"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."

“Funk succeeded me and he could not act individually as I could and did. The Reichsbank could give or deny credit under the rules at its own discretion while I was president of it. The very day I left the Reichsbank, Hitler issued a law which obliged the Reichsbank to give any credit he would ask for. It was under that law that Funk took office. Perhaps in that sense Funk was not responsible, but in another sense, of course, he was responsible because he was a willing tool. If he went so far as to take the post, he was willing to obey.”

“A Reichsbank president who was totally ignorant of what went in and out of the vaults of his bank.”

“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.”

“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.”

“As Minister of Economics, Funk accelerated the pace of rearmament and as Reichsbank president banked for the SS the gold teeth fillings of concentration camp victims, probably the most ghoulish collateral in banking history.”