DR. KUBUSCHOK: The file note is dated 26 February and was submitted by the Prosecution.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Document Book 11a, Page 1.
VON PAPEN: In this memorandum I mention the pressure brought to bear on Schuschnigg and under which he acted. The fact that I informed the Foreign Office should really indicate that I personally disapproved of this pressure; otherwise I would not have made a report on it. On 26 February my temporary activities, then, were also fully at an end.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: On 9 March 1938 Schuschnigg proclaimed the plebiscite. Kindly comment on this.
VON PAPEN: The plebiscite announced by Herr Schuschnigg was, of course, a complete surprise. In my view it was contrary to the spirit of the arrangements agreed upon at Berchtesgaden and contrary to the tendency of a peaceful settlement of the tension.
The plebiscite was a violation of the Austrian Constitution, too. It was not a decision of the Austrian Government but was a spontaneous measure of the Austrian Chancellor, and in my opinion it was quite evident that those elements in Austria who were in favor of a union of the two States were most displeased with this plebiscite.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: The witness Rainer has said in his testimony, and in the speech which was quoted, that on the evening of 9 March he was at your apartment. Was this a prearranged conference, a conference at all, or an exchange of views?
VON PAPEN: Not at all. I was absent from Vienna from the evening of the 26th, as far as I remember, until about 9 March. On that day I returned to Vienna, and it is naturally possible that these gentlemen came to my Embassy and talked to me there. There was no question of anything prearranged on my part.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Were you in Berlin on 11 March?
VON PAPEN: On the evening of 10 March a telephone call from the Reich Chancellery reached me at the Embassy with the order from Hitler to go to Berlin immediately that very night. I flew to Berlin the following morning and approximately between 9 and 10 in the morning I arrived at the Reich Chancellery. Why Hitler sent for me I do not know; I assumed that as this crisis developed he might want my advice; perhaps, too, he may have thought that my presence in Vienna would interfere with his plans. At any rate, on this fateful day, 11 March, I was in Berlin and at the Reich Chancellery. I met Hitler surrounded by numerous ministers, Herr Göring, Dr. Goebbels, Von Neurath, state secretaries, and also military people. He greeted me with the words: “The situation in Austria has become intolerable; Herr Schuschnigg is betraying the German idea and we cannot admit this forced plebiscite.”