Do you remember saying that?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no exact recollection, but I consider that these records here are genuine, and they probably represent the sense of what I said at the time. I was very much perturbed by Heydrich’s death. I was afraid of serious trouble in Bohemia and Moravia, and I expressed my fears. The essential thing is that after calm consideration of this plan I dropped it, and did nothing more about it.
MR. DODD: Well, in any event, I think it is perfectly clear—and I ask you if you do not agree—that you made two suggestions at least: one for the bombing of a cultural English town and the other for the wholesale evacuation of the Czechs from Vienna, because of the assassination of this man Heydrich.
VON SCHIRACH: It is true that I put the idea of such an evacuation of the Czechs into words. It is equally true, and a historical fact, that I dropped the idea and that it was never carried out. It is correct that I suggested the bombing of a British cultural site as an answer to the attempt against Heydrich and to the innumerable bombardments of German cultural places in the third year of the war, at a time when vital interests of the German people were at stake.
MR. DODD: Incidentally, Hitler also suggested the wholesale evacuation of the Czechs from Czechoslovakia as a punishment for the murder of Heydrich, did he not?
VON SCHIRACH: That I do not know.
MR. DODD: Now I want to turn to something else and see if we can get through here rather soon this morning. You recall that on Friday we talked a little bit about your relationship with the SS and with Himmler, and I want to ask you this morning if it is not a fact, Mr. Witness, that you worked very closely with Himmler and his SS from almost the earliest days right down to almost the last days of your regime in Vienna. I wish you would answer that question.
VON SCHIRACH: I should very much like to answer that question in great detail.
MR. DODD: It does not require great detail in the first answer, but later, if you feel that you have some necessary explanation, I am sure you will be permitted to do so. Will you tell the Tribunal first of all, rather, if it is not a fact that you did closely co-operate with Himmler and his SS from the earliest days of your public office to the very late days of your public office?
VON SCHIRACH: Close collaboration in the sense that Himmler had considerable influence upon education did not exist.