dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: The Prosecution alleges a certain divergence between the statement made by you and the plans as expounded by Hitler in November 1937 and accuses you, asserting that you knew very well what these plans were' of being somewhat credulous when you made that reassuring statement to Mastny.
VON NEURATH: In this discussion Hitler talked about war plans only in a general way. There was no talk about an aggressive plan against Czechoslovakia. Hitler said that if events led to a war, Czechoslovakia and Austria would have to be occupied first so that our right flank be kept free. The form of this or any other attack on Czechoslovakia, and whether there would be any conflict at all in the East, was doubtful and open to discussion. In effect, the Sudetenland, which strategically held the key position of the Czech defense, was subsequently ceded in a peaceful manner by agreement with the Western Powers. Concrete plans for a war against Czechoslovakia, as General Jodl has testified, were not given to the General Staff for elaboration until the end of May 1938. I learned for the first time here about the existence of these plans. For the rest, when Hitler told me that he would undertake nothing against Czechoslovakia, I could not but believe that this was his real intention; in other words, that he had relinquished his plans for alternative action as set forth on 5 November 1937. That is all I can say about the Czechoslovakian question.
THE PRESIDENT: Shall we break off? [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.] Afternoon Session
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Herr Von Neurath, in the Indictment there is mention of a conference of 28 May 1938 at which Hitler, Von Ribbentrop, Goering, and the Commanders-in-Chief of the Armed Forces branches were present, at which it is asserted in the affidavit of Herr Wiedemann that you also attended.
VON NEURATH: I cannot at all remember any such conference, nor the statement of Hitler which was mentioned by Wiedemann. Moreover, Keitel, Ribbentrop, Goering, and Raeder knew nothing of this conference. Perhaps it is a mistake or it is being confused with the conference mentioned by Schmundt of 22 or 28 April 1938, but I was not present at this conference; I was not in Berlin at all.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: After your resignation, you had withdrawn completely to private life. In the Sudeten crisis, in the autumn of 1938, did you take an active part and advocate a peaceful policy?
VON NEURATH: Yes. After my dismissal in February 1938 I lived on my estate. On about 26 September I received a telephone call from one of my former ministerial colleagues informing me that Hitler had instructed the Armed Forces to be ready to march by 28 September. Apparently he wanted to solve the Sudeten question by force. I was asked to come to Berlin immediately and attempt to dissuade Hitler from this intention. During the night I went to Berlin. After my arrival I inquired at the Foreign Office about the situation and reported to Hitler that I was there. I was sent away. Nevertheless, on the 28th I went to the Reich Chancellery and there I met Hitler's entire entourage ready to march. I inquired for Hitler and was told that he was in his room, but would receive no one. Nevertheless, I went to the door and entered Hitler's room. When he saw me he asked, in a harsh voice: "What do you want here?" I answered that I wanted to point out to him the consequences of his intended step. I explained to him that he would bring on a European war, and probably a world war, if he were to march into Czechoslovakia while negotiations were still in progress on the Sudeten problem; that Czechoslovakia would doubtless resist and that it would not be an easy struggle, and in any case it would involve France and England and Poland. I told him that it would be a crime he could never answer for to shed so much blood unless all possibilities of peaceful settlement had been exhausted. I knew that Mr. Chamberlain was prepared to come to an agreement and that he was also prepared to induce the Czechs to turn over the Sudetenland if that could prevent war.
THE PRESIDENT: How did you know that Mr. Chamberlain would be willing to come?
VON NEURATH: Because I had met the British Ambassador on the street.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
VON NEURATH: Hitler refused to consider such a conference. During our talk, however, Goering had appeared and he supported me in my efforts to persuade Hitler to have a conference. Finally Hitler agreed, if I could bring Chamberlain, Daladier, and Mussolini to Berlin by the next day. Since that was impossible for Mussolini, I suggested Munich as the place for negotiations. I immediately established contact with the British and French Ambassadors, who severe both on their way to see Hitler. Hitler himself telephoned directly to Mussolini, and by 6 o'clock the promises and answers had been received.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: I should like to ask the Court to take judicial notice of Document Number 20 in my Document Book 1, Page 72b, an excerpt from the book by Ambassador Henderson, Failure of a Mission. [Turning to the defendant.] Did you personally take part in the Munich Conference which then took place?
