dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: As a matter of fact, Raeder and Goering maintained their positions; the Defendant Von Ribbentrop had taken yours; and you were president of the Secret Cabinet Council. Lammers was secretary of the Cabinet, and Goebbels had become more important as Minister of Propaganda. Well now, I would just like you to look and see who the people were that formed the Secret Cabinet Council. Your Lordship will find that on Page 8 of Document Book 12; and it is Page 7 of the German document book. [Turning to the defendants] Now, do you see who they are? There are the Defendant Von Ribbentrop, the Defendant Goering, the Fuehrer's Deputy, Hess, Dr. Goebbels, and the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, Lammers, Von Brauchitsch, Raeder, and Keitel. You are saying, if I understand you, that this Secret Cabinet Council had no real existence at all. Is that your case?
VON NEURATH: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Why were you receiving special funds for getting diplomatic information as president of the Secret Cabinet Council?
VON NEURATH: I did not receive any. I should like to know...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Oh, didn't you?
VON NEURATH: No.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, let us just have a look at this. Would you look at Document 3945-PS? My Lord, it is 129 in Document Book 12a. It will be Exhibit GB-518. If you will look at the letter of the 28th of August 1939 from Lammers to you: "In conformity with your request, I have had the sum of 10,000 Reichsmark, which had been placed at your disposal for special expenses in connection with the obtaining of diplomatic information, handed to Amtsrat Koppen. "I enclose the draft of a certificate showing how the money was used, with the request to send me the certificate after execution, at the latest by the end of the financial year." And if you will turn over to the next page, 131, you will see that at the end of March, which was toward the end of the financial year, you signed a certificate saying: "I have received 10,000 Reichsmark from the Reich Chancellery for special outlays entailed in obtaining diplomatic information." Now, will you tell us why you were getting special expenses for obtaining diplomatic information?
VON NEURATH: Yes, I can tell you that. That is an expression used at the request of Lammers who had the treasury of the Reich Chancellery under him, so that I could meet the expenses of my office; that is, for one typist and for one secretary. And in order to justify this to-I do not know which authority, what this authority is called, to the Finance Ministry-I had no special budget- Herr Lammers asked me to use this expression. That can be seen from a certificate which is also in there.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That is all right. I am going to refer to the other letters. But why was it necessary that the expenses of your one secretary and one typist should not be audited? As it shows on pages... My Lord, the pages are 134 and 135.
VON NEURATH: I just said that...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: On Page 134 you will see there is a letter from you to Lammers: "In my bureau there is a need to incur special expenses, to audit which it does not appear to me advisable." Why wasn't it advisable to audit the expenses of your typist and secretary?
VON NEURATH: I can no longer tell you that just now. But at any rate, I did not use any more money for diplomatic information; but these are merely office expenses which I figured in there. And so at the end of this letter which you have submitted to me there is...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now...
VON NEURATH: Please, let me finish my statement.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Certainly.
VON NEURATH: There is a report here to me, from my-from this secretary, in which he says-no, this is not the letter I thought it was.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, now, if you are finished, I anticipated you might say it was office expenses. Would you look at Document 3958-PS? My Lord, that will be Exhibit GB-519. [Turning to the defendant.] I submit, that shows you your office expenses were carried on the ordinary budget, the letter of 8 April 1942 to you.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that in the book?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, yes; I am so sorry. It is 140. I beg Your Lordship's pardon. [Turning to the defendant.] That is a letter to you which says: "The Reich Minister for Finance has agreed that the budgetary needs announced by you for the financial year 1942 be shown in Special Plan 1. I therefore have no objections to having the necessary expenditure granted-even before the establishment of Special Plan I-within the limits of these amounts, namely: "For personal administrative expenditures, up to 28,500 Reichsmark; for official administrative expenditures, up to 25,500 Reichsmark; total 54,000 Reichsmark." That was providing for your office and personal expenditures during the same period for which you were getting these additional sums. So I am suggesting to you that if these sums of 10,000 marks which you got every now and then were not for office expenditures, I would like you to tell the Tribunal what they really were for.
VON NEURATH: Yes, I would be very pleased if I were also told about this, for I no longer know.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: Well, they are your letters, and you got the money. Can't you tell the Tribunal what you got it for?
VON NEURATH: No, I cannot right now. Perhaps I can tell you afterward.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Possibly it was for obtaining diplomatic information, it says- My Lord, Dr. Von LUDINGHAUSEN makes the point that the letter I put was in 1939. Of course, there were other letters. I have not troubled the Tribunal with each one, but there is another letter in which there is a reference to a payment on the 9th of May 1941, and, of course, another reference to a payment on the 30th of June 1943. My Lord, these are Pages 133 and 134. I am sorry; I did not give the details. Perhaps I ought to have indicated that.
