asia. In order to understand the attitude of any individual toward this Government—not only that of Schacht and of the Germans, but that of any person and any government in the world which has collaborated with Hitler, and on the part of the foreign countries such collaboration based on confidence was much greater toward Hitler than toward any government of the intermediate Reich or of the State of the Weimar Constitution—it is necessary to analyze the personality of this despot, this political Pied Piper, this brilliant demagogue who, as Schacht testified here in his interrogation with understandable agitation, not only deceived him, but also the German people and the whole world. In order to accomplish this deceit, Hitler was forced to bring under the spell of his personality innumerable clever and politically trained individuals besides Schacht, even those outside the German frontiers. He succeeded in doing this even with prominent foreigners, including those in leading political positions. I shall refrain from citing names and quotations to prove this point. The fact is generally known to the Tribunal.
I shall now skip the next lines and continue on Line 10 of the same page. How was this influence of Hitler possible, both in Germany and abroad? Of course, Faust also succumbed to Mephistopheles. In Germany, all the circumstances of the conditions prevailing at that time, which have been described here in the evidence given by Schacht and others, favored this influence. The complete collapse of the parliamentary party system and the resulting necessity, felt already at the time by the existing Government, of having to rule by emergency decrees enacted without parliamentary participation, thus establishing a dictatorship of ministerial bureaucracy as a forerunner of the Hitler dictatorship, produced in nearly every quarter a cry for stronger leadership. The economic crisis and unemployment opened the ears of the masses, as misery always does, to demagogic insinuations. The complete lethargy and inactivity of the center and leftist parties of the time also created among critical and intelligent observers, of whom Schacht assuredly was one, the inward readiness and longing to welcome spirited political “dynamics” and activity. If someone, like the sharp-witted and perspicacious Schacht, already at that time discovered faults and dark sides, he could hope, as Schacht did, by his very active penetration into the Movement or by co-operation with leading State departments quickly and easily to combat these shady aspects, which in any case beset every revolutionary movement. “When the eagle soars, vermin settle on his wings,” replied the late Minister of Justice Gürtner, quoting from Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’s novel Pescara, when I pointed out these shady sides to him after the seizure of power. These considerations are in themselves reasonable and plausible. The fact that they contained a political error even in Schacht’s case does not deprive them of their good faith and honest convictions. However, we ought not to forget that here, during the proceedings, we heard of a message from the American Consul General Messersmith, dating from 1933, in which he joyfully hails the report that decent and sensible people are now joining the Party too, as this gave reason to hope that radicalism would thereby cease. I refer to the relevant document submitted here by the Prosecution, Document Number L-198, report Number 1184 by the American Consul General Messersmith to the Secretary of State in Washington.
“Since the election on March 5th, some of the more important thinking people in various parts of Germany have allied themselves with the National Socialist movement, in the hope of tempering its radicalism by their action within rather than from without the Party.”
But what Messersmith very reasonably says of ordinary Party members of that time, naturally applies also, mutatis mutandis, to the man who offered his co-operation in a leading Government post. The reasons Schacht gave for his decision at the time to accept the post of President of the Reichsbank and later of Reich Minister of Economics are, therefore, thoroughly credible in themselves and have no immoral or criminal implication. Schacht, indeed, has acknowledged his activity. He only lacked the intuition to recognize at the outset the personalities of Hitler and some of his henchmen for what they were. But that is no punishable act; neither does it indicate any criminal intention. This intuition was lacking in most people both within and without the German frontiers. The possession of intuition is a matter of good fortune and a divine gift unfathomable by reason. Every man has his limitations, even the most intelligent. Schacht is certainly very intelligent, but in this case reason prevailed at the cost of intuition. In the last analysis this process can only be fully appreciated when those mysterious forces are taken into account which affect world events, and of which Wallenstein says: “The earth belongs to the evil spirit, not to the good” where he speaks of “the sinister powers of evil which lurk in the bowels of the earth.” Adolf Hitler was a prominent example of these powers of darkness and his influence was all the more nefarious since he lacked the grandeur which accompanies Satan. He remained a half-educated, completely earth-bound bourgeois who also lacked any sense of the law. The Defendant Frank said truly of him that he hated jurists, because the jurist appeared to him as a man of law, as a disturbing factor in the face of his power. Thus he could promise everything to everybody and not keep his promise, for a promise to him meant only a technical instrument of power, and signified no legal or moral obligation.
Neither was the pernicious influence of Himmler and Bormann detected by Schacht at this time, or probably by anybody else. Yet all those crimes that are now covered by the Indictment matured within this very trio, for to Himmler politics were identical with murder, and in his purely biological view he regarded human society as a breeding farm and never as a social and ethical community. A personality like Adolf Hitler, and his effect upon men, even including such intelligent men as Schacht, can only be correctly judged by following the prophetic vision of the poet, as I have already just tried to do, thereby achieving insight otherwise inaccessible to the mind of man. The demon undoubtedly became incarnate in Adolf Hitler to the detriment of Germany and the world, and perhaps I can summarize by quoting—and this is absolutely necessary for an understanding of Schacht’s conduct, as well as that of all those others who deliberately and in all purity of heart offered their services to Hitler—a passage from Goethe, which in a few words sums up and discloses the mystery. Here lies the key to the understanding of all those who flocked to follow Hitler. May I quote from “Poetry and Truth,” Part 4, Book 20, as follows: