THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, perhaps you can look at that later.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: Certainly, My Lord. I understood that the Tribunal had already approved and that this was just putting in the answer.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that is all.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: Then, My Lord, there is no objection.
THE PRESIDENT: I ought to say that in order to save time, all these documents which we are now dealing with must be taken to be offered in evidence now because some of these defendants' cases have been finally dealt with.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: Yes, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: And they must, therefore, be given the appropriate numbers as exhibits, and defendants' Counsel must see to that. They must give numbers to them and give them in with those to the General Secretary so that the documents will be identified as exhibits on the record.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: My Lord, I appreciate that. I gather that Dr. Steinbauer has just given that the number 114.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, and the same applies to all the other defendants' Counsel, the Counsel for Goering and Ribbentrop and the Counsel for Raeder, and the other defendants because they are dealing with a considerable number of interrogatories and affidavits, all of which ought to have exhibit numbers.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: If Your Lordship pleases.
My Lord, Dr. Siemers just wanted to know that his applications were covered. I think he is quite safe.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Well, then, the only thing that remains is Dr. Fritz's on behalf of the defendant Fritzsche. There are two interrogatories which have not been received, as I understand, from Delmar and Foldscher. These have been allowed--granted--and the answers will be put in when you get them.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: That is the way I understand it, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, the Tribunal will consider all these matters and make the appropriate order upon it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: If Your Lordship pleases.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
DR. KUBUSCHOK (Counsel for defendant von Papen): In the case of Papen there are also a number of interrogatories which have not been received. I have received four interrogatories with the answers in the meantime, but they are still in the Translating Division. Three interrogatories have not yet been received. I ask to be permitted to present them later on.
THE PRESIDENT: They have been granted before, I suppose? Have they been granted?
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Yes, they have been granted before, with the exception of one affidavit which I have also dealt with here but which has not yet been translated and has been in process of translation of some time.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but the application for that interrogatory had been allowed, I suppose?
DR. KUBUSCHOK: That application was announced by me recently, but I was told to have it translated. I have not yet received the translation, however, and I will submit that document, together with the other documents, as soon as I receive it.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. We will adjourn now.
(A recess was taken.)
THE PRESIDENT: Go on, Dr. Dix.
DR. RUDOLF DIX (Counsel for defendant Schacht): Mr. President, gentlemen of the Bench. The singularity of Schacht's case appears graphically from one glance at the defendants' bench and from the history of his inprisonment and defense. Kaltenbrunner and Schacht sit on the defendants' bench. Whatever the powers of the defendant Kaltenbrunner may have been, he was in any case Chief of the Main Reich Security Office. Until those May days of 1945, Schacht was a prisoner of the Main Reich Security Office in various concentration camps. It makes a rarely grotesque picture to see a Jailer-in-chief and a prisoner sharing the same defendants' bench. At the very start of the criminal trial this remarkable picture alone must have given cause for reflection to all those participating in the trial, judges, prosecutors, and defense counsels. Schacht was banished to a concentration camp on the order of Hitler, as has been established here. The charge against him was high treason against the Hitler Regime. The judicial authority, the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof), headed by that hanging judge Freisler, would have convicted him if his imprisonment had not been exchanged for one by the victorious Allied powers. Ever since the summer of 1944 I held the commission to defend Schacht before Adolf Hitler's People's Court; in the summer of 1945 I was asked to conduct his defense before the International Military Tribunal. This, too, is in itself a self-contradictory state of affairs, This too, forces all those participating in the trial to have misgivings, as far as the person of Schacht is concerned. One involuntarily recalls the fate of Seneca; Nero, as a counterpart to Hitler, put Seneca on tri for revolutionary activities. After the death of Nero, Seneca was charged with complicity in the bed government and atrocities of Nero, and thus in a conspira A certain wry humor is not lacking in the fact that Seneca was then declared a pagan saint by early Christianity as early as the Fourth century. Even if Schacht does not indulge in such expectations, this historical precedent nevertheless forces us to remain always conscious of the fact that the sentence to be pronounced by this High Court will also have to defend itself before the judgement seat of history. thorough and careful presentation of evidence. It is a picture with a great deal of background. An opportunity was given to depict, within the range of possibility, these backgrounds also.
