GÖRING: We had always drawn up, beforehand, fairly complete lists of communist functionaries who were to be arrested. That had nothing to do with the fire in the German Reichstag.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: They were immediately put into execution—the arrests, I mean—after the Reichstag fire?
GÖRING: Contrary to my intention of postponing this action for a few days and letting it take place according to plan, thereby perfecting the arrangements, the Führer ordered that same night that the arrests should follow immediately. This had the disadvantage, as I said, of precipitating matters.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You and the Führer met at the fire, did you not?
GÖRING: That is right.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And then and there you decided to arrest all the Communists that you had listed?
GÖRING: I repeat again that the decision for their arrests had been reached some days before this; it simply meant that on that night they were immediately arrested. I would rather have waited a few days according to plan; then some of the important men would not have escaped.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And the next morning the decree was presented to President Von Hindenburg, suspending the provisions of the constitution which we have discussed here, was it not?
GÖRING: I believe so, yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Who was Karl Ernst?