MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, there was another plot on Hitler’s life that you haven’t mentioned. Was there not a bomb that was later found to have been a communist bomb?
GISEVIUS: This happened on 9 November 1939, in the Bürgerbräukeller, in Munich. It was a brave Communist who acted independently.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, at none of these times when Hitler’s life was endangered, by a strange coincidence, was Göring or Himmler ever present; is that not true?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did you attach any importance to that fact?
GISEVIUS: We sometimes regretted it. For instance, the attempt at assassination would perhaps have succeeded, if Göring and Himmler had been with Hitler on 17 July. But as the years went by, the members of this clique separated to such an extent, and protected themselves so much that they could hardly be found together anywhere. Göring, too, was gradually so absorbed in his transactions and art collections at Karinhall that he was hardly ever to be found at a serious conference.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, the assassination of Hitler would have accomplished nothing from your point of view if the Number 2 man had stepped into Hitler’s place, would it?
GISEVIUS: That was a debatable problem for a long time, because Brauchitsch, for instance, imagined that we could create a transitional regime with Göring. Our group always refused to come together with that man even for an hour.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: How did you plan—if you were successful—to deal with the other defendants here, with the exception of the Defendant Schacht, all of whom, I understand, you regard as a part of the Nazi government?
GISEVIUS: These gentlemen would have been behind lock and key in an extremely short time, and I think they would not have had to wait long for their sentences.