Within the range of possibility. But at the same time this means the limitation of such a thoroughgoing investigation through a judicial presentation of evidence which, to be sure, was thorough, but which nevertheless had to brought to an end as soon as possible, according to the reqirements of the Charter. is still enough which has been left to the intuition of the Court. It is not possible and will never be possible to understand Hitler - Germany from a constitutional point of view, according to the scientific conceptions and and views of people with a legal mind. As a scientific theme, the Constitution under Adolf Hitler was a "lucus a non locendo". Understand me well! "The Constitution", which means a legal arrangement made by the Hitler State, and not the final pleading of Jahrreiss to illuminate the tyranny of a despot from some legal point of view. Possible, but difficult and therefore not yet published, would be a scientific sociology of the Third Reich. distributions of power within those circles of people who were apparently or actually called upon to do their share for the formation of a political will. Most of them will be surprised after the unveiling of this picture. How much less possible was it for a foreigner at the time of bringing the indictment, to judge correctly the constitutional, sociological and internal political conditions of Hilter-Germany. But the correct judgement of these things was a prerequisite for an indictment founded correctly from both the factual and the legal point of view. fronted with what was for them an insoluble task. I am furthermore of the opinion that the prosecution would have never presented their criminal charges against the defendants under the head of a conspiracy, if they could have understood the distribution of political power in Hitler-Germany in the way as this is perhaps today for an intelligent observer and listener at this trial who is gifted with political intuition, even if this would be difficult enough. matter, not possible in the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler.
against Adolf Hitler and the regime. As we have ascertained here, several such conspiracies took place. Conspirators act somewhat differently to one other than an assistant acts toward the chief perpetrator. The part to be played by the individual conspirator in the execution of the common plan may vary. Several or even one of the conspirators may hold a leading position within the conspiracy.
At all times however, cooperation is necessary, Usuage of language in itself precludes speaking of a conspiracy if only one commands and all the others are merely executing organs. as crime can never be subsumed according to criminal law as facts in a case of conspiracy. Other legal factors which might come into question are of no interest to me as defense counsel for the defendant SCHACHT, because as an individual person, without connection with deeds of others and consequently only on the basis of his own actions, no criminal charge at all can be brought against SCHACHT. SCHACHT personally wanted the permissible and the best. His actions served this desire. To the extent that he erred from a political point of view, he is just as ready to have history judge his deeds. But even the greatest dynamics of international law cannot penalize political error. If it did this, the profession of the statesman and politician would be quite impossible. World history moves more through mistakes and errors than through correct perceptions. According to Lessing's wise words, the recognition of absolute truth is reserved to God. There remains to man only the endeavor, to find truth as the highest possession. Old Axel Oxenstierna already said, and probably appropriately, nescis mi fill quanta stultitia mundus regitur. Thereby he admitted the erroneous element in certain of his decisions and actions. The prosecution disputes SCHACHT's good faith and imputes to him the dolus of being Adolf Hitler's agent in finances, he deliberately worked for a war of aggression, thereby placing him implicitly under the angle of conspiracy before penal law because of all the deeds of cruelty which were committed by others during this war. Even the Prosecution was not able to produce direct proof for these claims. They tried it first by means of purportedly documentary evidence, in the form of misinterpreted utterances by Schacht, torn from their context. Herein the Prosecution referred to witnesses who could not be made available for examination before this Court because in part they were absent, or in part they had died. I recall the affidavits of Messersmith and Fuller and the diary notes of Dodd. Their inadequate value as evidence was thoroughly set forth to the Tribunal in Schacht's examination by me. In the interest of saving time, I do not wish to repeat what has been said, and it surely must still be within the recollection of the court.
