dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
VON NEURATH: Yes. It has been explained here that it was the special wish of President Von Hindenburg that I should remain in the Government.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: In order to keep Hitler's Government peace-loving and respectable. Is that a fair way of putting it?
VON NEURATH: Yes, so as to prevent Hitler's revolutionary movement in general from exercising their methods too much within the Government, too.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And, Defendant, you have told us that up to this time you had been a diplomatist. When you became a Minister, did you not think that you had some responsibility for keeping the Government respectable and peace-loving as a Minister of the Reich?
VON NEURATH: To be sure, but the question was only how far it was in my power to accomplish this.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I don't want to go into the workings of your mind too much, I just want to get this clear. You realized that as a Foreign Minister, and as a well-known figure to all the Chancelleries of Europe, that your presence in the Government would be taken throughout Europe as a sign of your approval and your responsibility for what the Government did, did you not?
VON NEURATH: I doubt that very much. Perhaps one might have hoped so.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, just let's consider it. Is it your case that up to November of 1937 you were perfectly satisfied with the peace-loving intentions and respectability of the Government?
VON NEURATH: I was convinced of the peaceful intentions of the Government. I have already stated that. Whether I was satisfied with the methods...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What about respectability? By ' respectability" I mean the general standard of decency that is required by any government, under which its people are going to be reasonably happy and contented. Were you satisfied with that?
VON NEURATH: I was by no means in agreement with the methods, above all in connection with the domestic policy.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, I would just like to look at that for a moment. Did you know about the "Brown Terror" in March of 1933, some 6 weeks after the Government was formed?
VON NEURATH: I only knew of the boycott against the Jews, nothing else.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Do you remember the affidavit that has been put in evidence here, made by the American Consul, Mr. Geist, Document 1759-PS, Exhibit USA-420?
VON NEURATH: May I see it?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, just let me remind you. It is a long affidavit, and there are only one or two parts I want to put to you. Mr. Geist gives detailed particulars of the bad treatment, the beating, and assaulting, and insulting, and so on, of Jews as early as March 1933. Did you know about that?
VON NEURATH: I know of these occurrences; I do not know this affidavit, I have not seen it, but I do know about the occurrences from complaints made by foreign diplomatic representatives. And according to them-and as concerns my attitude to these events-I repeatedly applied to Hitler and urgently implored him to have them stopped. But I do not know anything more about the details.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Just leaving that affidavit for 1 he moment, as Foreign Minister, you would receive-you did receive, did you not, a synopsis or account of what was appearing in the foreign press?
VON NEURATH: Yes, that I did but whether I received all of those things I do not know.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Just let me take an example. You had been Ambassador at the Court of St. James from 1930 to 1932, if my recollection is right; had you not?
VON NEURATH: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And you realized-whether you agreed with what was in them or not-the London Times and the Manchester Guardian were newspapers that had a great deal of influence in England, didn't you?
VON NEURATH: Yes, yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you know that in April 1933 both these newspapers were full of the most terrible stories of the ill-treatment of Jews, Social Democrats, and Communists in Germany?
VON NEURATH: Yes, that is quite possible. I cannot remember it any more now; but those were certainly the very cases which I brought up before Hitler, drawing his attention to the effect that this was having abroad.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, I just want to consider the extent which these papers were alleging. As early as the 12th of April 1933 the Manchester Guardian was saying: "The inquirer, by digging only an inch below the surface, which to the casual observer may seem tranquil enough, will, in city after city, village after village, discover such an abundance of barbarism committed by the Brown Shirts that modern analogies fail..."-describing them as an instrument-'. . . of a Terror that although wanton is systematic- wanton in the sense that unlike a revolutionary Terror it is imposed by no outward necessity, and systematic in the sense that it is an organic part of the Hitlerite regime." Did you know that this and quotations like these were appearing in responsible British papers? My Lord, that is D-911, which is the collection of extracts and with Mr. Wurm's affidavit, will be Exhibit GB-512. · [Turning to the defendant.] Did you know that was the line the was being taken, that it was systematic in the sense of being an organic part of the Hitler regime?
