English Translation

h -3 - and has had to bring with it delays, has meanwhile been eliminated by the fact that I belong to the protectorate government as the German Minister for Economic Affairs and Labour since January 1942 in addition to the administration of the abbey=lung Wirtschaft und Finanz des Reichsprotektor. I still retained the German nationality. If this results in a large-scale organizational independence of the Protectorate in the economic field, then it must be stressed again and again that the Protectorates are an insoluble part of the German Reich. However, there can only be a uniform economic policy defined by Berlin for the whole Reich. A uniform economic policy, however, does not require absolute centralism in the economic field. On the contrary, the Reichsprotector feels rather, as far as the Bohemian-Mauritian area is concerned, as the helper and executor of this Reidhswirtschaftspoli=tik. He is in a position to make a significant contribution to the economic policy of the whole empire from a very precise knowledge of the particular economic conditions of the Reich= partly "protectorate". In this sense, the Imperial Protector does not perceive the concerns of the Protectorate against the Empire, but, on the basis of his cooperation in the economic policy of the Reich, he alone is able to secure the interests of the Empire in the Bohemian-Moravian region and to ensure the highest performances of the economy of this area. Jch hopes to have clearly made clear how wrong the Prague is, whether Prague has to pursue a special economic policy or intends to pursue it contrary to the view of the Berlin authorities. The overall responsibility that the Reichsprotector bears for the Protectorate must also be expressed towards the "commercial imperial offices". This is also not changed by the reorganization of the management of goods, which has recently been carried out by President Kehrl and myself in Prague in -4-