SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Just so that we will have it in sequence, if you will look at Paragraph 6 of the same document, about the second sentence, it begins:
“When it became clear that Hitler was not willing to enter Schleicher’s Cabinet, and that Schleicher on his part was unable to split the National Socialist Party as he had hoped to do with the help of Gregor Strasser, the policy for which Schleicher had been appointed Chancellor was shipwrecked. Schleicher was aware that Hitler was particularly embittered against him and would never agree to co-operate with him. Therefore he changed his mind and decided to fight against the Nazis, which meant that he now wanted to pursue the policy which he had sharply opposed a few weeks before, when Papen had suggested it.”
Is that right?
VON PAPEN: That is quite right.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, you see—I want to get the position quite clear. You told us that you had approached Hitler first in August; before you approached Hitler you had already legalized the position of the SA and the SS, which had been made illegal by Chancellor Brüning. You did that on 14 June, did you not?
VON PAPEN: I had lifted the prohibition, yes, but only for 4 weeks.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did you think it was a good thing to lift the prohibition against the SA, the terror of the streets?
VON PAPEN: I stated expressly to the Court how the lifting of this prohibition came about. The intention was to bring Hitler and his Party to tolerate my Cabinet. The second reason was that the prohibition of these formations was one-sided, if the socialist and communist fighting formations were not also prohibited.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And on 20 July you had forcefully got rid of the Braun-Severing Government and got control of Prussia and the Prussian police under your own hand?
VON PAPEN: It cannot be expressed in that way, no.