SCHMIDT: No, I do not recollect that, but I can imagine that severe penalties would have been threatened to such a person. But I do not remember the actual case.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Do you not remember that he said they would be shot by him personally?
SCHMIDT: That such a statement may have been made by him on some occasion when he was angry, I consider perfectly possible, but I do not believe that it was meant seriously.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What I thought you might remember—I just suggest it to you—was the distress and difficulty that Baron Von Weizsäcker had in deciding how he was to say it to the official conference at the Foreign Office. Do you not remember that?
SCHMIDT: At that time I had not yet been admitted to the morning conferences. I was not present at that time so I cannot tell you anything about it, but I can imagine that the State Secretary may have had quite some trouble in translating that statement into official language.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, now, I want to deal quite shortly with the points that have been put to you about August 1939. I only want to get the facts quite clear.
Do you remember that you were with Hitler at the time that he was expecting the reactions of the Western Powers to the Soviet treaty?
SCHMIDT: No, I was attached to the delegation in Moscow and therefore not with Hitler.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: So did you come back with the Defendant Ribbentrop on the 24th?
SCHMIDT: Yes, but I remained in Berlin and did not go to Berchtesgaden.