SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, the escape . . .
THE PRESIDENT: You were not asked about responsibility; you were asked whether it would be dealt with by your prisoner-of-war department.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, the escape about which I am asking you took place on the night of the 24th to the 25th of March. I want you to have that date in mind. The decision to murder these young officers must have been taken very quickly, because the first murder which actually took place was on the 26th of March. Do you agree with that? It must have been taken quickly?
GÖRING: I assume that this order, as I was informed later, was given immediately, but it had no connection with this document.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No, no; we are finished with that document; we are going into the murder of these young men. The Grossfahndung—a general hue and cry, I think, would be the British translation—was also issued at once in order that these men should be arrested; isn’t that so?
GÖRING: That is correct. Whenever there was an escape, and such a large number of prisoners escaped, automatically in the whole Reich, a hue and cry was raised, that is, all authorities had to be on the lookout to recapture the prisoners.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: So that in order to give this order to murder these men, and for the Grossfahndung, there must have been a meeting of Hitler, at any rate with Himmler or Kaltenbrunner, in order that that order would be put into effect; isn’t that so?
GÖRING: That is correct. According to what I heard, Himmler was the first to report this escape to the Führer.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, General Westhoff, who was in Defendant Keitel’s Kriegsgefangenenwesen, in his prisoner-of-war set-up, says this, that
“On a date, which I think was the 26th, Keitel said to him, ‘This morning Göring reproached me in the presence of Himmler for having let some more prisoners of war escape. It was unheard of.’ ”