Читать книгу The Nuremberg Trials: Complete Tribunal Proceedings (V. 11) - nternational Military Tribunal - Страница 11

“...was to all intents and purposes Minister in the Propaganda Ministry...”—And it says further on—and I quote again—“Funk exercised complete control over all means of expression in Germany: press, theater, radio, and music.”

Now, I ask you to comment on that; but you can do so quite briefly because I have already submitted an affidavit by Max Amann to the contrary to which I will refer later.

FUNK: Amann knew the Ministry only from the outside; and, therefore, he had no exact knowledge of its internal affairs. My work was done in the manner I have described. It is completely absurd to assert that under a Minister such as Dr. Goebbels the Ministry could have been led by someone else who was not the Minister.

Dr. Goebbels assumed such exclusive and all-embracing functions in the field of propaganda that he dwarfed everyone else.

DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I have submitted an affidavit by that same former Reichsleiter Amann, dealing with the same subject, in the appendix to the Funk Document Book, under Document Number Funk-14—that will be Exhibit Number 3—and I ask you to take judicial notice of this affidavit. I do not think I have to read it. I administered that affidavit in the presence of and with the co-operation of a member of the Prosecution. The essential part of this affidavit of 17 April 1946 is that Reichsleiter Max Amann also admits that Funk had nothing to do with propaganda as such. That is to say, he did no broadcasting and indulged in no propaganda speeches but was mainly concerned with the organization and administration of the Ministry. Now, Mr. President, I come to the defendant’s position as Reich Minister of Economics.

[Turning to the defendant.] Dr. Funk, you were State Secretary in the Propaganda Ministry until 1937. At the end of November 1937 you became Reich Minister of Economics, after your predecessor, Dr. Schacht, had left that post. Can you tell us with the necessary brevity—of course—how that change took place and why you were called to that post?

FUNK: That took me completely by surprise, too. During a performance at the opera, the Führer, who was present, took me aside in the vestibule during an interval and told me that the differences between Schacht and Göring could no longer be bridged and that he was therefore compelled to dismiss Schacht from his office as Minister of Economics and was asking me to take over the post of Minister of Economics, as he was very well acquainted with my knowledge and experience in the field of economics. He also asked me to contact Reich Marshal Göring who would explain everything else.

That was the only conversation which I had with the Führer on the subject.

DR. SAUTER: And then you spoke to Göring himself? Will you tell us about that?

FUNK: Then I went to the Reich Marshal who told me that he had really only intended to put a state secretary in charge of the Reich Ministry of Economics but that later he decided that the extensive machinery of the Four Year Plan should be merged with the machinery of the Ministry of Economics. However, the minister would have to work in accordance with his directives and in particular the plenipotentiaries for the individual decisive branches of economy would be maintained and would receive their directives directly from the Delegate for the Four Year Plan. In order to proceed with the necessary reorganization, the Reich Marshal himself took over the direction of the Reich Economic Ministry; and in February 1938 he transferred it to me.

DR. SAUTER: So Göring himself was to all intents and purposes the head of the Reich Ministry for Economics for a period of about 3 months.

FUNK: The reorganization was effected under his control. The control of economic policy was in his hands then as well as later.

The main control offices under the Four Year Plan were maintained; for instance, the Foreign Currency Control Office, which gave directives to the Reichsbank; there was the Food Control Office, which gave directives to the Food and Agriculture Ministry; the Allocation of Labor Control Office, which gave directives to the Labor Ministry; and also the plenipotentiaries for the separate branches of economics: coal, iron, chemicals, et cetera, which were under the direct control of the Delegate for the Four Year Plan. Some offices were also transferred in this way to the Ministry of Economics from the Four Year Plan, which continued to function quite independently. They included the Reich Office for Economic Development and Research, which was under the direction of Professor Strauch, and the Reich Office for Soil Research, directed by State Secretary Kempner, mentioned here in connection with Slovakia and Austria.

I tried to restore the independence of these offices. I am still in ignorance of what these offices did. In any case, they thought themselves responsible to the Four Year Plan rather than to the Minister of Economy.

DR. SAUTER: Dr. Funk, the essential point of what you have just said seems to me to be that you received the title of minister but that in reality you were not a minister, but might have had the position of a state secretary and that your so-called Ministry of Economics was completely subordinated to the directives of the Four Year Plan—your Codefendant Göring in other words—and was compelled to follow these directives.

Did I understand it correctly?

FUNK: The latter point is correct. The Reich Marshal has clearly expressed and confirmed that here. But the first statement is not correct because formally, at least, I held the position of minister, which involved a gigantic administrative domain to which the Reich Marshal, of course, could not pay attention. The very purpose of the reorganization was that the Reich Marshal reserved for himself the direction and control of economic policy in the most important and decisive matters and gave me corresponding directives, but the execution of these was naturally in the hands of the Ministry and its organizations. But it is true that the position of minister, in the usual meaning of the term, did not exist. There was, so to speak, a higher ministry. But that has happened to me all my life. I arrived at the threshold, so to speak; but I was never permitted to cross it.

DR. SAUTER: That is not the case as far as this Trial is concerned.

Dr. Funk, the Prosecution asserts that, although you were not really a minister with the usual responsibility and independence of a minister, you, as Dr. Funk, Reich Economic Minister, still exercised supervision over those parts of the German economy which were grouped under war and armaments industry, that is, in particular, raw materials and manufactured materials as well as mining, the iron industry, power stations, handicrafts, finance and credit, foreign trade and foreign currency. I refer you, Dr. Funk, to the statements on Page 22 of the German translation of the trial brief, which I discussed with you several days ago.

FUNK: That is formally correct. But I have already explained how matters really were. I had nothing to do with the armament industry. The armament industry was at first under the High Command of the Armed Forces, under the Chief of the Armament Office, General Thomas, who was a member of Schacht’s conspiracy, of which we have heard here. The Armament Minister Todt, who was appointed in 1940, at once took over from me the entire power economy; and later on I turned over all the civilian production to Armament Minister Speer.

DR. SAUTER: What do you mean by civilian production?

FUNK: Coal, chemicals, consumer, and other goods. The main production branches in that field already mentioned here were, as I said before, under the Delegate for the Four Year Plan. Thus it came about that the Ministry of Economics gradually became a new Ministry of Commerce, which dealt only with the distribution of consumer goods.

DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, perhaps we might let him go on for a few seconds longer; because I would then come in a second to the subject of the Reichsbank President.

THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.

DR. SAUTER: Will you please continue briefly? You stopped. I believe you wanted to say more about manpower, gold, and foreign currency—about the competent authorities there.

FUNK: The Foreign Currency Control Office under the Four Year Plan was the competent authority for that; and the Reichsbank had to act in accordance with its directives—in my time, at least.

DR. SAUTER: And the direction of foreign trade?

FUNK: That was in the hands of the Foreign Office. The Minister for Foreign Affairs obstinately laid claim to that.

DR. SAUTER: And what did the Ministry of Economics do?

FUNK: The Ministry of Economics and the Reichsbank attended to the technical execution in this sphere, that is, the technical execution of clearing agreements, balances, et cetera.

DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I come now to a separate theme. I should like now to discuss his position as President of the Reichsbank. I believe it might be a good moment to adjourn.

THE PRESIDENT: The Court will adjourn.

[The Tribunal adjourned until 6 May 1946 at 1000 hours.]