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inevitable, however, in elaborating these interrelations, to bring to
the notice of the Tribunal some of the principles of German financial and tax
law.
In the course of these financial dissertations I shall deal with
the problems related to the financing of German rearmament. It has always been
the practice to revive a prostrate national economy by financial measures. This
can be done from the outside with foreign loans or by injecting financial help
in the form of an emergency program. But as long as the state is able to help
itself, it will prefer to do so. In that case it created its own methods of
finance. I shall prove that the so-called “MEFO drafts” fell into
this category. They are, no doubt, not a desirable kind of finance, but nothing
criminal either. A witness whom I shall call will demonstrate that the
so-called “unemployed” bills of exchange can be regarded as the
predecessors of these MEFO bills. I shall also bring to the official notice of
the Tribunal the documents from the IMT, where this subject has already been
fully ventilated and led to the acquittal of Reich Bank president, Dr. Schacht.
If, however, Dr. Schacht, as the originator of these methods, has been
acquitted by IMT it will hardly be possible to convict the industrialists
charged here for accepting these MEFO drafts.
Following the plea of my
colleague, Dr. Verwerk, I shall bring supplementary arguments concerning the
Germania shipyard. By the submission of affidavits, documents, and a graphic
illustration I shall prove that German naval armament, insofar as it was
executed by the Germania yard, did by no means serve the preparation for an
aggressive war in view of its small scale. Furthermore it will be shown that
neither the Germania yard nor the firm of Krupp were able to determine the
extent of the production. Despite strong protests the Germania yard had to
build what the High Command of the Navy demanded. Neither the Germania Shipyard
nor Krupp, Essen, had any influence on this. The capacity of the yard was
simply requisitioned by the navy and in the structure of a totalitarian state
no possibility existed of evading compulsion. Relative to this I shall briefly
touch on German legislation and prove that by means of the so-called Reich
labor service law alone an individual as well as firms could be compelled to
perform any service deemed necessary by the military authorities.
My
colleague, Dr. Schilf, will give the Tribunal an idea of the foreign
organization of the firm of Krupp. In this connection I shall deal with the
question of exports. In Hitler Germany firms were not free to export as they
saw fit either. The State, without restriction, directed the export trade. The
merchant was no |
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