of Schacht's actions as determined beyond reason of doubt. All these arguments by the Prosecution are erroneous conclusions from alleged indices. I am confining myself to enumeration of the most essential false conclusions. The others follow by necessity either directly therefrom or analogous therewith. This he was indeed. This opposition in itself the Prosecution does not hold against him. However, it concludes therefrom that Schacht strove to do away with it by force. The Prosecution says that Schacht favored colonial activity. He did indeed. It does not reproach him because of it but it concludes therefrom that he wanted to conquer the colonies by force, and so it goes on. of Economics, 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 union with Austria, consequently he approved of a policy of violence against that country. Schacht devised the "New Plan " of commercial policy, consequently he wanted to procure raw materials or armament. Schacht was concerned about the possibilities for existence for excess populations 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 defemation of Germany, consequently Schacht threatened war. Because no written evidence has been found for Schacht's withdrawal 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 Goering. one likes. It finds its culmination in the false conclusion: Hitler would never have come to power if it had not been for Schacht; never would Hitler have been able to rearm if Schacht had not helped. But, gentlemen, this kind of evaluation of evidence would condemn an automobile manufacturer because the driver of a car, while drunk, ran over a pedestrian.
In his speeeches or writings Schacht never advocated force or perhaps even war.
It is certain that after Versailles he pointed out again and again the dangers which would result from the moral outlawing and from the 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, beginning soon after the Versailles Treaty, which are in the same tone as the warnings of Schacht. The correctness of this confirmed proof will in any case be valid for all time. At no time did SCHACHT, however recommend other ways or even decklare them possible, than those of a peaceful understanding and collaboration. To him as a pronounced economic politician it was clearer than to any other, that a war can never bring a solution, not even when it is won. In all of SCHACHTS's statements his pacifist attitude was expressed again and again, in the shortest and the most appropriate manner perhaps, in that statement at the Berlin Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce, when SCHACHT? in the presence of HITLER, GOERING and other heads of the Government called out to the assembly : " Believe me, my friends, the nations wish to live and not to die". This pronounced pacifist attitude of SCHACHT is likewise confirmed by all witnesses and affidavits. and not only " in Germany " - who correctly recognized HITLER and his Government from the very beginning, it certainly was an anxiety and a sorrow, at the very least a problem, to see a man like SCHACHT placing his services and his great specialist ability at the disposition 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 letter's belligerent and brave behavior in the years 1938 and 1939. In his interrogation SCHACHT has outlinded t reasons which caused him to act in this manner. I need not, and I do not wish to repeat them in the interests of saving time.
The evidence has not shown anything which would be contrary to the veracity of this presentation by SCHACHT.
To the contrary. I only refer, for example, to the affidavit of secretary- of-State SCHMI. Exhibit No. 41 of my document book, which contains detailed statements on this subject on page 2, which are in complete agreement with SCHACHT's description. Conideration of the remaining testimon of witnesses and affidavits as a whole leads to the same result. In order to understand the manner in which SCHACHT acted at that time as well as directly after the seizure of power, and also later, when he had recognized HITLER and his disastrous effect, it is absolutely cecessary to gain a clear picture regarding the disatrous sorcery of Adolf HITLER and his system of government For both are the soil from which SCHACHT'S actions arose, and by which alone they can be explained. I realize that one could speak about this for days and that volumes could be written about it, should one wish to exhaust the subject. However, I also realize that before this Tribunal short references and spotlights are sufficient in order to gain the appreciation of the Tribunal. The disintergrating collapse of imperial Germany in the year 1918 presented the German people with a parliamentarydemocratic form of Constitution, which was established superficial and which never became part and parcel of the nation. I claim that all unselfishly directed political thinking must strive for democracy, if bay it the protection of justice, tolerance against those of different convictions and liberty, as well as the political shaping of humanity is also understood. These are the highest ideals of all time, which, however in certain constituted forms harbor especial dangers for themselves. If, at the introduction of democracy on the European Continent, reactionary political thinkers like Count Metternich and the like opposed all democratic tendencies, then they did this because they saw only the dangers of democracy and not its characteristics for the advantage of humanity and its necessity at the time. With regard to these danger they were unfortunately right. The cleverest nation, which has perhaps ever lived, the Greeks of Antiquity, had already pointed out the danger of the development of democracy through demagogy to tyranny, and probably all philosophical political thinkers from Aristotele to Thomas Aquinas up to the present time have pointed out the danger of this development.