THE PRESIDENT: The letter on Page 137, which may have some bearing, is a letter from the man signed "K"-from the man who made the previous applications?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes. Perhaps would you like to look at that, Defendant? It is Document 3945-PS, a letter of the 14th of July 1943, signed "K": "When I went into the matter of the special funds, the competent people in the Reich Chancellery showed an entirely understanding attitude in this matter and asked for a written application from Your Excellency. When I replied that I did not wish to produce such an application before success was guaranteed, they asked for a little more time for a further exchange of views. After a few days I was told that I could Produce the application without hesitation, upon which I handed over the letter which I had previously withheld. The amount requested has been handed to me today and I have duly entered this sum in my special cashbook as a credit."
VON NEURATH: Yes, but in spite of this... SIR DAVID MAXWELL-;: Well, now does that help you? Can you tell the Tribunal what were the outlays, the special outlays for the obtaining of diplomatic information for which you received this money?
VON NEURATH: I am very sorry; I absolutely cannot-I can no longer recall this matter at all. And the remarkable part is that this letter is dated the 14th of July 1943, when I no longer had any functions whatsoever, when I had left altogether. At this moment, I do not know.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That is very strange, you know. In a further letter, in Document 3958-PS, on 8 January 1943, and in succeeding letters on the 4th of March and the 20th of April, the end of your occupation of the premises of 23 Rheinbabenallee is explained there and when your expenses ceased when you went to live in the country. I was just going to ask you about that-a lithe about that house. If you will just look at the affidavit of Mr. Geist, the American consul... My Lord, that is Document 1759-PS, Exhibit USA-420. [Turning to the defendant.] I referred to this this morning, and the passage that I want you to tell us about is in the middle of a paragraph. My Lord, it is at the foot of Page 11 of the affidavit in the English version.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have the separate document?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes, My Lord, it is at the foot of Page 11. The paragraph begins: "Another instance of the same nature occurred with regard to my landlord..."
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, if Your Lordship goes on another 10 lines, after explaining about his landlord having to give up his house to the SS, he says: "I know that on many occasions where it was thought necessary to increase the pressure, the prospective purchaser or his agent would appear accompanied by a uniformed SA or SS man. I know because I lived in the immediate neighborhood and knew the individuals concerned, that Baron von Neurath, one time Foreign Minister of Germany, got his house from a Jew in this manner. Indeed, he was my next-door neighbor in Dahlem. Von Neurath's house was worth approximately 250,000 dollars." [Turning to the defendant.] Was that 23 Rheinbabenallee?
VON NEURATH: Yes, yes...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Who acquired it for you, so that the president of the nonexistent Secret Cabinet Council could have it as an official residence? Who acquired it?
VON NEURATH: I did not understand that. Who did what?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Who acquired 23 Rheinbabenallee? Who got it?
VON NEURATH: I can tell you about that. In the year 1937, when Hitler was erecting the large buildings for his Reich Chancellery, he told me one day that I would have to move from my apartment, which was situated behind the Foreign Office, because he wanted the garden for his Reich Chancellery, and the house would be torn down. He said that he had given instructions to the Reich Building Administration to find other living quarters for me. The Reich Building Administration offered me various expropriated Jewish residences. But I refused them. But now I had to look for a house myself, and my personal physician, to whom I happened to mention this matter, told me that he knew of a place in Dahlem, that was Number 23 Rheinbabenallee, where he was house physician to the owner. This owner was Lieutenant Colonel Glotz, who was the brother of a close friend of mine. I informed the Reich Building Administration about this and told them that they should get in touch with this gentleman. In the course of the negotiations, which were conducted by the Reich Building Administration, a contract of sale was drawn up for the price quoted by Mr. Geist, and the price was in marks, not in dollars. This sum, at the request of Lieutenant Colonel Glotz, was paid to him in cash, and on his wish I persuaded the Finance Minister to have this money transferred to Switzerland. I might remark that I was still Foreign Minister at the time. Afterward, I remained in this house for the simple reason that I did not find another one, and Herr Von Ribbentrop, my successor, moved into the old Presidential Palace. Then in the year 1943 this house was destroyed. At the moment, therefore, I still cannot explain what these moneys were for and whether they were official payments made by the Reich Treasury. With the best intentions, I cannot tell you. But the statements made by Mr. Geist here are completely wrong as I have just stated. I did not buy or have this house transferred from a Jew, but from the Christian Lieutenant Colonel Glotz.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You tell us that you passed the money on to Switzerland on his account?
VON NEURATH: I? Yes. Because Herr-Herr Glotz went to Switzerland. I believe, indeed, his wife was non-Aryan.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I see. I would just like to put the next sentence and then I will leave this document: "I know too that Alfred Rosenberg, who lived in the same street with me, purloined a house from a Jew in similar fashion." Do you know anything of that?