VON NEURATH: No, in that sense certainly not.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you know that the British paper, the Manchester Guardian, was quoting, " . . . an eminent German conservative, who is in close touch with the Nationalist members of the German Government, and certainly more sympathetic to the Right than to the Left..." has given the number of victims as 20,000-as many as 20,000 in April? Did you know that the figure was being put that high? VON NEURATH No, and I do not believe it, either.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, let us see what the German press was saying. On the 24th of April 1933 the Times was quoting the Hamburger Fremdenblatt which, in turn, was invoking official sources and stating that there were 18,000 Communists in prison in the Reich and that the 10,000 prisoners in Prussia included many social intellectuals and others. Would the Hamburger Fremdenblatt, which had a very long career as a newspaper, if it misquoted official sources under your Government in April 1933 I have misrepresented the position? It would not, would it?
VON NEURATH: That I do not know, but I do know that a lot of trouble is always being stirred up by means of figures.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But Defendant, Nemesis a figure quoted, as far as I know, by a responsible Hamburg paper, as an official figure, requoted by the London Times, which is the principal paper in England. Wasn't that sufficiently serious for you to bring it up in the Cabinet?
VON NEURATH: I am very sorry, but with all respect to the papers-and even the London papers-they do not always tell the truth.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No. That is a perfectly reasonable comment. Newspapers, like everyone else, are misinformed. But when you had a widespread account of terrible conditions giving large numbers, did you not, as one of the respectable elements in this Government, think that it was worthy of bringing it up in Cabinet and finding out whether it was true or not?
VON NEURATH: How do you know that I did not do that?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That is what I am asking. Did you bring it up, and what was the result when you did?
VON NEURATH: I have already told you before that I always remonstrated about these incidents, with Hitler-not in the Cabinet, but with Hitler.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That is not what I asked you. You see, Defendant, what I asked you was why you did not bring it up in the Cabinet. Here was a Cabinet established with conservative elements to keep it respectable. Why did you not bring it up in the Cabinet and try and get the support of Herr Von Papen, Herr Hugenberg, and all the other conservative gentlemen in the Cabinet of whom we have heard? Why did you not bring it up?
VON NEURATH: For the very simple reason that it seemed to be more effective to tell Hitler directly.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: In April 1933, some 2 months after it was formed, are you telling the Tribunal that you did not think it was worth while to bring a matter up in the Reich Cabinet? Within 2 months of Hitler coming into power, it had become so "Fuehrer-principled" that you could not bring it up in the Cabinet?
VON NEURATH: I repeat-and after all I alone should be the one to judge-that I considered direct representations made to Hitler more effective.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I see. Well, now, I just want-I do not suppose you were interested, but did you know about the putting into concentration camps of any of the gentlemen that I mentioned to the Defendant Von Papen: Herr Von Ossietzski or Herr Muhsam or Dr. Hermann Dunker, or any of the other leftwing writers and lawyers and politicians? Did you know that they had gone to a concentration camp from which they never returned?
VON NEURATH: No.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You did not know at all?
VON NEURATH: No.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: At any rate, you knew-as your documents have shown-when you went to London in June, you knew very well how, at any rate, foreign opinion had crystallized against Germany because of the treatment of the Jews and the opposition parties, did you not, when you went to the world economic conference in June?
VON NEURATH: Yes. That was mentioned by me in a report that was read in Court.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now you say that your reaction was to go to Hitler and protest. I just want to look at what the existing documents show that you did. Now, let us take April, first of all. Would you look at Document D-794? [The document was handed to the defendant.] My Lord, it is Document Book 12a, Page 8. It will be Exhibit GB-513. Now, this is a letter from you to Hitler dated the 2d of April 1933: "The Italian Ambassador telephoned me last night and informed me that Mussolini had declared himself prepared to deny, through the Italian delegations abroad, all news about the persecution of the Jews in Germany that had been distorted by propaganda, if we should consider this course useful. I thanked Herr Cerruti, also on your behalf, and told him that we would be glad to accept his offer. "I regard this friendly gesture of Mussolini's as important enough to bring it to your notice." What did you think had been distorted by propaganda?
VON NEURATH: Yes, please read this part. Here it says, "the news had been distorted by propaganda." That is what it is about.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That is what I was so interested in, Defendant. What did you think had been distorted, and how much knowledge had you, so that you could decide whether the news had been distorted or not?
VON NEURATH: That I really cannot tell you any more today.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You knew that Jews had been beaten, killed, taken away from their families, and put into concentration camps and that their property had been destroyed and was beginning to be sold under value. You knew that all these things were happening, did you not?
VON NEURATH: No, certainly not at that time. That they were beaten, yes, that I had heard; but at the time no Jews were murdered or perhaps only once in one individual case.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, so you see that the Times and Manchester Guardian of that date gave the most circumstantial examples of typical murders of Jews? You must have seen that; you must have seen that the foreign press was saying it. Why did you think that it was distorted? What inquiry did you make to discover whether it was distorted?