This danger increases in extent if democratic freedom in the formal state-legislative sense does not grow and become inherent in the nation, but becomes more or less a chance gift to a nation. " In fait d'histoire il vaut mieux continuer que recommencer ", a greet French thinker has said. Unfortunately this has caused Germany to become the latest and it is to be hoped the last example of a tyranny established by means of the devilish demagog of one individual despot. For there is no doubt: The Hitler Government is a despotism of an individual, which can only find comparison in Asia at a time which is far behind us. In order to understand the attitude of every individual toward this Government not only that of SCHACHT, not only that of every German, but generally that of every person or that of each and every government in the world, which has collaborated with HITLER, and such collaboration, based on confidence on the part of the foreign countries was much greater towards HITLER than towards any government of the so-called interim-Reich or of the so-called State of the Weimar Constitution ; it is therefore necessary to analyse the personality of this despot, this political piedpiper, this genial demagogue, who, as SCHACHT here testified in his interrogation with comprehensible exsitement, did not only betray him, but also the German people and the whole world. In order to complete this betrayal, HITLER was forced to draw innumerable clever and politically trained personalities besides SCHACHT, even outside the German frontiers, into the aura of his personality. In this he even succeeded with prominent foreigners, even those in leading political positions. this point. The fact is generally known to the Tribunal. How was this ascendency of Hitler both in Germany and abroad possible ? of course Faust, too, was under the ascendency of Mephiste. In Germany, every circumstance exposed at the examina tion of evidence as to the situation then prevalent in Germany ran counter to this ascendency, and the same applies to Schacht.
The total collapse of the parliamentary party system and the resulting neccessity, then already felt by the existing Government, of having to govern by emergence decrees enacted without parliamentary participation, and thus establishing a dictatorship of the ministerial bureaucracy as a fore runner of the Hitler dictatorship, elecited from nearly every quarter a clamour for a stronger leadership. The economic crisis and employment opened the ears of the masses as misery always does, to demagogic whisper The complete lethargy and inactivity of the existing middle and left parties morever instilled critical and itelligent observers, which Schacht assuredly was, with the moral deedness and yearning to welcome impetuous political "dynamics" and activity. Insofar as one so sharp witted and perspicacious as SCHACHT already discovered faults and dark sides at the outset, he could believe, and SCHACHT did believe, that he could, precisely by active penetration into the movement or by cooperation with leading State departments, which he did combat, quickly and easily these dark sides, attendant upon every revolutionary movement." When the eagle soars, vermin settle upon its wings" replied the late Minister of Justice GUERTNER? quoting from Konrad Ferdinand MEYER's "Fescara"., when I remarked to him about these dark sides, after the seizure of power. These considerations are in themselves reasonable and plausible. The fact that they contained a political error, bearing even upon SCHACHT's person, does not deprive them of their good faith and honest insperation. We do not, however, wish to forget that we have heard here, during the proceedings, 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, as it is hoped thereby that this would do away with radicalism. I refer to the document submitted here by the Prosecution : document No. 1184 L 198, a report by the American Consul General MESSERSMITH to the Secretary of State in Washington "Since the election on March 5th, some of the more important without the Party."
But what MESSERSMITH very reasonably says of ordinary Party members of that time, naturally applies also, with the necessary adjustments, to the man who placed his collaboration in a leading government post at Hitler's service. The motive given by Schacht for his decision at the time to accept the post of President of the Reichsbank and later of Minister of National Economy is therefore intrinsically credible and has no immoral or criminal implication. Schacht has always been an man of action. He only lacked at the outset the intuition to recognize the personalities of Hitler and some of his associates for what they were. But that is no punishable act, neither does it indicate a criminal intention. This intuition has been generally lacking both within and without the German frontiers. Intuition is an attribute of fortune and an irrational gift. Every man has his limitations, even the most intelligent. Schacht is as suredly very intelligent, but with him reason has prevailed to the detriment of intuition. when these mysterious forces are taken into account, which affect universal events and of which Wallenstein says : The earth belongs to the evil Spirit, not to the good " and goes on to speak of the " Towers of Darkness which under cover of darkness, perform evil deads." Adolf Hitler was a prominent example of these powers of darkness and the effects he created were all the worse as he lacked any Satanic grandeur. He remained a half educated, completely material little bourgeois who, moreover, had no sense of justice whatever. Defendant Frank says truly of him that he hated jurists because the jurist appeared to him as a disturbingfactor for his power. Thus, he could promise anything to everybody and not keep his promise because a promise for him meant only a technical instrument of power, not a legal bond.
