THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Well, again, I am not asking you as to knowledge in a particular division; I am asking you as to general knowledge, throughout the entire Waffen-SS, of the acts of a particular unit.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, if someone is prepared to say, “I knew every division of the Waffen-SS, and in my opinion no one in the Waffen-SS had any knowledge or had any opportunity of knowing of the crimes,” then the evidence would be admissible. Its weight would be so negligible that, I should submit, it would not detain the Tribunal long.
But I concede that if someone is prepared, laying the proper ground for his evidence, to say, “I can speak; I have the grounds for and the opportunity of speaking on the general position,” then I do not see how the Tribunal could exclude it.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): The matter is very practical because we have to advise Counsel for the Defendants what material they can introduce, and do that very soon.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Certainly.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Now let me ask you a few other questions.
On what basis, Sir David, do you contend that the Reich Cabinet was a criminal organization as of January 30, 1933, when, if I remember correctly; there were only three members of the Nazi Party who were in the Cabinet: Göring, Hitler, and Frick? Do you think that if three out of a very much larger number, some twenty odd, could be said to be part of a criminal organization, that makes the entire Cabinet criminal?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Certainly, on the facts. It must be remembered that Hitler had refused to take office as vice chancellor during the months before that, before the date that you put to me. He had refused on the ground that, as vice chancellor, he would not be in a position to carry out his Party program. On that basis the Defendant Von Papen and Hitler negotiated, and Hitler came into power on the 30th of January. It is the case for the Prosecution that those who formed part of that Cabinet knew that they were forming part of a cabinet in which Hitler was going to work out his program, as has been declared on so many occasions. That is the first point. Secondly, it is the case for the Prosecution that the Defendant Von Papen did join in introducing the Nazi conspirators into the Government with that knowledge and with the purpose of letting them have their way in Germany. And the same must apply—it has not been investigated to the same extent, because they are not defendants—to the industrialists and the Party, who were acting with them in the Cabinet. They must be taken to have known, just as Gustav Krupp knew and supported, just as Kurt von Schröder knew and supported, the aims of the Nazis whom they introduced and co-operated with in the Government.
Thirdly, the personalities of the Nazis in the Government—Hitler himself, and the Defendants Göring, Frick, and Dr. Goebbels, who I think became Propaganda Minister either at the same time or very shortly afterwards—show that these people, they have shown it by their acts, were not persons to take second place. They introduced at once the Führerprinzip into operation in the states, and these other people in the Cabinet at that time accepted the Führerprinzip and united in placing Hitler and the Defendant Göring and the other conspirators in the position of power and authority which enabled them to carry out their monstrous crimes that are charged against them.
I will give you one other reference. It was within a few months of that period that the Defendant Schacht became Plenipotentiary for War Economy and began the preparations for the economic side of the creation of Germany’s war potential.