HJALMAR SCHACHT - TYPESCRIPT SIGNED - HFSID 1516

HJALMAR SCHACHT
Hjalmar Schacht, Minister of Finance for Nazi Germany, signed this English-language typescript about the charges leveled against him at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg and his fellow defendants.
Typescript signed: "Hjalmar Schacht" in blue ink. 8 pages, 8½x10¾, single-sided sheets. Titled: "The Prisoners". In part: "ON THE TWENTIETH of October, 1945 the Bill of Indictment was handed to me by an American major... From this indictment I learned for the first time of the monstrous frimes committed against humanity, above all against the Jews, by Hitler himself and by his orders... To both charges I could reply with a clear conscience. I knew that innumerable proofs existed that I had neither planned nor pre-pared for war but, on the contrary, had striven to prevent it... Goering had committed blackmail, murder, robbery, theft and numbers of similar crimes. Personally, I have always looked upon Goering as the worst among the accused on account of his decent origin and comfortable circumstances. In contrast to Goering, Streicher appeared to me to be a pathological monomaniac and Kaltenbrunner a callous fanatic. From a human point of view Rudolf Hess always seemed to be a decent character motivated by the best intentions. He never knowingly took part in or consented to any crime...." Schacht resigned as Nazi Minister of Finance in 1937 and president of the Reichsbank in 1939. He held these positions well into Nazi Germany's rearmament and during the Spanish Civil War, which Germany participated in. But he held only his position as Reichsbank president at the start of German foreign aggression, with the annexation of Austria in 1938. Both resignations also came before 1941, the accepted (though debated) beginning for the Final Solution against Jews and other ethnic groups. Interestingly, though, he resigned as Minister of Finance due to Göring's ever-increasing power over the country's economy, which may explain some of his vitriol against Göring. In any case, Schacht was one of the few Nuremberg defendants to gain a full acquittal. Schacht (1877-1970, born in Tinglev, Germany) was Minister of Economics in the Nazi administration of Adolf Hitler. A banker in the early 20th Century, he became special currency commissioner in the Weimar Republic's finance ministry in 1923, where he halted Germany's hyperinflation and stabilized the mark. Schact was appointed president of the Reichsbank later that year, but resigned in 1930 and built up his associations with right-wing groups in Germany. He was reinstated as Reichsbank president and became Minister of Economics in 1934 when Hitler became chancellor in 1933. But Hermann Göring asserted his power over the economy and made his position as minister more and more irrelevant; he resigned in 1937. He was dismissed from the Reichsbank two years later over his opposition to war expenditures. Schacht was imprisoned by the Nazis after the 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler before being captured by the Allies. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg acquitted Schacht of planning and preparing for wars of aggression and of knowingly and willing participating in the Nazis' plans for war; in fact, he was one of the few Nuremberg defendants to be fully acquitted. He went on to found his own bank and do financial consulting. Lightly toned, creased and rippled. Folded twice and unfolded. Otherwise in fine condition.