VON NEURATH: Who-who-who-who gave me information about-about-about-murders?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am putting it to you that it was in the foreign press. I have given you the two examples from the press of my own country; and' obviously from what Signor Mussolini was saying, it was in the press of other countries. You must have known what they were saying. What inquiries did you make to find out whether it was true or not?
VON NEURATH: I used the only way possible for me, namely through the police authorities concerned.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you ask Himmler, or did you ask the Defendant Goering?
VON NEURATH: Most certainly not.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What? You asked Himmler? Or did you ask the Defendant Goering? Why not? Why not? He was the head, inventing the Gestapo and the concentration camps at that time. He would have been a very good man to ask, would he not?
VON NEURATH: The man who could have given me information was the chief, the supreme head of the Police, and it was in no way personally...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you ask the Defendant Frick?
VON NEURATH: In any case, I did not ask him personally.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now...
VON NEURATH: Certainly not personally.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: May I suggest to you that I do not went to take up time? Why did you not take the trouble to ask Goering or Frick or anyone who could have given you, as I suggest, proper information? Would you look at Document 3893-PS? [The document was handed to the defendant.] The Tribunal will find it at Page 128 of Document Book 12a. My Lord, that will become Exhibit GB-514. This is the Volkischer Beobachter , quoting you on the 17th of September 1933, on the Jewish question: "The Minister had no doubt that the stupid talk abroad about purely internal German affairs, as for example the Jewish problem, will quickly be silenced if one realizes that the necessary cleaning up of public life must temporarily entail individual cases of personal hardship but that nevertheless it served only to establish all the more firmly the authority of justice and law in Germany." Was that your view in September 1933, of the action against the Jews and against the left-wing sympathizers up to that time, that it was a 'necessary cleaning up of public life," which would, of course, temporarily involve "individual cases" of hardship, and that was necessary "more firmly" to establish "the authority of justice and law in Germany"? Was that your view?
VON NEURATH: I told you during-during-during my-I think it was the day before yesterday in answer to the question of what my attitude was toward the Jewish problem, that in view of the inundation and domination of public life in Germany by Jews which occurred after the last war, I thought it absolutely right to have these things either eliminated or restricted. That is what I am referring to here.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: So that it is right-I mean, you are not running away from what you said on the 17th of September 1933 - -that you thought the treatment of the Jews in 1933 a "necessary cleaning up of public life" in Germany? Are we to take it that your view then is your view now, and you do not deviate from it at all? Is that right?
VON NEURATH: That is still my view today, do you not see, only it should have been carried out by different methods.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: All right. Well, we will not go into discussions of it. Am I to take it that you knew and approved of the break-down of political opposition?
VON NEURATH: No, that is...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, then, let us take it by stages. Did you believe in the prescribing, the making illegal of the Communist Party?
VON NEURATH: In those days, most certainly, because you have heard, have you not, that we were facing civil war.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Very well. You agreed with that. Did you agree with the breaking down and making illegal of the trade unions?
VON NEURATH: No.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What did you do to protest against the breaking down of the trade unions?
VON NEURATH: That was in a sphere-this sphere did not concern me at all. I was Foreign Minister and not Minister of the Interior.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I see. Well, again, I am not going to argue with you. You thought it was perfectly right as Foreign Minister to remain and give your support and authority to a government. which was doing something of which you disapproved, like breaking down the trade union movement. Is that how we are to take it?
VON NEURATH: Yes. Did you ever hear that a minister. . .
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now what about...
VON NEURATH: I would like to say, did you ever hear that every cabinet minister must leave the cabinet if he does not agree with one particular thing?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Every cabinet minister for whom I have any respect left a cabinet if it did something of which he morally disapproved, and I understood from you that you morally disapproved of the breaking down of the trade union movement. If I am wrong, correct it. If you did not disapprove, say so.
VON NEURATH: I did not think that it was immoral. It was a political measure, but not an immoral one.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Then let us take Number 3, take the Social Democratic Party, that was a party which had taken a great share in the Government of Germany and of Prussia for the years since the war. Did you think it right, morally right, to make that party illegal and unable to take any further share in the carrying on of the country?
VON NEURATH: No, certainly not. But I do not at all know . . . SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE Let us get it clear. Did you think it right or not?
VON NEURATH: I just told you "No" but I do not at all know whether you...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What did, you do to protest against that? What did you do to protest against the Dissolution of the Social Democratic Party?
