Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-11/tgmwc-11-102.10
Last-Modified: 2000/01/05

Q. You know, of course, that later on, through a decree,
Himmler was appointed Reichsfuehrer S.S. and Chief of the
German Police in the Ministry of the Interior, do you not?
Do you know who created that designation, "Reichsfuehrer
S.S." and so forth?

                                                  [Page 130]

A. Yes, I had something to do with it at the time. The
proposal of such a title originated apparently with Himmler.
I objected to this title from the very beginning for two
reasons. Two entirely different matters were being lumped
together: the Reichsfuehrer S.S. (which is a Party rank) and
the Police (which is a State concern). On the one side was
the Reichsfuehrer S.S. who had the rank of Reichsleiter in
the Party, which is equivalent to that of a Reich Minister;
on the other side the Chief of Police, who had the position
of a State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior and who
is subordinate to the Minister of the Interior. But Himmler
insisted on this designation, and the Fuehrer considered
that he was right. My objections to this designation were
proved correct by following events, for the Minister of the
Interior's right to issue instructions to the Police now
became extremely problematic, since Reichsfuehrer Himmler,
as far as the police officers were concerned, was at the
same time the S.S. Fuehrer and could give them orders in his
capacity as Reichsfuehrer S.S., and the Ministry of the
Interior could not interfere. It was also a practice of his
that he usually made the other police officials S.S.
leaders. One therefore could never know exactly in what
capacity the person concerned was acting, whether he was
acting as member of the S.S., or as a policeman. And the
question of authority in the Ministry of Interior afterwards
became almost devoid of meaning because Himmler dropped the
last words of the designation "Chief of the German Police in
the Reich Ministry of the Interior" and completely separated
himself from the Ministry of the Interior as far as having
an office in the building and the mode of procedure were
concerned, and no longer felt himself in a subordinate
position. When Minister Frick lodged a complaint about this
with me, which I was supposed to take to the Fuehrer, the
Fuehrer told me: "Tell Herr Frick that he should not
restrict Himmler as Chief of the German Police too much;
with him the police are in good hands. He should allow him
as much free rein as possible!" Thus for all practical
purposes, though not by a special decree, the Minister of
the Interior's authority to give orders was very sharply
limited, if not even suspended.

Q. You have just said that Himmler, on his own, arbitrarily
exercised jurisdiction over police organisations without
bothering about what Frick wanted. But then there was still
another channel for commands issued to the police - orders
given by Hitler himself, Did he give them to Frick as the
competent minister or did he give them to Himmler?

A. Normally the Fuehrer gave these instructions to Himmler.
If he gave instructions to me which concerned the police
matters, then I generally passed them on through the
Minister of the Interior, or at least I informed him about
them.

Q. Do you know anything about whether concentration camps
were included in the budget of the Reich or whether they
were in the budget of the S.S.?

A. As far as I know - but I can't say this for certain - the
money for concentration camps did not appear in the budget
of the Reich. It was rather this way: the Reich Minister of
Finance paid a yearly lump sum to the Party through the
Reich Treasurer, who had to distribute it to the various
Party organisations. The Reichsfuehrer S.S. received a lump
sum from the S.S. with which he probably financed this
matter. I also can't recollect that I ever saw any part of
the Reich Budget in which the concentration camps were
mentioned.

Q. Do you know anything about the fact that Himmler opposed
the Minister of the Interior's right to interfere in this
field, giving as his reason the fact that money for
concentration camps had been provided?

A. No, I don't know anything about that.

Q. I now have some questions referring to another field. Do
you know anything about Hitler's efforts to kill painlessly
persons incurably insane?

A. Yes, this idea occurred to Hitler in the autumn of 1939
for the first time. On that occasion the State Secretary in
the Ministry of the Interior, Dr. Conti, received the order
to investigate this question. He was told to discuss the
legal

                                                  [Page 131]

angle of the matter with me. I spoke against the execution
of any such programme. But since the Fuehrer insisted on it
I suggested that this matter should be given all legal
guarantees and be ruled upon by a law, I also had an
appropriate draft for a law worked out; thereupon State
Secretary Conti was relieved of this task, and in 1940 it
was given over to Reichsleiter Buehler. Reichsleiter Buehler
reported to the Fuehrer, but I wasn't present. Then he came
to see me. I showed him my draft of the law and stated the
objections I had to the matter and he left again. Then I
presented the drafted law to the Fuehrer; he did not approve
of it, but he did not reject it altogether. Later, however,
ignoring me, he gave Reichsleiter Buehler and the medical
attendant, Professor Dr. Brandt, then working with him,
plenary authority to kill incurably insane people. I had
nothing to do with the drafting of this plenary power. As
far as I was concerned, the matter was settled, as the
Fuehrer didn't want me and had given the work to others to
do.

