DR. KUBUSCHOK: Mr. President, may I say quite generally that in dealing with the case of Papen it is our intention to prove that from the very beginning the defendant consistently adhered to his principles. For this purpose it is essential that the conditions prevailing at particular times should be elucidated. We are now not very far from the point at which we can leave the internal political conditions, and the other subjects will be very much briefer. I do think, however, that for the sake of completing the picture of the defendant’s personality, I must go into certain details; but of course we shall make every effort to omit all superfluous and avoidable particulars.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kubuschok, we are perfectly well aware that the case of every one of these 21 defendants is different from the others. We are perfectly aware of that, but what we desire is that their cases should be put forward fairly but without unnecessary and burdensome detail. They hope that you will try to confine the defendant to the really essential matters. Will you go on?
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Very well, Mr. President. We shall do our best.
[Turning to the defendant.] Will you continue, please.
VON PAPEN: Perhaps I may wind up this question by saying that my opposition within the Party, my plea for the use of conservative forces, gave me the reputation of being a bad Catholic. A foreign judge, a non-German judge cannot know that in those years a Catholic who was not a member of the Center Party but belonged to the right-wing parties was regarded as a bad and inferior Catholic; and that is the state of affairs against which I always fought.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: In his government statement of 4 June 1932 Von Papen referred to the fact that the outcome of the previous coalition policy in Prussia was fully evidenced in the entire public life of Germany. I refer to Document 1, Page 2, and I quote the last part of the first long paragraph:
“The disintegration of atheistic-Marxist thoughts has already too deeply invaded all the cultural fields of public life, because the Christian forces of the State were all too easily ready for compromises. The purity of public life cannot be maintained or re-established by way of compromises for the sake of parity. A clear decision must be made as to what forces are willing to help reconstruct the new Germany on the basis of the unchangeable principles of the Christian ideology.”
I also refer to Document Number 37, on Page 119, a speech at Munich on 1 March 1933, when the witness discussed the aspects which he has just mentioned.
Witness, how did you think the position of the churches was safeguarded by the new Government, and what did you do in that respect?
VON PAPEN: First of all, I asked Hitler to make a clear-cut statement on this question; and he did so in a positive manner. In the foreword to my speeches made at that time, there is the observation that it is the first and most important task to revise the Nazi program with reference to the religious problem, since such a revision is a prerequisite for a united front of the two Christian confessions in that coalition. Secondly, I attempted to protect Church policy by giving it, after the conclusion of the Concordat, a certain foreign political context.