GÖRING: None at all.
HERR BOEHM: Is it correct that particularly after the seizure of power a great number of communist agitators crept into the SA?
GÖRING: Please repeat the question.
HERR BOEHM: Is it correct that especially after the seizure of power, a great number of communist agitators were able to creep into the SA?
GÖRING: That was a very noticeable and vital matter. As after the seizure of power action was taken against the Communist Party, which was something they had logically expected, a number of members of the Red Front battle organization joined the SA, especially in large cities where this was easier. This was all the easier because the then head of the SA, Röhm, indiscriminately admitted SA men, or rather men into the SA, who did not need to be members of the Party, as was formerly required. Anyone could therefore become an SA man without belonging to the Party.
At the same time Hugenberg’s German National Party also started a political battle organization which he called the “Green Shirts.” These were also to be taken into the SA now, just as the Stahlhelm, as by themselves they seemed purposeless.
I personally remember one day when 400 to 500 of these people assembled at the Wilhelmstrasse to be enrolled in the SA. I saw these people from my window and definitely noticed that elements were involved which did not belong there. I immediately summoned the police and had a check made. Ninety-eight percent of these men had their communist Red Front membership cards in their pockets.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Boehm, the Tribunal considers that this is all cumulative to what the defendant has already said in his examination in chief. He has given us a long account of the SA in his examination in chief. He has added nothing in the course of what he is now saying.
HERR BOEHM: According to the Prosecution, it is asserted that the SA was composed of terror-gangsters. I feel in duty bound to correct or clarify this statement in this respect by asking . . .
THE PRESIDENT: That has nothing to do with what I said. It may be that the Prosecution have said that. Probably they have. What I was pointing out to you was that the Defendant Göring has been all over this ground in the evidence he has already given. The Tribunal does not wish to hear the same evidence twice.