VON NEURATH: Yes. In view of Hitler's irritated frame of mind, I was concerned about the course of the conference and I told him that I considered it expedient that I should go to Munich too, since I knew the foreign representatives personally and for that reason could serve as mediator. When he agreed, Goering invited me to come along in his special train. Later, in the course of the long session, I frequently talked to the three persons and to Hitler and tried to mediate in the differences which arose. Mr. Chamberlain, at the end of this discussion, asked me to arrange a talk with the Fuehrer alone, without Ribbentrop, on the next day, since he would like to make a new suggestion. The Fuehrer did not want to at first, but finally I persuaded him. At this talk, a "consultation agreement" was reached between England and Germany, which France later joined. Chamberlain, who was staying at the same hotel as I was, showed me this agreement with great joy after the talk, and I also was glad to see it. I hoped that Anglo-German relations, which had suffered in the Godesberg and Berchtesgaden meetings, might be brought back to normal by this agreement and that the way would be opened for further conferences. As in the summer of 1937, Chamberlain invited me to visit him in England. I immediately told him that I did not believe that Hitler, who had forbidden me to go to England in the summer of 1937, would now give his approval, especially since I was no longer Foreign Minister. In January 1938 the British Ambassador repeated the invitation, but I had to tell him that I had had no opportunity of obtaining Hitler's approval.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Mr. President, in this connection I should like to submit Document 21 in my document book. It is a letter of the French Ambassador at that time, Francois-Poncet, dated 18 October 1938, a few weeks after the Munich Conference. I should like to quote only two sentences from it. "But of the two of us it is I who have contracted the greater debt of gratitude. I have always had from you, even at the most delicate moments, the most kind, the most considerate and the most confident reception. You made a difficult task easy for me. I shall never forget what I owe you." Mr. President, at this point I should like to submit a letter from the Ambassador Poncet, which was received only a few days ago and which I mentioned with the same request at the beginning of my case. I asked that the French Ambassador be called as a witness, and in answer to this a letter from the Ambassador of 7 June was addressed to the French Prosecution, of which I received a copy through the General Secretary's of lice last week-I believe Thursday or Friday. In spite of the fact that this letter is not in the prescribed form of an affidavit but is a private letter to the Prosecution, I would ask that you accept it as if it were in the form of an affidavit. The original of this letter is in the possession of the French Prosecution, and the French Prosecution has promised to submit the original on the request of the Court. I take the liberty to submit the certified copy.
THE PRESIDENT: The original document should be presented to the Court now, or as soon as it conveniently can be.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: The day before yesterday I talked to a member of the French Prosecution who said they did not have it here at the moment. I do not know where they have it. Therefore, I ask that it be submitted; otherwise I would already have submitted it.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, but it must be submitted as soon as possible.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You wish to offer it in evidence, do you?
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: What number is it?
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: 162. Z4 June 46
THE PRESIDENT: There is no objection, I take it?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No objection, My Lord.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: This letter reads, if I may quote at least one brief passage: "He"-that is Herr Von Neurath-`'never aggravated the incidents; on the contrary, he always sought a personal and peaceful solution. He made every effort to facilitate the task of the foreign diplomats in the German capital. They, like myself, were grateful to him. I do not doubt that he often pointed out to Hitler the dangers to which he was exposing Germany by the excesses of his regime, and that he let him hear the voice of prudence and moderation." Now I come to another subject, and I should like to present the following: The documents presented by the Prosecution show that during your period in office as Reich Foreign Minister, a representative of the Foreign Of lice took part in sessions of the Reich Defense Council, and by the Reich Defense Law of 1938, you, as president of the Secret Cabinet, were a member of this Reich Defense Council. Will you comment on this?
VON NEURATH: Neither as Reich Foreign Minister nor as president of the Secret Cabinet did I have anything to do with the affairs of the Reich Defense Council. I never took part in any session or talk. As has been stated here, all ministries from the time before 1933 had so-called Reich defense experts who were to deal with interministerial questions resulting from possible mobilization in case of a defensive war. As Dr. Schacht has already testified, the Reich Defense Council of 1935 was nothing but the legalization of a committee which had existed before 1933.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: In the existence of such a committee or council for the defense of the Reich, did you see signs of preparation for a war of aggression?
VON NEURATH: No, in no way. The designation already indicates that it had to do with preparations for the defense of the Reich against attack, and not preparations for attack. Moreover, I know that in France, as well as in England, such arrangements had existed for a long time.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Mr. President, I should like to submit :Document 78, which is on Page 213 of my Document Book 3. It is an excerpt from a statement made by the French War Minister, Petain, on 6 June 1934 before the Army Commission of the French Chamber, which mentions the necessity of a defense council or committee.
THE PRESIDENT: Just wait a minute. The Tribunal doesn't think that any evidence that other countries had other organizations is really relevant to this case.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: The Prosecution asserts that Hitler awarded you more honors than some of the Nazi leaders themselves, and concludes that you were especially close to Hitler. Will you please comment on this.