Neither was the affect of HIMMLER and BORMANN detected by SCHACHT at the time, or indeed by anyone. Nevertheless, all those crimes that are now indicted in this Court, matured within this trio, for, to HIMMLER as well, politics were identical with murder, and his purely biological view of human society presented it to him as a herd of cattle and never as a social and ethical community. A personality like ADOLF HITLER and its effect upon men, including such intelligent men as SCHACHT, can only be correctly judged by following the prophetic vision of the poet, as I have endevoured to do, and penetreating into spheres of knowledge generally closed to the reasoning power of men. The demoniac has undoubtedly been incarnated in Adolf HITLER for the hurt of Germany and the world, and, to sum up, I can, here - and this is necessary for the comprehension of the conduct of SCHACHT as well as of services to HIMMLER - quote a passage from our Goethe, which says everything in few words and discloses the deepest mysteries. Here loes the key to the comprehension of all those followers of HIMMLER. May I quote from "Poetry and Truth" Part 4, Book 20, as follows:
"Although the Demoniac can manifest itself in everything material and immastands in the most wonderful association with man, and constitutes a power disturbing, where not opposed to the world order. For all philosophies and religions have tried, both prosaically and poetically, to solve this riddle and finally to dismiss the matter which they are, in the future, at liberty to do. But the demoniac assumes its most dreadful form when it appears in an overwhelming maesure in a particular person. During my lifetime I have occasion to observe several such persons either closely or from afar. They were not always the best of persons, either spiritually or by their talents, and they were seldom recommanded by their goodness of heart. A tremendous force, however, dominates from them, and they exercise an incredible power over every creature, even over the elements,and who can tell how far such an influence will extend. No coalition of honest forces can prevail against them; it is in vain that the better part of humanity attempts to put them in disrepute as aberrants or as impostors,. Humanity as a whole is attracted by them.
They seldom or never find contemporary equals, and nothing short of the Universe itself, against which they initiated the fight, can prevail against them; and these observations can indeed inspire that curious though terrible phrase:
" Nemo contra Deum, nisi Deus ipse". criminally incriminate SCHACHT in any way, and that it can by no means be concluded from this fact that he had been acquiscent, at the time, to the criminal deeds of HITLER and his regime. Indeed, he did not think them possible. Neither was it a case of dolus eventualis, on the contrary: insofar as the violent character of the regime disturbed him, he believed he could, by his appointment to an important post, contribute to the abolition and prevention of those consequences he disapproved, and promote, in his operative sphere, Germany's honorable and peaceful ascension. of power but had helped him to seize power, no single reproach could be made against him. This latter charge is therefore void as evidence of criminal behaviour or of criminal intention. However, there is no need for this argumentation, since actually SCHACHT did not help HITLER to power. HITLER was in power when SCHACHT began to work for him. in 1932 brought him no loss than 230 mandates. These represented about 40% of the total votes. Such an election result for a party had not been seen for decades. Thus, the immediate political future was established in a Government headed by HITLER' thanks to the very rules of the German democratic constitution and of every democratic constitution. Every other method was fraught with the danger of civil war.
It was natural that Schacht, who at that time honestly believed in Hitler's political mission, did not wish to take this road. It was likewise natural that he should become an active link in the chain when he believed that by his attitude he would be able to prevent harmful radicalism from materializing in the political domain. A wise French statesman says:
"We are faced at some time or other and in some way or other by the task of creating advantages or preventing abuses; for this reason a patriotic man, according to my conception, can and must serve any government set up by his country.
serving Hitler at that time. This opinion may have as erroneous as possible and subsequently it has revealed itself completely false as far as Hitler was concerned. Schacht can in no case be criminally charged for acting as he did at that time, neither indirectly nor circumstantially. We must also not forget that the Hitler of 1933 not only seemed to be different from the Hitler of 1938 or even of 1941, but actually was different. At his interrogation Schacht already referred to the transformation caused by the venom of worship by the masse The transformation of such prsonalities is a psycholigical law.
