You, according to that evidence, still had enough influence in Germany, in your opinion, to stop even Himmler issuing such orders or carrying—I am sorry, I said “issuing”—carrying out such orders.
GÖRING: You are giving my statement a completely wrong meaning. I told Himmler plainly that it was his duty to telephone me before the execution of this matter, to give me the possibility, even at this period of my much diminished influence, to prevent the Führer from carrying out this decree. I did not mean to say that I would have been completely successful, but it was a matter of course that I, as Chief of the Luftwaffe, should make it clear to Himmler that it was his duty to telephone me first of all, because it was I who was most concerned with this matter. I told the Führer in very clear terms just how I felt, and I saw from his answers that, even if I had known of it before, I could not have prevented this decree, and we must keep in mind that two different methods of procedure are in question. The order was not given to the Luftwaffe, that these people were to be shot by the Luftwaffe personnel, but to the police. If the Führer had said to me, “I will persist in this decree which I gave the police,” I would not have been able to order the police not to carry through the Führer’s decree. Only if this decree had had to be carried out by my men, would it have been possible for me perhaps to circumvent the decree, and I would like to emphasize this point strongly.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, that may be your view that you could not have got anywhere with the Führer; but I suggested to you that when all these officers that I mentioned knew about it, you knew about it, and that you did nothing to prevent these men from being shot, but co-operated in this foul series of murders.
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, are you passing from that now?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You are putting in evidence these two documents?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am putting them in. I put them to the witness. D-731 will be GB-278, and D-730 will be GB-279.
THE PRESIDENT: And should you not refer perhaps to the second paragraph in 731?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: It shows that apparently, in the early hours of the 25th of March the matter was communicated to the office of the adjutant of the Reich Marshal—the second paragraph beginning with “the escape.”