Q. You have just said that the Fuehrer gave the task to
State Secretary Dr. Conti in the Ministry of the Interior.
Did that order from Hitler pass to Conti through Frick?

A. I don't know. State Secretary Conti was called by
telephone by the adjutant's office or by Reichsleiter
Bormann; and whether that went through Frick or not, I don't
know.

Q. Do you know anything at all about whether Frick himself
participated in these measures in some form or other?

A. No, nothing about that is known to me.

Q. Then I have a last group of questions, referring to the
Protectorate in Bohemia and Moravia. When in August, 1943,
Frick was appointed Protector for Bohemia and Moravia, did
the formal authority of the Reich Protector remain the same
as before?

A. No. These powers were deliberately altered and in such a
way that the Protector from then on was to become more or
less a figurehead. The political direction of the
Protectorate was to be transferred to State Minister Frank.
The Reich Protector was merely the German representative in
the Protectorate with very little actual powers. He was to
co-operate in forming the government in the Protectorate.
Furthermore he had the limited, rather small right of
nominating civil servants, which in the main applied to the
medium and lower grade civil servants, and then he had the
right of granting pardons, and in general the State Minister
for Bohemia and Moravia, Frank, was obliged to keep the
Protector informed. In the main these were the rights of the
Protector. Apart from that it was Hitler's wish that the
Protector should not spend too much time in the
Protectorate. In fact I have had to pass this information on
to him several times.

Q. You said that the Protector of Bohemia and Moravia during
Frick's time was the head of the German administration. Was
State Minister Frank under Frick?

A. Yes, he was subordinate, but the relation was rather that
of the head of the State to the head of the Government;
State Minister Frank had political control.

Q. But isn't it right to say that Minister Frank was
directly subordinate to the Fuehrer?

A. I don't believe that was the situation. I don't remember
the decree. He was not directly under him ... I can't say
that for certain now. At any rate the Fuehrer received only
Frank, and not the Reich Protector, for political
discussions.

Q. I have not the decree with me. I shall have to clear that
up later.

Do you know anything about the fact that Frick expressly
demanded this division of authority and that, to start with,
he had refused to accept the position of Protector in
Bohemia and Moravia; and that this division of authority did
not take place until he said that he could not assume outer
responsibility for something which wasn't his inner
responsibility?

A. I have already mentioned the fact that Minister Frick
refused to accept this position, and when this decree
appeared, in which the rights of the Protector

                                                  [Page 132]

were laid down - a decree which wasn't published - Dr. Frick
quite rightly had misgivings, thinking, "As far as the
outside world is concerned, I shall have responsibilities
which don't exist at all." So we published a notice in the
Press. In that it stated that the new Reich Protector would
have only such and such rights, as I previously listed here,
such as the nomination of civil servants, the right to
pardon and the right to co-operate in the forming of a
government in the Protectorate. Thus it was stated to the
outside world that Frick no longer had the full
responsibility which former Reich Protectors, perhaps, had
had.

Q. Did you know anything about the fact that the reason for
this division of responsibility in the Protectorate was that
Hitler didn't think that Frick would be hard enough to
handle matters there?

A. That was obviously the reason, yes.

DR. PANNENBECKER: In that case I have no further questions.

BY DR. SAUTER (counsel for the defendant Funk):

Q. As a supplement to the statements already made by the
witness, I have still a few questions. Dr. Lammers, the
defendant Funk, beginning with the year 1933, was the Press
Chief of the Reich Government. That is known to you?

A. Yes.

Q. You yourself were at that time already in your office,
weren't you?

A. Yes.

Q. Did the defendant Funk in this capacity as Press Chief of
the Reich Government exercise any influence on decisions
made by the Cabinet or on the contents of, bills before the
Cabinet?

A. That question must be answered in the negative. At most
he may have had an influence from the journalistic point of
view, i.e. for an attractive title for a law or some sort of
popular wording, or something like that. But he did not vote
on the contents of the laws. In his position as Press Chief,
he was first ministerial director and then State Secretary;
he had nothing to say about the contents.

Q. Why then was he as Press Chief of the Reich Government
ever invited to attend the meetings of the Cabinet at that
time?

A. Well, because of the reporting to the Press afterwards.

Q. That is to say, only to inform the Press of the
discussions and decisions of the Reich Cabinet - and he had
no influence on decisions or even as to the Bills
themselves?

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. But without having any influence on decisions or the
authority to propose laws?

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. In this capacity as Press Chief of the Government, the
defendant Funk had, as you know, to give reports regularly
on Press matters to the then Reich Chancellor, Hitler. Do
you know when these regular reports made by the Press Chief
of the Government to Hitler ceased?

