Really I thanked the SA rather badly for this special honor, for after seeing this excellent unit I dissolved it a few weeks later and took it over in a body into the Air Force and made of it my first paratroop regiment. So, after a brief existence, this unit became simply an Armed Forces formation, a regiment of the Air Force. Because of this procedure, which was unpleasant for the SA, it was quite some time, I believe, before the SA leader Lutze decided to form a similar unit with the name of Feldherrnhalle and he kept this unit very much smaller; it did sentry duty for the supreme SA leadership, and he did not make me the head of this unit a second time.
HERR BOEHM: According to my information, as well as information I personally received from SA-Gruppenführer and Obergruppenführer, and other information which I obtained myself through reading, the Feldherrnhalle was not armed until it passed into the Air Force. Is that correct?
GÖRING: No, that is not correct. I think, but I cannot say so under oath with certainty, that they received rifles shortly before, but only rifles. But as I said before, I do not know exactly.
In this connection, as the Prosecution has referred to this point, I should like to emphasize that this regiment was already provided for as a paratroop regiment in Case Green. After Case Green had been peacefully settled, that is, after the Sudetenland question had been solved peacefully, and long after the occupation of the Sudetenland, I made this regiment bail out and land there, as originally intended, but purely for purposes of practice and maneuvers. This was the landing at Freudenthal which the Prosecution has mentioned. By this time they were already in blue uniforms when they landed and were therefore already a regiment of the Air Force. Merely as a matter of courtesy I had invited the SA leader Lutze to watch this demonstration.
HERR BOEHM: In this war did the SA ever play a strategic or tactical role in connection with the deployment of forces?
GÖRING: No, the SA as such was never used in combat within the Armed Forces as the SA or as an SA unit, either tactically or otherwise. It may be that toward the end there were certain SA units in the Volkssturm.
HERR BOEHM: Is it correct that the SA as a body co-operated with the Armed Forces in the occupation of Austria, the Sudetenland, and the Czech State?
GÖRING: In the case of Austria, the Austrian SA, which was there on the spot, did not take part in the occupation for it had been called up there in a few places as auxiliary police. Actually the so-called Austrian Legion, which was in the Reich, was at my express command and at the express wish of Seyss-Inquart, held back for a long time and was not allowed to go home until after the absolute consolidation of the Austrian situation. It did come from Austria originally. How far units of the SA marched into the Sudetenland after the zone was given over to Germany, I do not know. I heard that there were also Sudeten Germans involved here who had had to flee prior to that time and who were now returning. In connection with the occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia, I cannot possibly imagine that SA formations played any part in the entry of our troops.
HERR BOEHM: Could the members of the SA have known that possibly, according to the intention of the SA leadership, they would or could be used for the carrying out of punishable acts?
GÖRING: I did not quite get the substance of that question.