VON NEURATH: That is a rather remarkable assumption. It was clear that, being the oldest minister who had served the State for over 40 years, Hitler could not overlook me in awarding honors and honorary titles, but they were limited to what is customary for incumbents of high State positions.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: I should like to name the individual awards on which a charge is made against you. You held the Order of the German Eagle and the War Merit Cross First Class.
VON NEURATH: Yes. The Order of the German Eagle was founded in 1937 and was to be awarded only to foreigners. It would however have had no great value abroad but would have been considered more a type of special order, such as a colonial order, if no German had held it. For that reason in my capacity as Foreign Minister, immediately when the order was founded, Hitler awarded me the Grand Cross of the order and thus also heightened the value of this order...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Von Ludinghausen, is it not sufficient for the defendant to have said that it was usual to give these titles? It is not necessary for us to investigate the particular merits of the particular order, is it? It seems to me to be very remote.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Mr. President, I mentioned it only because the Prosecution also brought it out especially. The further charge is made by the Prosecution that on 30 January 1937, in that well-known Cabinet meeting, you received the golden Party insignia from Hitler and thus became a member of the Nazi Party. What about that?
VON NEURATH: As to the way in which this was awarded, Herr Schacht as well as Raeder have testified here. I was not a member of any party. Between 1933 and 1937 I had several times been requested to join the Party but had refused. My attitude toward the Party was generally known. For that reason I was repeatedly attacked by the Party. I believe that the reason why I- why this insignia was awarded on 30 January 1937 to various members of the Cabinet, and also to generals who were not allowed to become members of the Party at all, I believe that has been described in enough detail and that I need not go into it again. .
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Then, surprisingly, Hitler also made you an honorary Obergruppenfuehrer of the SS.
VON NEURATH: Yes, that was a complete surprise to me. In September 1937 Mussolini had announced his visit to Germany. For some days just before this visit I was not in Berlin. When I returned in the morning I found my tailor at the entrance of my house with the uniform of an SS Gruppenfuehrer. I asked him what that meant. He told me the Reich Chancellery had instructed him to make me a uniform immediately. I then went to Hitler and asked him why he had done this. He said he wanted all the people who were to be present at the reception of Mussolini to be in uniform. I told him that was not very agreeable to me and I had to explain that in no case would I be subordinate to Himmler and I did not want to have anything to do with the SS. Hitler assured me solemnly that this would not be asked of me and' that I need have no obligation to the SS; and this actually did not happen. Moreover, I had no power to issue orders, and my later appointment as Obergruppenfuehrer was apparently done in the course of general promotions without any special emphasis.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Did you wear this uniform at all?
VON NEURATH: Only twice as far as I can recall; at the reception of Mussolini and then when in 1938 I was sent to Ankara for the funeral of Kemal Pasha. On official occasions I always wore the uniform of a civil servant without any insignia, which had been designed in the meantime.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: On your seventieth birthday, on 2 February 1943, you received congratulations and other expressions of appreciation of your person and your activities from various sources. You were congratulated, among others, by Hitler and you received, besides, a check for 250,000 marks. Will you please tell us what was the significance of this donation, if one may call it that.
VON NEURATH: The American prosecutor recently mentioned this gift. Only he forgot to add that I refused it. The events were as follows: On the day of my seventieth birthday, in the morning, an envoy of Hitler called on me and brought me a congratulatory letter from Hitler and an oil painting by a young German painter, showing an Italian landscape. The letter contained a check for 250,000 marks. I was painfully surprised and immediately told the envoy that I considered this so-called donation an insult, that I was not a lackey whom one paid with a tip, and that he should take the check back with him. He said he was not authorized to do so. The next morning I went to the Reich Finance Minister to give him the check for the Reich treasury. He said that for formal reasons-I believe because the check was on a special account of Hitler's-he could not accept it. At his advice I turned the check over to the Reich Credit Association to a special account and informed the competent finance office in writing. I never touched one penny of this sum. The painting, the value of which was not especially great, I did not refuse, because it was entirely within the limits of a normal birthday gift and sending it back would have been considered a deliberate insult.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Mr. President, I ask permission in this connection, to submit two letters of the Reich Credit Association, which I received from them on Saturday upon my request. They contain confirmation that this sum of 250,000 marks in its full extent, plus the interest which has accumulated, is still today in a special account with the Reich Credit Association. This is proof that Herr Von Neurath did not, in fact, withdraw a penny of this so-called donation, or use it in any other way.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you give us the number of it?
