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Volume VI · Page 674
| MR. LYON: My other question
— that's right, Your Honor — I hoped I could facilitate an answer by
giving the defendant his choice, but it didn't work out that way.
PRESIDING JUDGE SEARS: No. MR. LYON: Defendant, you remember, don't you, that you advocated that in view of the tax situation an effort should be made to prevent the Petscheks from doing anything to dispose of their property. As you put it, you advocate that they should be made to fidget a little longer. You remember that, don't you? DEFENDANT STEINBRINCK: Well, that's something quite different. It's true I said that, and I am still of the opinion today, but that's something quite different; namely, if somebody like Karl Petschek, with whom for 12 months we had taken the initiative and made proposal after proposal, a dozen times, is not graceful enough or doesn't see his way to even give us one single decent answer, and now it becomes evident that at the same time Karl Petschek committed offenses and crimes which in Germany were considered as treason and punished with the death sentence, namely, violations of fiscal and foreign currency regulations on a large scale, a very large scale, and then apparently his conscience tells him something has to be done so he sent an intermediary who submitted a proposal of which Wohlthat said that it was actually grotesque; in other words, it couldn't be taken seriously at all. I don't think that anybody could expect us, after we had made effort after effort a dozen times with the Petscheks, that we should now go and see the man who had committed the offenses — namely, Mr. Karl Petschek — that we should call on the sinner and say to him, "Now, come Karl Petschek, and make your confession." That would have been a very Christian spirit, that's true, but it wouldn't be exactly businesslike, because he was actually a very clearly established tax sinner, tax violator. When now, on 10 February, after he actually made such a ridiculous offer, it became obvious that if we would have gone and said, "Well, Mr. Petschek, how about it?", well, then he would probably have reprimanded us again and sent us home and that would not have been in line with the tactics of a mediator and businessman like Friedrich Flick. 1 mean, one couldn't ask that of Friedrich Flick. After all, this man, this sinner, must now repent and consider things, and he must come and tell us, "This is what we can do. Now I am ready to negotiate, and I would like to talk to you." That's the way he should have done it. |
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| MR. LYON: Now, Defendant, I would like to turn to a new subject. I would like to talk to you about this letter from this |