A. At the latest they ceased one year later. These were
joint conferences. Funk and I, at the beginning, had as many
as three to four meetings a week with the Fuehrer, and this
lasted through the summer of 1933. During the winter the
meetings became fewer, then became more frequent again, and
ceased altogether in 1934, after Hindenburg's death.

Q. Who made these Press reports to Hitler after that?

A. The Press Chief, Dr. Dietrich.

Q. Excluding Dr. Funk?

A. Yes.

Q. Dr. Lammers, the defendant Funk later on became President
of the Reichsbank. Do you know anything about who had to
decide about credits given or to be given to the Reich by
the Reichsbank?

A. That decision was the Fuehrer's. The way it happened in
practice was

                                                  [Page 133]

that the Minister of Finance submitted the application for a
credit. That was done in duplicate. One letter with the
appropriate order was directed to the Reich Minister of
Finance, and the second letter with such an order was
addressed to the President of the Reichsbank.

Q. Dr. Lammers, these technical details don't really
interest us. We are only interested in this: Did Dr. Funk,
as President of the Reichsbank, have any influence on the
question of whether and to what extent the German Reich
could claim credit from the Reichsbank? Only that interests
us.

A. I can answer that only by citing technical details. All I
received were those two documents from the Finance Minister.
It was entirely a matter of having them signed; they were
signed in one second by the Fuehrer and then they were sent
back. I never had an order to negotiate with Herr Funk or
with Herr Schacht or with the Minister of Finance. It was
entirely a matter of having them signed, nothing else.

Q. So that according to your knowledge these instructions
came from Hitler and not the Reichsbank President?

A. The instructions were signed by the Fuehrer.

Q. Dr. Lammers, you have already mentioned once the so-
called "Committee of Three" or "Three-Man Board" which was
formed in the later years. Regarding this "Three-Man Board"
the prosecution maintains that Funk was also a member of
this committee, and that this committee represented, so to
speak, the highest court as far as the legislation of the
Reich Government during the war was concerned.

A. One can't say that at all. I stated already that these
three men, each acting independently, had the right to issue
decrees with the consent of the two others, and that there
were very few and quite insignificant decrees.

Q. You mean decrees of little importance - decrees for his
department?

A. Yes.

Q. Furthermore, Dr. Lammers, the defendant Goering stated
during his examination that the powers which Dr. Funk had as
Plenipotentiary for Economy, I think in 1938, were
transferred for the most part to the Trustee for the Four-
Year Plan; that consequently Dr. Funk's powers, generally
speaking, existed only on paper. I should be very interested
in knowing whether these powers of the Plenipotentiary for
Economy were transferred to the Trustee for the Four-Year
Plan, in other words, Goering, formally, as well as in fact.

A. That was based on an order of the Fuehrer, a special
order issued by the Fuehrer.

Q. When was that, approximately?

A. The Four-Year Plan was created in 1936, and it was
extended in 1940 for another four years. The special powers
which Funk later surrendered to the Four-Year Plan were
based on an agreement between Reich Marshal Goering and
Minister Funk, an arrangement which, as far as I know, had
the Fuehrer's approval.

Q. Dr. Lammers, you have already told the Tribunal that
since 1938, I think, no more meetings of the Cabinet took
place and that, in the end, Hitler even prohibited informal
discussions among ministers. Can you tell us anything as to
whether and, if so, how often, the defendant Dr. Funk had an
opportunity - during the seven years he was minister - to
talk to Hitler, to report to him, and so forth?

A. Well, during the first years, as I have said, as Press
Chief, he reported frequently.

Q. And later as Minister of Economy?

A. Later, as Minister of Economy, he very rarely came to the
Fuehrer. At many conferences he wasn't even consulted, even
conferences at which he ought to have been consulted. Quite
often he complained to me about that. I tried in every way
to do my best to include him in such conferences, but I
didn't always succeed.

Q. Dr. Lammers, I have noticed that minutes have been read
aloud in which it is clearly said, and I think by you, that
the defendant Funk as Minister for

                                                  [Page 134]

Economy had asked you that he be permitted to participate in
this or that important conference, and that you had
expressly stated in that record that the Fuehrer had refused
that, or that the Fuehrer had prohibited it. May I show you
an example? I remember a meeting of 4th January, 1944 -
Document 1292-PS - concerning questions of labour
employment. In those minutes it says - once more said by you
- that Funk's request to be able to participate had been
refused. Can you remember such cases and can you give us the
reasons?

A. Yes, I can remember such cases, but I don't know whether
they were mentioned in the minutes. Probably I informed Herr
Funk that I had made the greatest effort to have him
included in these conferences; the Fuehrer, however, had
refused.

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