DR. SAUTER: You, as a general of the German Wehrmacht, should have asked Hitler . . .
LAHOUSEN: I am sorry, you overestimate my rank, I had only been a general in the German Wehrmacht since the first of January 1945, that is, only for 4 months. At that time I was lieutenant colonel and later colonel of the General Staff, not in the General Staff.
DR. SAUTER: But in 1938, immediately after Hitler’s attack on Austria, you at once made a request to be taken into the German Wehrmacht by Hitler.
LAHOUSEN: I did not make a request, and I did not have to do this. Wherever I was in the service, I was known for my special services. I was not a stranger. With the knowledge of the Austrian Government and also, in a restricted sense, with the knowledge of the German authorities (that is, of certain persons) I was working for the Austrian Government in a matter which exclusively concerned things outside the scope of Austrian internal policy. I co-operated with the Wehrmacht, as well as with the Italian and Hungarian Governments with the knowledge of the Austrian Government and the competent authorities. There were matters of politics which were not my domain.
DR. SAUTER: But I believe, Witness, your memory deceives you, because immediately after Hitler’s attack on Austria, you called on the General Staff in Berlin and there you tried to get a commission in the German Wehrmacht, and you now deny this. You also filled in and signed a questionnaire, in which you declared your complete allegiance to the Greater German Reich and to Adolf Hitler; and shortly afterwards you took the oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.
LAHOUSEN: Yes, of course, I did it just as everybody else who was in the position of being transferred from one office and capacity to another.
DR. SAUTER: Before, you said you did not apply for this appointment, and I have information to the contrary: That you, in the company of two or three other officers were the first to go to Berlin with the sole purpose of asking the Chief of the German General Staff Beck to take you into the German Army.
LAHOUSEN: I am very glad that you mention this subject, because it allows me to make my position perfectly clear. It was not necessary for me to make an application for my future position in the German Wehrmacht. I was known because of my military activities, just as any military attaché is known in the country where he is accredited.
Moreover, I can easily explain why my rise in office was so rapid. I have said that my activities and my co-operation with the Austrian Military Intelligence Service, which were not determined by me but by my superior Austrian office, were at that time directed against the neighboring country of Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was the country that was next on the list after Austria. Therefore, it was natural that my later chief, Canaris, who knew me from my former position, was very interested in having me promoted in his department. He put in a word for me, and so did Colonel General Beck, whom I was visiting. Other people also know this; and I have now told everything that General Beck told me at that time.
DR. SAUTER: Then it is true, you did go to Berlin and apply to be transferred into the German Wehrmacht, which you at first denied?