VON PAPEN: My letter to Hitler dated 10 April 1934 has been submitted by the Prosecution. It contains the reasons for my resignation. In Prussia—I have already stated this—I had already carried through the co-ordination of political aims on 20 July. The Reichsstatthalter Law enabled the Reich Chancellor to be Prime Minister of Prussia himself or to nominate a substitute. And so my task in Prussia was completed. Apart from that, I should like to mention the following point: The elections of 5 March had given the National Socialists a strong majority also in the Prussian Parliament. The Prussian Parliament then met and naturally desired that a National Socialist should become Prime Minister of Prussia. For all these reasons I resigned.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: The Prosecution charges that, as a prominent lay member of the Catholic Church, you were particularly able to consolidate the Nazi regime in the field of the churches. We must therefore discuss your attitude regarding the Church. Will you give an account of the situation of the German Church at that time?
VON PAPEN: This charge, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, is for me the most serious of the entire Indictment—the charge that I, as a Catholic, contributed to this conspiracy against world peace. May I be permitted, therefore, to discuss my attitude in the Church question quite briefly.
The Catholics in Germany had organized themselves in the Center Party. Before 1918 the Center Party, as a moderate party, had always endeavored to establish a balance between the left and the right political wings. After the war that picture was altered entirely.
We then find the Center Party mostly in coalition with the left. In Prussia, this coalition was maintained during all the years from 1918 until 1932. Undeniably the Center Party deserves much credit for the maintenance of the life of the State during the years after the collapse; but the coalition with the Social Democrats made co-operation of the Center Party with the right impossible, particularly with regard to Church policy. In political questions and matters of internal party policy the Center Party, therefore, followed a line of compromise which was the result obtained through the concessions of others in the field of Church policy. That this state of affairs...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kubuschok, to what is this all relevant?
DR. KUBUSCHOK: The Prosecution has said:
“Papen used his position of a prominent Catholic to consolidate the Nazi regime. He was double-faced, and that characteristic is especially obvious in this connection and throws light on his personality.”
The defendant is now explaining what his attitude in Church matters has been from the beginning of his political activity. Since he was first a member of the Center Party and then left it, it is necessary to discuss the split which developed between him and the leaders of the party. Later we shall...
THE PRESIDENT: Why is it necessary to go into this extreme detail? Surely the thing that he wants to show is that he was not assisting the Nazi Party. He was undoubtedly a Catholic, and he wants to show that he was not assisting the Nazi Party. He does not want to go into all of these details about Catholic influences and his part in Catholic influences.