VON NEURATH: I do not know how Herr Rosenberg acquired his house.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, Defendant, I want you to come now to March of 1938. Perhaps I can take  this shortly if I have understood you correctly. You know that the Prosecution complained about your reply to the British Ambassador with regard to the Anschluss. As I understand you, you are not now suggesting that your reply was accurate; but you are saying that that was the best of your information at the time, is that right?
VON NEURATH: Yes, that is quite correct. It is true. That was an incorrect statement but I just did not know any better; do you see?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You say that you did not hear- that neither Hitler nor Goering told you a word about these ultimatums which were given first of all to Herr Von Schuschnigg and secondly to President Miklas; you were told nothing about that? Is that what you are telling?
VON NEURATH: No, at that time-at that time I knew nothing. I heard about them later.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I am going to leave that. I am not going into that incident in detail-we have been over it several times-in view of the way that the defendant is not contesting the accuracy.
THE PRESIDENT: I should dike to know when he heard of the true facts.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am much obliged. [Turning to the defendant.] When did you hear of the true facts of the Anschluss?
VON NEURATH: I heard the details for the very first time here, when this report of Legation Counsellor Hewel was submitted to me. Prior to this time I probably heard that there had been pressure exerted on Herr Schuschnigg, but nothing else. I actually learned the exact details for the first time here in Nuremberg.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I only want to get it quite clear. You say that between the 11th of March and your coming to Nuremberg, you never heard anything about the threat of marching into Austria, which had been made by the Defendant Goering, or Keppler, or General Muff on his behalf? You never heard anything about that?
VON NEURATH: No, I heard nothing of that sort.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, then I do want to ask you about the assurance that you gave to M. Mastny, the Czechoslovak Minister in Berlin. I would like you to look at Document TC-27 which you will find in Document Book 12, Page 123 of Document Book 12. The passage that I want to ask you about is in the sixth paragraph. After dealing with the conversation with the Defendant Goering about the Czechoslovak mobilization, it goes on: "M. Mastny was in a position to give him definite and binding assurances on this subject"-that is, the Czechoslovak mobilization-"and today"-that is, the 12th of March-"spoke with Baron von Neurath, who, among other things, assured him on behalf of Herr Hitler that Germany still considers herself bound by the German-Czechoslovak Arbitration Convention concluded at Locarno in October 1925." Now, you have told the Tribunal-we have had the evidence of Baroness von Hitter-that the meeting on the 5th of November had this very disturbing effect on you and in fact produced a bad heart attack. One of the matters that was discussed at that meeting was attack, not only on Austria but also on Czechoslovakia, to protect the German flank. Why did you think, on the 12th of March, that Hitler would ever consider himself bound by the German-Czechoslovak Arbitration Treaty which meant that he had to refer any dispute with Czechoslovakia to the Council of the League of Nations or the International Court of Justice? Why on earth did you think that that was even possible, that Hitler would submit a dispute with Czechoslovakia to either of-these bodies?
VON NEURATH: I can tell you that quite exactly. I already testified yesterday that Hitler had me summoned to him on the 11th for reasons that I cannot explain up to this day and told me that the march into Austria was to take place during the night. In reply to my question, or rather to my remark that that would cause great uneasiness in Czechoslovakia, he said that he had no intentions of any kind at this time against Czechoslovakia and that he was-he even hoped that relations with Czechoslovakia would be considerably improved by the invasion or occupation of Austria. From this sentence and from his promise that nothing would happen, I concluded that matters would remain as they were and that, of course, we were still bound to this treaty of 1925. Therefore, I was able to assure M. Mastny of this with an absolutely clear conscience.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you believe a word that Hitler said on the 12th of March? Did you still believe a word that Hitler said on the 12th of March 1938?
VON NEURATH: Yes, still at that time.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I thought Von Fritsch was a friend of yours; wasn't he?
VON NEURATH: Who?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Colonel General Von Fritsch; he was a friend of yours?
VON NEURATH: Yes, indeed.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You did not believe that he had been guilty of homosexuality did you?
VON NEURATH: No, never.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, didn't they-didn't you know that he had been subject in January 1938 to a framed-up charge? ;
THE PRESIDENT: Will you please answer instead of shaking your head.
VON NEURATH: Yes, I knew that, of course; and I learned of it and the fact that this charge was a fabrication of the Gestapo but not of Hitler, at least in my opinion.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, didn't you know that those-these unsavory matters concerning Field Marshal Von Blomberg and Colonel General Von Fritsch had been faked up by members of the Nazi gang, who were your colleagues in the Government?
VON NEURATH: Yes. The details were unknown to me, of course.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You see, you remember that at the time of Munich, when you came back to the field-came back into activity for some time, President Benes did appeal to this German-Czechoslovak Arbitration Convention and Hitler brushed the appeal to one side. Do you remember that? In September 1938?
