I do not rely on these random extracts to show anything more than that he had, in 1932, clearly addressed his mind to the inherent lawlessness of the Nazi philosophy. Nevertheless, in his letter to Hitler of the 13 of November 1932, which I shall quote more fully later, he wrote of the Nazi movement as, I quote:
“. . . so great a national movement, the merits of which for people and country I have always recognized in spite of necessary criticisms . . . .”
So variable and so seemingly contradictory were Von Papen’s acts and utterances regarding the Nazis that it is not possible to present the picture of Papen’s part in this infamous enterprise unless one first reviews the steps by which he entered upon it. It then becomes clear that he threw himself, if not wholeheartedly, yet with cool and deliberate calculation, into the Nazi conspiracy.
I shall enumerate some of the principal steps by which Papen fell in with the Nazi conspiracy.
As a result of his first personal contact with Hitler, Von Papen as Chancellor rescinded, on the 14th of June 1932, the decree passed on the 13th of April 1932 for the dissolution of the Nazi para-military organizations, the SA and the SS. He thereby rendered the greatest possible service to the Nazi Party, inasmuch as it relied upon its para-military organizations to beat the German people into submission. The decree rescinding the dissolution of the SA and the SS is shown in Document D-631, on Page 64 of the document book; and I now put it in as Exhibit GB-236. It is an extract from the Reichsgesetzblatt, which was an omnibus decree. The relevant passage is in Paragraph 20:
“This order comes into operation from the day of announcement. It takes the place of the Decree of the Reich President for the Safeguarding of the State Authority of . . . .”—the date should be the 13th of April 1932.
THE PRESIDENT: Which page of the document book is it?
MAJOR BARRINGTON: I am sorry, My Lord; it is Page 64. And the date shown there should not be the 3rd of May 1932, it should be the 13th of April 1932. That was the decree which had previously dissolved the Nazi para-military organizations under the Government of Chancellor Brüning. At the bottom of the page the Tribunal will see the relevant parts of the decree of the 13th of April reproduced. At the beginning of Paragraph 1 of that decree it said:
“All organizations of a military nature of the German National Socialist Labor Party will be dissolved with immediate effect, particularly the SA and the SS.”
This rescission by Von Papen was done in pursuance of a bargain made with Hitler which is mentioned in a book called Dates from the History of the NSDAP by Dr. Hans Volz, a book published with the authority of the NSDAP. It is already an exhibit, Exhibit USA-592. The extract I want to quote is on Page 59 of the document book, and it is Document Number 3463-PS. I quote an extract from Page 41 of this little book: