VON PAPEN: Yes, in 1 month.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Within this general labor procurement program was rearmament contemplated?
VON PAPEN: Not at all. My Government did not spend a penny for rearmament.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: The details of this emergency decree may be found in Document 1, Pages 8 and 9.
Why was there another dissolution of the Reichstag on 12 September? What did you say about this on that evening over the radio?
VON PAPEN: The new Reichstag met according to the Constitution. My Government, as I have already said, could not obtain a majority; but the formation of any other government without Hitler was quite impossible. Therefore, I was justified in the hope that this Reichstag would give my Government time to test itself, especially as I had submitted to it a comprehensive and decisive economic program. But just then something unexpected and unheard-of happened.
The thing that happened was, so to speak, the prostitution of the German Parliament. Herr Göring, the President of the German Reichstag, gave to the Communist delegate, Clara Zetkin, the floor for a vehement attack on my Government. When I, the responsible Chancellor of this Government, asked for the floor in order to give an account of what I wanted to do, I was refused permission to speak, and the Reichstag President asked for a vote on a motion of no confidence brought in by the Communists, the Socialists and the National Socialists. The fact of this concerted motion on the part of the three parties should really show what would have taken place in Germany if these three parties were to have ruled in Germany together, and should also show how imperative it was for me to try not to crowd National Socialism into the leftist wing, but to bring it into my Government instead.
I was forced to put the order for the dissolution of the Reichstag on the table, and to leave.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: These historic facts may be found in Document 1, Page 8, and in the document which I have already referred to without having submitted it, Document 86, Page 192.
In a speech in Munich on 12 October you also dealt with the question of reforming the Constitution. Please tell us briefly just what opinion you voiced on that occasion.