Top 9 Walther Funk Quotes

German economist, Nazi politician and convicted war criminal (1890-1960)

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Walther Emanuel Funk (August 18, 1890 – May 31, 1960) was a prominent Nazi official. He served as Minister for Economic Affairs in Nazi Germany from 1937 to 1945. Accused of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war-crimes and crimes against humanity, he was sentences to life imprisonment. Funk was held at Spandau Prison along with other senior Nazis. Released in 1957 due to ill health, he died three years later.

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In world history we have other examples of frightful destruction. There was Alexander the Great and all of the destruction he caused. Napoleon, too, would have destroyed all of Europe. But unfortunately, the Nazi government, the government of which I unfortunately partook, had no Talleyrand, but we had a Ribbentrop. Through Talleyrand's policy France was saved from a catastrophe that Ribbentrop would have brought about.

If you follow a certain road for some time, it takes an enormous willpower to leave, although you might recognize that the road was not good. But in my case I believed and was convinced that I was serving and helping the people until the last. However, it is a terrible fate that has befallen me. If I had remained with my writing and my music I would be working now and not a criminal in the Nuremburg prison.

Those Russians. They did worse things when they entered Pomerania than we ever did in Russia.

I am guilty of one thing - that I should have cleared out and not had anything to do with these criminals in the first place. Later it was too late. I was in up to my neck. But as for the atrocities, I had not a thing to do with them, did not know about them. And as for conspiring against peace, that is false, too. And that is my plain line of defense.

I do feel ashamed of having participated to the slightest even as a tool in those dark days. But I was obliged to serve the state to which I had taken an oath. It was a tragic fate.

I can spot a musical type. I can tell by looking at a woman whether she is a contralto or a soprano.

But ignorance of the law is no excuse. A person is guilty even if he breaks the law unknowingly. I shall be perhaps the first of the defendants to get up on that stand and admit that I am at least partly guilty.

Ach! I know. If I were to play the Pathetique or the Moonlight Sonata for the high judges, they would let me off. But my defense unfortunately will not be musical.

At that time I believed in the Führer principle because to me it meant that the best one should be the leader. If the leader is good and responsible, then the government is good.