VON RIBBENTROP: No, I must answer this question in the same way as I answered the previous one. That was not our practice. All political and military matters were dealt with exclusively by the Führer. The Führer told me what I had to do in the diplomatic and political field, and he told the military men what they had to do militarily. I was occasionally, but very seldom, informed about military matters by the Führer, and whatever the military men had to know about political matters they never learned from me; but if they learned at all, it was from the Führer.
DR. LATERNSER: I have no further questions.
HERR GEORG BÖHM (Counsel for SA): Witness, did you have an order or an instruction according to which you were to inform the SA leaders of the development and treatment of foreign political matters?
VON RIBBENTROP: The SA? No. There was no such order, and I had no such instructions.
HERR BÖHM: Did the SA leadership have any influence on foreign policy at all?
VON RIBBENTROP: No.
HERR BÖHM: And now I should like to ask a question for my colleague Dr. Sauter who is ill: Were you in 1943 witness to a conversation between Hitler and Himmler, in which the question was discussed as to whether Von Schirach, who was then Reichsleiter, should be summoned before the Volksgericht (People’s Court)?
VON RIBBENTROP: Yes, that is correct.
HERR BÖHM: What consequences would such a trial before the Volksgericht have had for Schirach?
VON RIBBENTROP: I cannot say exactly, of course. I do not know the details of this matter. I only know that Himmler, in my presence, made the suggestion to the Führer that Schirach should be brought and tried before the Volksgericht for some reason or other. I do not know the details. I was not interested in them. I said to the Führer that this, in my opinion, would make a very bad impression from the point of view of foreign policy and I know that Himmler received no answer from the Führer; at any rate, he did not give the order. What consequences that would have had I cannot say, but when such a suggestion came from Himmler, the consequences were very serious.