Q. So that during such a meeting for the receiving of orders of the Central Planning Board, Koerner was never there?
A. No, he was not there, and he did not know about it either. He didn’t know, therefore, how strongly Hitler interfered in this sphere by giving orders.
Q. But didn’t you always report to him, either you or Speer, in the case of the meetings of Central Planning Board?
A. It might have come as an aside during the meetings; one of us might have said, usually Speer, “Hitler has given this or that order,” but that wasn’t anything very noticeable to Koerner.
Q. Was it only because of the Central Planning Board that Speer went to see Hitler?
A. No, that was one very small portion of all the other discussions, because Hitler was interested, to an extraordinary degree, in army armament, and even right down to the most minute detail. He himself decided, on his own initiative, the thickness of armor on armored fighting vehicles; he decided upon the caliber and type of gun which should be fitted to tanks; he decided the thickness and the caliber of antitank defensive armor; he himself laid down, personally, the supply rate of ammunition for every type of gun. I had an awful lot of difficulty with him over antiaircraft ammunition in that connection, since Hitler would never depart during that time, from anything which he had once laid down. He had changed a great deal from his prewar days.
Q. Witness, it is your opinion that even this first record of the Central Planning Board meeting is inexact and does not correspond with the true discussions which took place?
A. May I state quite basically in connection with this that I hardly ever had my deputy with me when I went to the meetings; he had a lot of other assignments and their meetings went on for several hours. Koerner’s deputy, the representative whom he brought along, always kept the minutes in the sense of observing Koerner’s meaning. Sometimes I did read through these brief minutes, and I might say that I pointed out to Koerner and Speer that facts always seemed altered considerably, but all three of us used to laugh about it, and with a flick of the wrist we used to consider it quite unimportant to have these minutes altered afterwards because all of these minutes appeared of no importance whatsoever. What was important were decisions of the Central Planning Board, and they were taken down most exactly, and they contained to my knowledge only contingencies of raw materials such as we had distributed. * * *
Q. Witness, on this occasion we might touch upon the value or lack of value of the so-called verbatim minutes, now that we have come to this subject, don’t you think? These verbatim minutes, which are very comprehensive, very voluminous, even with reference to one meeting, there was a whole volume it seems. Were they examined?