I said that Von Papen “ordered” the dissolutions, although the announcement said it was self-dissolution on his suggestion; but I submit that such a suggestion from one in Papen’s position was equivalent to an order, since by that date it was common knowledge that the Nazis were dropping all pretense that rival organizations might be permitted to exist.
After 9 months’ service under Hitler, spent in consolidating the Nazi control, Von Papen was evidently well content with his choice. I refer to Document 3375-PS, Page 54 of the English document book, which I put in as Exhibit GB-245. On the 2d of November 1933, speaking at Essen from the same platform as Hitler and Gauleiter Terboven, in the course of the campaign for the Reichstag election and the referendum concerning Germany’s leaving the League of Nations, Von Papen declared:
“Ever since Providence called upon me to become the pioneer of national resurrection and the rebirth of our homeland, I have tried to support with all my strength the work of the National Socialist movement and its Führer; and just as I at the time of taking over the Chancellorship”—that was in 1932—“advocated paving the way to power for the young fighting liberation movement, just as I on January 30 was destined by a gracious fate to put the hands of our Chancellor and Führer into the hand of our beloved Field Marshal, so do I today again feel the obligation to say to the German people and all those who have kept confidence in me:
“The good Lord has blessed Germany by giving her in times of deep distress a leader who will lead her through all distresses and weaknesses, through all crises and moments of danger, with the sure instinct of the statesman into a happy future.”
And then the last sentence of the whole text on Page 55:
“Let us, in this hour, say to the Führer of the new Germany that we believe in him and his work.”
By this time the Cabinet, of which Von Papen was a member and to which he had given all his strength, had abolished the civil liberties, had sanctioned political murder committed in aid of Nazism’s seizure of power, had destroyed all rival political parties, had enacted the basic laws for abolition of the political influence of the federal states, had provided the legislative basis for purging the civil service and judiciary of anti-Nazi elements, and had embarked upon a State policy of persecution of the Jews.
Papen’s words are words of hollow mockery: “The good Lord has blessed Germany . . . .”
The third allegation against the Defendant Papen is that he promoted preparations for war. Knowing as he did the basic program of the Nazi Party, it is inconceivable that as Vice Chancellor for a year and a half he could have been dissociated from the conspirators’ warlike preparations; he, of whom Hitler wrote to Hindenburg on the 10th of April 1933 that, “His collaboration in the Reich Cabinet, to which he is now lending all his energy, is infinitely valuable.”