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: 160 and 161. Mr. President, in my haste I have only been able to have the English translation made in my office. The French and Russian translations will be given to the French and the Russian Prosecution in the next few days. As I have said, I received it myself only on Saturday afternoon. The further charge is made against you that in the conservative circles of Germany you worked as a sort of member of a Fifth Column to induce them to reconcile themselves with and agree to the National Socialist regime, because the fact that you remained in the Government would be considered an example by them. What have you to say about that?
VON NEURATH: That statement is nonsense, because it was known throughout Germany and abroad that I was no National Socialist, but rather that I combated National Socialist excesses against the Church and the Jews and that, in addition, I obstructed any policy which endangered peace. This was clearly shown by my dismissal in February 1938, and the fact that the general consternation about this was not publicly expressed in the German press was simply because there was no press available for this. It is therefore completely absurd that these conservative circles could have assumed that I was with all my heart with the Nazis, as the Indictment says. Other countries knew this just as well and saw in me an obstacle to Nazi policy. That I was not regarded as a blind adherent to Nazi theories, as is stated in the Indictment, is best known to the foreign diplomats in Berlin, since they could observe my constant struggle against the Party from close at hand.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: I should like to submit in this connection an excerpt from the magazine Archiv , of 1937, and an excerpt from an article in the Pester Lloyd , containing the speech which the doyen of the Berlin Diplomatic Corps made in the name of the whole Diplomatic Corps to Herr Von Neurath on his sixty-fifth birthday on 2 February 1938. Both documents are contained in my Document Book 4, Number 127, and in Document Book 1, Number 18. With this I have finished the part dealing with foreign politics, and the personal points in the charge against Herr Von Neurath. Now I come to the second aspect of the charge, your activity as Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia. After the settlement of the Sudeten crisis you had withdrawn completely from political life; is that true?
VON NEURATH: Yes. I was very rarely in Berlin. For the most part I was on my estate in Wurttemberg or in the mountains.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: In September 1939, were you in Berlin, and did you have any knowledge of Hitler's plans for an invasion of Czechoslovakia?
VON NEURATH: You mean in the late winter of 1939?
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: In the late winter, yes.
VON NEURATH: No, I had kept aloof. The differences between Germany, Czechoslovakia...
THE PRESIDENT: September 1939?
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: That was my mistake. I meant in the late winter.
THE PRESIDENT: Of 1938, you mean?
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: 1939.
VON NEURATH: 1938-1939. The differences between us and Czechoslovakia on the treatment of the Sudeten Germans by the Czechs had been solved by the separation of the Sudetenland. The way to friendly co-operation was paved. One of the focal points of danger for the peace of Europe had been eliminated.
DR. VON LUDINGHAUSEN: Then there came the famous dispute between Hitler and the President of the Czechoslovakian Republic, Hacha, in the night of 14 to 15 March 1939 in Berlin. This conference has already been discussed here. I do not believe I need go into it in much detail. Anyhow you know of it. I should like to ask you, did you know of these events as described, particularly as given in Document Number 2798-PS?
VON NEURATH: No, I did not know of them. I learned of them only much later. I only learned here of the notes of Herr Hewel, Z4 June 46 but after I learned of these events I disapproved strongly, and I would not have taken office as Reich Protector under any circumstances if I had known of these things at the time. I was completely surprised by the events in March 1939. I no longer received any foreign political information, as I have already said. I was dependent upon the radio and the newspapers. The preparation for attack on Czechoslovakia in 1938 I considered to have been eliminated after the Munich Agreement. I learned of Hacha's visit to Berlin, like every other German, by radio and newspapers the next morning. The official statement of the taking-over of protection of the remainder of Czechoslovakia seemed not improbable to me after Slovakia had become independent, and after I learned that the Czech Foreign Minister, Chvalkovsky, in the course of the winter 1938-39 had said in Berlin that Czechoslovakia's former policy must be completely changed and that closer connections would have to be sought with Germany. However, I was concerned about how the signatory powers of Munich would react to this development, which was in contravention of the agreement which had been reached in Munich. My first question to Hitler, when I went to Vienna at his request, was whether England and France had been informed beforehand and had given their approval. When he said no, that that was quite unnecessary, and that the Czech Government itself had asked us to take over the protection, I immediately realized how dangerous the situation was, and said so to Hitler. However, at the time I still believed that it had, in fact, been a free decision of the Czech Government. Hitler's request that I should take the post of Reich Protector was a complete surprise to me, the more so since I had discovered that he had very much taken amiss my spontaneous intervention in September 1938, which led to the Munich conference.