SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: [Interposing.] My Lord, I don’t know whether it would be useful for the Tribunal to have the two references, the two passages. The passage in 2385-PS Your Lordships will find in Document Book 11a, that is, the second document book, at Page 24 at the bottom of the page. The reference in 1760-PS is in Document Book 11, Page 22, about one-third down the page, and then it goes on to the next third of the page.
VON PAPEN: My actual remark to Mr. Messersmith is perhaps not quite so far from my defense counsel’s last quotation as the difference between Mr. Messersmith’s two statements would seem to indicate. It is perfectly possible that we discussed the question of southeast Europe and I can well imagine pointing out to him that the economic and political questions of the southeastern area were of great importance not only for Germany’s policy, but also for Austria; for the expansion of our trade toward the Balkans was a perfectly legitimate aim. I kept Berlin informed of everything that I learned in Vienna regarding the policy of the countries of the southeastern area because naturally that was one of the functions of the Ambassador to Vienna. But except for that I did nothing in the whole course of my work in Vienna which tallies in any way with what Mr. Messersmith alleges here.
Apart from that, may I say that it would be extremely foolish and contrary to the most elementary rules of diplomacy if I had made such a disclosure to an unknown ambassador in the course of my first conference with him. That would have made a sensation and would certainly have come to the ears of the Austrian Government and the whole world the next day.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: On this point, I refer to Prince Erbach’s interrogatory, Document Papen-96, Page 238, Questions 8 and 9, which deal with this subject. Page 232 of the English text.
VON PAPEN: Perhaps, My Lord, I might add that the Prosecution are in possession of all my reports from the Vienna period, and that these reports are bound to show whether I was pursuing such an objective.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Did you ever, during your time in Vienna, negotiate with Hungary and Poland about a division of Czechoslovakia? Mr. Messersmith makes such a statement.
VON PAPEN: No, I never did. The policy of the Reich in Czechoslovakia was the exclusive responsibility of our Legation in Prague.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: I refer to the Horthy interrogatory already presented as Document Papen-76. I also refer to Document Papen-68, Page 162, a report from Papen to Hitler, dated 31 August 1935.
[Turning to the defendant.] Mr. Messersmith asserts in the affidavit mentioned that you stated during this conference that you were in Austria for the purpose of undermining and weakening the Austrian Government. Did you make such a statement?
VON PAPEN: May I make a general statement with reference to this affidavit. If I may express myself in diplomatic terms, I must describe it as in the highest degree astonishing. In this affidavit, Mr. Messersmith himself relates that on the occasion of my first visit he received me icily. That is perfectly correct. I was quite well aware that Mr. Messersmith was the keenest opponent of the Nazi system. It is therefore all the more astonishing to read here that during the second visit I opened my heart, so to speak, to Mr. Messersmith; the passage quoted here—that I came to undermine and weaken the Austrian Government—is, of course, not true either, because such a statement would naturally have been communicated to the Austrian Government by Mr. Messersmith at once, and would have rendered all my work of pacification and my position generally impossible from the outset. May I refer in this connection to the statement made by the Austrian Foreign Minister Schmidt, to whom such activities on my part were entirely unknown.