COL. AMEN: I will continue to read from the interrogation:
“Question: ‘Now, do you mean to say that you did not even read a protest from the Vatican that came to your desk?’
“Answer: ‘It is really true. It is so that the Führer took such a stand in these Vatican matters that from then on they did not come to me any more.’ ”
Does that conform with your recollection?
VON STEENGRACHT: That Ribbentrop did not receive the protests any more? Yes, that is correct, that tallies with what I said, that in all these cases, where we could not accept them, I tried to settle them on my own responsibility, since it was against orders.
COL. AMEN: And in the course of reading these complaints from the Vatican which went unanswered, both you and Ribbentrop learned full details of exactly what was going on in the concentration camps, did you not?
VON STEENGRACHT: There was never anything about that in these notes—the ones I saw—there was never anything about the treatment in them. Instead they were concerned only with complaints asking why the death sentence was ever imposed, or why the clergyman was ever arrested, or similar cases, or the closing of churches or the like.
COL. AMEN: I do not want to take the time of the Tribunal to read to you the documents which are already in evidence. I am referring to Document Numbers 3261-PS, 3262-PS, 3264-PS, 3267-PS, 3268-PS and 3269-PS, but in those documents—I am sorry, sir, 3269 is not in evidence. But in those documents, Witness, are set forth the details of numerous individual and collective cases of just what went on in concentration camps. You say you were not familiar with any of those matters?
VON STEENGRACHT: Mr. Prosecutor, I do not think that I expressed myself in that way. I gave you to understand that everything communicated to me by foreign diplomats I do, of course, know. In other words, if detailed reports were received during my term of office, then of course I know it. I never denied it.
THE PRESIDENT: What you said, Witness, was—at least what I took down and understood you to say was—that nothing was ever mentioned in the notes about the treatment in concentration camps.