VON NEURATH: The most I could do against this dissolution was to state my objections.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: To whom did you state your objection against the dissolution of the Social Democratic Party?
VON NEURATH: To Hitler, again and again.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Again and again you didn't raise the dissolution of the parties, the opposition parties? You never raised that in the Cabinet; that is right, isn't it?
VON NEURATH: I cannot remember whether this question was discussed in the Cabinet; I do not know any more.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I see. All right. Let us just pass to another aspect and still on 1933. I just want you to have in mind what was happening in 1933. Did you know that after you had announced that Germany was leaving the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations, that orders for military preparations to deal with the possibility of war, as consequent on that action had been got out?
VON NEURATH: No. In 1932-1933 I knew nothing about it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: In 1933, yes, it started-in Document C-140, Exhibit USA-51-on the 25th of October 1933. Now, Defendant, you were Foreign Minister. Are you telling the Tribunal that neither had Hitler nor Marshal Von Blomberg-I think he was Reichswehrminister-that none of them told you, as a result of this action, "we shall have to have the preparations ready in case sanctions, including military sanctions, are imposed on Germany." Did none of them tell you that that was to be the result of your move in foreign policy?
VON NEURATH: No, nor was there any action to be feared,.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I see. Well, now it is rather- you will agree with me-it is rather odd not to inform the Foreign Minister of the possible consequences of his policy in the military preparations you are taking to deal with it; it is rather odd, isn't it in any system of government, of totalitarian, democratic, or anything you like, it is rather odd not to tell the Foreign Minister what you are doing in the way of military preparations, to deal with his policy, isn't it? '
VON NEURATH: I certainly had to decide on the opinion as to whether any danger threatened from our withdrawal from the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference, that is, I had to decide whether this might have any probable consequences. The military had their own opinion, and presumably-but I do not know, anyhow, I was not informed; but there were certain discussions amongst the General Staff, I assume.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, now, I just want to sum up for 1933 and I want to do that quickly. May I take it, that up to the end of 1933, despite these matters which I have put to you, that you were perfectly satisfied with the respectability and peaceloving intentions of the Government; is that right?
VON NEURATH: Yes. SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE Well, now, just let us turn to 1934. You remember your conversation with Mr. Dodd, the American Ambassador,- which you mentioned in your Document Book Number 1, at Page 54. It was on the 28th of May 1934; and Mr. Dodd had told you, apparently, what he had said to Hitler about the way Americans are trying to control profiteering by great financial interests. He said he was glad that-then he says that you said that you were glad that he had informed Hitler and then Mr. Dodd added "that the Chancellor had not agreed with me." Then he says: "don Neurath Divas silent for a moment after my remarks. It was plain that he was entirely of my way of thinking. He begged me to say to Washington that the outbreak was entirely contrary to the German Government purpose, but he did not commit himself on Hitler." What did you mean by that, ". . . that the outbreak against Jews was entirely contrary to German Government purpose..."?
VON NEURATH: By that I wanted to say that the members of the Cabinet, the majority of them, were against these methods. Apart from that, I can add that I had just asked Mr. Dodd to go and see Hitler personally so as to give backing to the suggestions I was making to Hitler. I took him there.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But did you know, in May 1934, that the German Government was going in for systematic and virulent anti-Semitism, didn't you know that?
VON NEURATH: Anti-Semitic propaganda, I knew mainly from Herr Goebbels' speeches.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes; well, let us pass to something a little more concrete. Had you any reason for disliking General Von Schleicher or General Von Bredow?
VON NEURATH: No.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What Divas the effect on your mind of these two gentlemen and Frau Von Schleicher being killed in the blood purge of the 30th of June 1934?
VON NEURATH: I hardly need to answer that. Of course, I was repulsed by it, that is clear; but then I told you the other day that unfortunately in the case of such a revolt, innocent people always have to suffer as well.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I see. But just let us get it clear. You told the Tribunal the other day that you thought-and had some reason for thinking-that there was a movement in the SA, that is, a movement led by Rohm and Ernst' and I suppose people that you would-consider undesirable, of that sort. What reason had you to suppose that General Von Schleicher and General Von Bredow had been in a conspiracy, if any?
VON NEURATH: I had no reason at all, and I do not believe today that they were plotting.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you hear about the unfortunate way in which Herr Von Papen kept on losing secretaries at the same time? You remember, you know.
VON NEURATH: Exactly the same.