English Translation

Copy! National Socialist German Workers' Party Gauleitung iamburg Pa To the main departmental letterer'V in the Reichsministerium Herrn Dr. Kirchfeld BerlinC2 Königstr. 27 My sign: H I a/ G 287/44 Hamburg 13, 11 February 1944 Harvestehuderueg 11 Betr.: Exports from the Protectorate. Dear party comrade Dr. Kirchfeld! Hanseatic export trade has always been concerned with the distribution of protectorate goods in countries outside Germany, mainly overseas, and no change has occurred when the protectorate became German. Rather, the opposite is the case, because the manufacturers in the Protectorate have so far been more capable of supplying than the Reichsdeutsche Industrg I am now informed that the protectorate auditors can only issue export codes for such companies which are located in the protectorates. This measure excludes the German exporter from his domestic export business in protectorate products, since his export orders are more favourable to workers' safety. The export certificates issued so far to the Berlin inspection centres no longer include the occupational safety required for the protectorate industry and have therefore become superfluous in this context. A transitional relief should only have been granted to the extent that orders given by German exporters may only be carried out if they were issued before 1 Decem-ber 1943 and the goods are intended for countries important for foreign trade: - The reason for the new measure is stated that the Protectorate Government is accused of exporting too little of the protectorate economy. Now that the indirect export of the protectorate industry via German exporters in the statistics there is not as an export in the actual sense,