History reveals this in Nero, Constantine the Great and many others. In the case of Hitler, there exist many unsuspected witnesses for the truth of this fact, unsuspected in this sense that a purpose or an intention to violate the law. to raise terror to a principle and to surprise mankind by a war of aggression, can never be imputed to them. I am going to quote a few of them. I could multiply the quotations a hundred fold. In 1934 Lord ROTHERMERE wrote an article in the Daily Mail, entitled: "Adolf Hitler from close by". I quote only a few sentences: "The most prominent character in the world of to-day is Adolf Hitler"; "Hitler directly belongs to the series of those great leaders of mankind who seldom appear more than once in two or three senturies it is delightful to see that Hitler's speech has considerably brightened his popularity in England".
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Dix, I thought the Tribunal had refused to allow the writings of Lord Rothermere to be used.
Dr. Dix: I ge your pardon.
THE PRESIDENT: I thought the Tribunal had refused to allow the . .. Can you hear me now?
DR. DIX: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: I thought the Tribunal had refused to allow th writings of Lord Rothermere to be put in evidence or used.
DR. DIX: The conclusions of the High Tribunal that I was prevented from using quotations from Lord Rothermere I quite interpreted that way, and I believe the Prosecution quite agrees with me that was a matter of argument and was not to be included as evidence. I am of the opinion today that this is correct, that when it comes to the evaluation of evidence, I may quote from the wealth of literary writings from the entire world in order to support my thought This is not a fact which I would like to submit to the High Tribunal that Lord Rothermere told me such and such in order to support my claim, but every one, not only Schacht, but other prominent people even outside of Germany, says or had the same opinion of Hitler personally.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Dix, the Tribunal has already indicated its refusing to allow this to be used as evidence because it doesn't pay any attention to the opinions expressed by this author. Therefore, we think it would be better if you went on to some other part of your argument.
DR. DIX: Very well. May I ask that the Tribunal turn to a quotation from Sumner Welles, and a passage which to me seems very important from the book written by the last ambassador? I should be grateful if I could quote these two passages. However, I don't know, if one tried to prove that even an intelligent man holds a certain opinion and is entitled to hold it, first of all, the most convincing proof for that is the fact that other intelligent people have the same view. I am losing the main strength of my argument if I am not permitted to quote my next two passages, and I should like to ask that I may read the quotation from Sumner Welles and Henderson.
THE PRESIDENT: I haven't said anything about Sumner Welles. It was only because we had expressly excluded the writings on this subject of Lord Rothermere that we thought it was inappropriate that you should quote him. I don't think we excluded these other books to which you here refer in your speech and therefore we thought you might go on to that.
DR. DIX: I quote from Sumner Welles' book "Time for Decision " published in New York in the year 1944: "Economic circles in each of the Western European democracies and of the New World welcomed Hitlerism." And it is only right, when Great Britain's last ambassador in Berlin, even during the war, states in page 25 of his book: "It would be highly unjust not to recognize that a great number of those who joined Hitler and worked for him and his Nazi regime were honest idealists." Further on he makes the interesting remark: "It is possible Hitler was an idealist himself in the beginning." The Government of Great Britain would never have concluded a naval treaty with Hitler-Germany already in April 1935, and therewith have contributed in a calculated way to a modification of the Versailles Treaty, if she had not had entire confidence in Hitler and his Government. After all the same holds good for all international treaties concluded by Hitler, including the treaty with Russia concluded in August 1939. And it is today deeply affecting when an ethically prominent man as the late British Prime Minister Chamberlain declared in a speech not later than January 1939 -- namely at a time when Schacht had long since been treading the obscure paths of conspiracy, and in spite of the events of the year 1938 -- that he had gained the definite impression from Hitler's previous speech that it was not the speech of a man who was making preparations to plunge Europe into another war.
