GÖRING: When Reich President Von Hindenburg made it a condition, which I have already mentioned, that Herr Von Neurath should become Foreign Minister, the Führer was in full agreement with this condition, because he saw that the task of establishing good relations with England and the West was in good hands. Herr Von Neurath always made every effort in this direction.
DR. KRAUS: I should like to deal with another series of questions.
Were you present at the meeting of the Reich Cabinet on 30 January 1937, during which Hitler gave the Golden Party Emblem to those members of the Cabinet who were not members of the Party, among them also Herr Von Neurath?
GÖRING: Yes, I was present.
DR. KRAUS: And do you know that Hitler declared on this occasion that it was purely a distinction such as the conferring of an order, and that the gentlemen concerned did not thereby become Party members and had no obligations toward the Party?
GÖRING: I would not put it just that way. The Führer was speaking spontaneously, since it was the anniversary of the seizure of power, and he said it was his intention in this way to show his confidence in those members of the Reich Cabinet who did not belong to the Party. I believe he used the words, “I should like to ask them to accept this Party Emblem.” He said at the time that in his opinion this was a decoration and that he intended, as he actually did later, to develop additional grades of this decoration. The first grade of this decoration was to be the Golden Party Emblem. Then, on the spur of the moment, he stepped up to the various ministers and handed them this emblem. In doing so he neither emphasized that they were thereby to consider themselves members of the Party, nor did he emphasize that they were not Party members.
When he came to Herr Von Eltz-Rübenach, this gentleman asked whether he was thereby obliged to stand for the partly anti-clerical tendency of certain Party circles, or something to that effect. The Führer hesitated for a minute and said, “Then you do not wish to accept it?” Whereupon Herr Von Eltz said, “I do not wish to say that. I just wish to make a certain reservation.” The Führer was taken aback; immediately he turned around and left the cabinet room.
In this connection it is not correct, as has been maintained, that Herr Von Eltz resigned voluntarily because of this. I followed the Führer immediately and felt, as did all the other gentlemen, that this incident was an insult to the Führer, since membership in the Party had not been mentioned at all. In addition, and this is very important, the Führer was already considering a plan to divide the Ministry of Transport and to re-establish the old Post Ministry and to put the railroad expert Dorpmüller into the Ministry of Transport. The Führer had told me this previously and, as he had left it to me to tell Von Eltz about it gradually, in a diplomatic way, I took this opportunity and went to Herr Von Eltz and said: “Your behavior was impossible, and I think the only thing for you to do is to resign at once.” He said, “I did not mean it like that,” and he was not willing to hand in his resignation right away. I then asked him abruptly to do so by that evening. I also sent State Secretary Meissner to him to say it would be advisable for him to leave the Cabinet and hand in his resignation immediately, especially in view of—and then I gave the explanations concerning the post and railroads as I have just given them.
That was what happened at that conference with regard to the Golden Party Emblem.
DR. KRAUS: Witness, were you present when Hitler, in the evening of 11 March 1938, told Herr Von Neurath in the Reich Chancellery about the entry of the troops into Austria, and informed him of the reasons for this move, and asked him to inform the Foreign Office accordingly, because he himself had to leave?