MR. DODD: The place was surrounded with them, was it not? They were not only in the building, but they were outside of it and on the roofs of neighboring buildings. You remember all that?
SEYSS-INQUART: There were a few thousand National Socialists in front of the Federal Chancellery at the time.
MR. DODD: Well, we had better refer to your friend Rainer, who is coming here on your behalf, and see what he says about it.
Have you seen the article—yes, I guess it is fair to call it an article—that he wrote about that historical night? Are you familiar with that?
SEYSS-INQUART: Oh yes; one can really call it more than an article.
MR. DODD: Yes. He called it “The Hours of Historical Decision.”
This is 4004-PS, Mr. President, USA-883.
[Turning to the defendant.] You will agree, then, that it is quite a different picture that Rainer gives from what you have given this Tribunal, is it not? If you know the article, and you say you do. He says, you know, that Kaltenbrunner commanded 700 SS men there that night and that Lukesch had 6,000 SA men within half an hour, and they received the order to advance and occupy the Federal Chancellery and to hold the Ring and the building until the National Socialist Government was proclaimed; and that 40 SS men under Kaltenbrunner’s adjutant, Rinner, received the order to force their way into and occupy the Federal Chancellery, and so on. And you ordered—he says that you are the man who ordered—that Rinner be let in. That is very important, and I would like to know what you say about that. Rinner was in command of the 40 SS men that you say somebody else should have removed. You will find that he says:
“It was getting on towards 10 o’clock when the commanding officer of the guards reported to the Minister of Security, Dr. Seyss, who happened to be in our room, that a man accompanied by 40 others was demanding to be let in through the gate on the strength of higher orders. I quickly informed Dr. Seyss that these were Rinner and his 40 men who had been detailed to occupy the Federal Chancellery. Dr. Seyss ordered that Rinner be brought upstairs. I shall never forget this moment. Escorted by a lanky guardsman, Felix Rinner, the famous Austrian champion runner....” and so on.
He was the first National Socialist Sturmführer who entered the headquarters that night; and you are the man, actually, who let him in.