VON NEURATH: No; that, I do not know, for at that time I was not in office any longer and I did not get to see these matters at all. I do not know about that.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, you don't know; of course, it was in the German press and every other press that he appealed to this treaty and Hitler refused to look at it; but you say that you honestly believed on the 12th of March that Hitler would stand by that Arbitration Treaty; that's what you said?
VON NEURATH: Yes, I had no misgivings.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, that might be a convenient moment to break off. [A recess was taken.]
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Defendant, you spoke yesterday with regard to the memorandum of Lieutenant General Friderici. Do you remember in that memorandum he referred to a memorandum of yours on how to deal with Czechoslovakia? Well, now, I would like you just to look at Document 3859-PS, so that the Tribunal can see your attitude toward the Czechs from your own words. My Lord, that is at Page 107 of Document Book 12a. [Turning to the defendant.] I will read first your letter to Lammers of the 31st of August 1940. My Lord, that will be Exhibit GB-520. [Turning to the defendant.] You say: "Dear Herr Lammers: Enclosed I send you the memorandum which I mentioned in advance in my letter of 13 July 1940 . . . about the question of the future organization of the Bohemian-Moravian country. I enclose another memorandum on the same question, which my Secretary of State K. H. Frank has drawn up independently of me and which, in its train of thoughts, leads to the same result"-I ask you to note the next words-"and with which I fully agree. Please present both memoranda to the Fuehrer and arrange a date for a personal interview for myself and State Secretary Frank. As I have heard from a private source that individual Party and other offices intend to submit proposals to the Fuehrer for separating various parts of the Protectorate under my authority, without my knowing these projects in detail, I should be grateful to you. if you would arrange the date for my interview early enough for me, as the competent Reich Protector and one who understands the Czech problem, to have an opportunity, together with my State Secretary, to place our opinions before the Fuehrer before all sorts of plans are suggested to him by other people." Now, I would just dike to take what I hope will be the gist of your own memorandum.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If you will turn it over-this is your memorandum-take the first paragraph, Section I: "Any considerations about the future organization of Bohemia and Moravia must be based on the goal which is to be laid down for that territory from a state-political (staatspolitisch) and ethnic-political (volkspolitisch) point of view. "From a state-political standpoint there can be but one aim: total incorporation into the Greater German Reich; from an ethnic-political standpoint to fill this territory with Germans." And then you say that you point the path; and if you go on to Section II, in the middle of Paragraph 2, you will find a subparagraph beginning- My Lord, it is the top of Page 109, Your Lordship's copy: "These 7.2 million Czechs, of whom 3.4 millions live in towns and communities of under 2,000 and in the country, are led and influenced by an intelligentsia which is unduly puffed up in proportion to the size of the country. This part of the population also tried, after the alteration of the constitutional situation of this area, more or less openly to sabotage or at any rate postpone necessary measures which were intended to fit the circumstances of the country to the new state of affairs. The remainder of the population, that is small craftsmen, peasants, and workmen, adapted themselves better to the new conditions." Then, if you go on to Paragraph 3, you say: "But it would be a fatal mistake to conclude from this that the Government and population behaved in this correct manner because they had inwardly accepted the loss of their independent state, and incorporation into Greater Germany. The Germans continue to be looked upon as unwelcome intruders and there is a widespread longing for a return to the old state of affairs, even if the people do not express it openly. "By and large, the population submit to the new conditions but they do so only because they either have the necessary rational insight or else because they fear the consequences of disobedience. They certainly do not do so from conviction.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: This will be the state of affairs for some time to come. "But"-go on to Section III-"as things are like that, a decision will have to be taken as to what is to be done with the Czech people in order to attain the objective of incorporating the country and filling it with Germans as quickly as possible and as thoroughly as possible. "The most radical and theoretically complete solution to the problem would be to evacuate all Czechs completely from this country and replace them by Germans." Then you say that that is not possible because there are not sufficient Germans to fill it immediately. Then, if you go on to Paragraph 2, to the second half, you say- My Lord, that is the last six lines of Page 110: "It will, where the Czechs are concerned, rather be a case on the one hand of keeping those Czechs who are suitable for Germanization by individual selective breeding, while on the other hand of expelling those who are not useful from a racial standpoint or are enemies of the Reich, that is, the intelligentsia which has developed in the last 20 years. If we use such a procedure, Germanization can be carried out successfully." Now, Defendant, you know that in the Indictment in this Trial we are charging you and your fellow defendants, among many other things, with genocide, which we say is the extermination of racial and national groups, or, as it has been put in the well-known book of Professor Lemkin, "a co-ordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." What you wanted to do was to get rid of the teachers and writers and singers of Czechoslovakia, whom you call the intelligentsia, the people who would hand down the history and traditions of the Czech people to other generations. These were the people that you wanted to destroy by what you say in that memorandum, were they not?