I do not doubt that these words were not spoken as a matter of tactics but reflected the speaker's true opinion. Such examples could be quoted in great number. Would one, for the years 1933 to 1939, deny a German the right to come to the same opinion about Hitler in good faith? This is also not inconsistent with the fact that Schacht entered office as Minister for Economic Affairs only after 30 June 1934. Only in retrospect can one fully realize the monstrosity of these events. In June 1934 we were still in the midst of a revolutionary movement. History can probably ascertain similar occurrences in each such revolution. I need not prove this individually; neither should I like to do so here for the reasons previously discussed. The events of 30 June were just as little or even less reason for Schacht to turn away from Hitler with disgust, as they were not enough to prevent the governments in the world from not only continuing diplomatic relations with Hitler in fullconfidence, but also rendering him great honors and allowing him to score important successes in foreign policy, especially after 1934. he put himself at the disposal of Hitler's government, it is completely superfluous, indeed it would be of minor importance to intend, by means of long statements, to excuse individual acts such as the petition addressed to the Reich President in 1932 or his letter to Hitler in the same year. For someone who knows life, the explanation for them comes quite naturally out of this fundamental attitude of Schacht. Should this attitude prove to be unobjectionable as far as criminality and the technique of handling evidence is concerned, then no such documents can be adduced against Schacht. All that matters is the principle. The sane holds true for Schacht's participation in the socalled meeting of industrialists. On this subject I should like to remark by way of clarification (see Schnitzler affidavit), that Schacht neither conducted this meeting nor administered these funds exclusively for the National Socialist Party.
of Schacht's attitude towards the seizure and establishment of power: "Schacht has been an untrustworthy and shifty follow, Schacht betrayed the cause of democracy at that time. I (the witness) therefore refused in 1943 to join a government that should overthrow Hitler with Schacht's participation." ment, left his ministerial seat and room on 20 July 1932 when the President of the Police of Berlin, accompanied by two police officers, called on him demanding his removal from office with the assertion that they had been authorized to do so by the Reich President. Severing left the field, as he said himself, to avoid bloodshed. In spite of the great respect which I feel towards Severing's clean political character, I am forced, to my regret, to deny him any right to give a good name to statesmen who, unlike him and his government coalition, would not remain in lethargic passivity. Severing and his political friends do not, indeed, bear responsibility before a Judge but before history for allowing Hitler to seize power, a disproportionately greater responsibility than Hjalmar Schacht, because of their indecision and, finally, their lack of political ideas. This responsibility will be all the greater, as the witness claims to have already recognized tit that time that Hitler's accession to power meant war. Even if one believes him to possess this correct political intuition, his and his political friends' responsibility will be all the greater in view of their passivity then and later, and on the other hand disproportionately greater than that of Hjalmar Schacht. Our German workers, however, are really no mere cowardly than the Dutch. Our hearts rejoiced to hear a witness give evidence here on oath about the manly courage of Dutch workers, who dared to strike under the very bayonets of the invading army. The justifiable adherence of Severing and his political friends to the German working class might perhaps have induced them not to watch the dissolution of the trade unions with such blunt passivity, as was the case in 1933 whom their natural leaders, such as Severing and his colleagues, should have attempted & little and exposed themselves. Finally, the Kapp revolt in 1923 was also overcome by the general strike of the workmen. The Hitler Regime was not so strong in 1933 that the truth of the poet's words addressed to the workers did not need to be feared:
"All wheels stand still when it is your strong arm's will." The National Socialist Government at that time was quite well-informed about this and had corresponding apprehensions. This was demonstrated also by Goering's testimony on 13 October 1945, minutes of which were cited and handed over by Professor Kempner on 16 January 1946. Goering said: "You must Consider that at that tine the activity of the communists was extraordinarily strong and that our new Government as such was not very secure." But even this strong arm just mentioned required a guidance which remained denied to the working class. Men like Severing were called to it.
In all justice, they will have to account for their passivity, not before the judge in a criminal court, but before history. I do not presume to make a final judgement. I restrict myself to revealing this problem and to attributing with complete human respect a strong and painful measure of self-righteousness to the witness Severing if he feels himself called upon to accuse others when examining the question, who, from the view point of history,is guilty of the seizure and strengthening of the power of Nazism; namely, if, in contrast to Schacht, he foresaw intuitively the later evolution of Hitler, instead of submitting himself in humility to the judgement of history with reference to his assuredly decent disposition and pure volition.