DR. DIX: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
[A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will not sit in open session on Saturday morning, but will be sitting in closed session.
DR. DIX: [Turning to the witness.] You were saying that Generaloberst Beck carried out his decision to tender his resignation after the speech at Jüterbog. What did he do then?
GISEVIUS: Hitler and Brauchitsch urgently pressed him to remain in office, but Beck refused and insisted upon resigning. Thereupon Hitler and Brauchitsch urged Beck at least not to make his resignation public, and they asked him if he would not formally defer his resignation for a few months. Beck, who had not yet gone the way of high treason, thought that he should comply with this request. Later he most deeply regretted this loyal attitude. The fact is that as early as the end of May or the beginning of June his successor, General Halder, took over the office of Chief of General Staff; and from that moment Beck was actually no longer in charge.
DR. DIX: May I ask you once more, from what observations, and conversations with whom, do you base the knowledge of these facts?
GISEVIUS: From constant discussions I had with Beck, Oster, Goerdeler, Schacht, and an entire group of people at that time; later, the question why Beck did not make his retirement public depressed him to such an extent that it was a continual subject of discussions between him and me up to the end.
DR. DIX: That was Beck’s resignation; but then the problem of the possible resignation of Schacht was probably also brought up in deliberations. To your knowledge, and from your observation, was the question of the necessity or the opportuneness of Schacht’s resignation discussed between Schacht and Beck?
GISEVIUS: Yes, it was discussed in great detail.