COL. PHILLIMORE: This is a matter of such importance that it could not have been agreed with the Foreign Office without Ribbentrop being consulted; isn’t that the case?
VON STEENGRACHT: In my opinion, I would never have decided alone on this matter if it had been put before me. I am of the opinion that it was an affair which would have to be put before Von Ribbentrop.
COL. PHILLIMORE: Good. And, of course, Von Ribbentrop was one of the most ruthless persecutors of Jews, wasn’t he?
VON STEENGRACHT: That is not correct.
COL. PHILLIMORE: I am going to read you a short passage from a conference between the Führer, Ribbentrop and the Hungarian Regent, Horthy. This is Document D-736, which was put in as Exhibit GB-283 by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, to the Defendant Göring. This was a meeting at Klessheim Castle on the morning of 17 of April 1943. And you see the minutes are signed by Schmidt.
VON STEENGRACHT: Yes.
COL. PHILLIMORE: The question of Jews was raised:
“The Führer replied that it was the fault of the Jews who considered hoarding and profiteering as their main sphere of activity, even during the World War; in exactly the same way as in England, sentences for rationing offenses, and the like, now chiefly concern Jews. To Horthy’s counterquestion as to what he should do with the Jews, now that he had deprived them of almost all possibilities of livelihood—he could not kill them off—the Reich Foreign Minister declared that the Jews must either be exterminated or taken to concentration camps. There was no other possibility.”
And then, you see, the Führer goes on to describe them as tuberculosis bacilli. Now, in the face of that document, do you still say that the Defendant Ribbentrop was against the policy of persecution and extermination of the Jews?
VON STEENGRACHT: I said yesterday already that Herr Von Ribbentrop, when he was with Hitler...