SCHMIDT: No, up to then we did not know.
MR. DODD: Now, you got to Berchtesgaden at what time of day? Early in the morning or midmorning? What time of the day?
SCHMIDT: In the course of the morning.
MR. DODD: Yes, and I wish you to tell the Tribunal, as well as you can, just what happened there that day. We have heard much testimony about this meeting at Berchtesgaden, and you are the first person on the stand who was actually there. I guess that is not so—Keitel was there also. Well, but at any rate, you participated in the discussion. How did the discussion start?
SCHMIDT: To begin with, the discussion started with a conversation between Hitler and Schuschnigg. That conversation took place privately, so that neither I nor the other gentlemen were present. Later, the gentlemen were called in individually, and then there were also conferences without Hitler with the then Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, during which the points of the program which had been submitted to us before were discussed. In the course of these conversations, individual demands were canceled.
MR. DODD: While Hitler and Schuschnigg were talking, who were you talking with, if you were talking with anybody, or what were you doing?
SCHMIDT: I was together with the other gentlemen whom you have already mentioned; some of us were in the large hall and some of us sat and waited in the anteroom right outside the room where the four-man conference was taking place.
MR. DODD: Did you talk to Von Ribbentrop, for example, while Schuschnigg was talking to Hitler? What was going on there? What were you talking about with Ribbentrop, if you were talking to him?
SCHMIDT: In the afternoon session we went through the list of demands with Ribbentrop—I did that partly on my own—and I succeeded in having certain points eliminated.
MR. DODD: Well, during the morning—I wish you would limit yourself to time here, so that we will know the exact sequence of events. During that morning session between Hitler and Schuschnigg were you just sitting around in an informal conversation or were you actually in conversation about Austria and Germany with Ribbentrop or with anybody else?