6
Dec. 45
and
world-changing times and taking part in
the mighty events of these days.
"The
information given to me by Field Marshal
Göring that you, my Führer,
yesterday evening approved in principle
the measures prepared by me for
financing the war and for shaping the
relationship between wages and prices
and for carrying through emergency
sacrifices, made me deeply happy. I
hereby report to you, with all respect,
that I have succeeded by means of
precautions taken during the last few
months in making the Reich Bank
internally so strong and externally so
unassailable that even the most serious
shocks in the international money and
credit market cannot affect us in the
least. In the meantime, I have quite
inconspicuously changed into gold all
the assets of the Reich Bank and of the
whole of the German economy abroad on
which it was possible to lay hands.
Under the proposals I have prepared for
a ruthless elimination of all
consumption which is not of vital
importance and of all public expenditure
and public works which are not of
importance for the war effort, we will
be in a position to cope with all
demands on finance and economy without
any serious shocks. I have considered it
my duty as the general plenipotentiary
for economy, appointed by you, to make
this report and solemn promise to you,
my Führer Heil my Führer"
— signed — "Walter Funk."
That
document is PS-699, and it goes in as GB-49.
It
is difficult in view of that letter to see how
the Defendant Funk can say that he did not know
of the preparations and of the intentions of the
German Government to wage war.
I come
now to the speech which Hitler made on the 22d
of August at Obersalzberg to his
commanders-in-chief. By the end of the third
week of August, preparations were complete. That
speech has already been read to the Tribunal. I
would, perhaps, ask the Tribunal's patience if I
quoted literally half a dozen lines so as to
carry the story on in sequence.
On the
first page of PS-1014, which is already USA-30,
the fourth line:
"Everybody
shall have to make a point of it that we
were determined from the beginning to
fight the Western Powers."
The
second paragraph:
"Destruction
of Poland is in the foreground. The aim
is the elimination of living forces, not
the arrival at a certain line. Even if
war should break out in the West, the
destruction of Poland shall be the
primary objective."
Again,
the famous sentence in the third paragraph: