VON PAPEN: No, I did not know Dr. Eckstein, unfortunately.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Or Dr. Joachim, the Social Democrat lawyer from Berlin. Did you know he was put in a concentration camp?
VON PAPEN: No, I did not know him and I did not know this either.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, now, apart from individuals, did you not know that within a few months of Hitler’s becoming Chancellor, hundreds, if not thousands, of Social Democrats and Communists went into a concentration camp?
VON PAPEN: Thousands?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, let us say hundreds, if you like. That is the figure Defendant Göring agreed to, so let us take, as the inside figure, hundreds of Social Democrats and Communists. Minister Severing put it at 1,500 of each; did you not know that?
VON PAPEN: I recall very exactly that the Defendant Göring came to the Cabinet one day after he had had the headquarters of the Communist Party, the Liebknecht Haus, taken over by the Police. He told the Cabinet that he had found a great number of documents which showed to what extent the Communists and other elements were trying to disturb public order and overthrow the new Government.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now will you answer my questions. Did you not know that hundreds of Social Democrats and Communists had been put in concentration camps?
VON PAPEN: No, I did not know there were hundreds. I knew that individual leaders had been thrown into concentration camps.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, you mentioned, in giving your evidence to the Court, that the Amnesty Decree of 21 March was only the sort of thing that had happened before; that was a concretely one-sided amnesty, was it not? It was an amnesty to those who had fought in the national revolution, that is, an amnesty for Nazis. It was not an amnesty for Communists or Social Democrats or anyone who had been on the other side, was it?