“The crushing of the revolt, your courageous and firm personal intervention have met with nothing but recognition throughout the entire world.”
Why did you write it?
VON PAPEN: Because at that time it was my opinion that there actually had been a revolution and that Hitler had crushed it. That on the other hand numerous people had been murdered, members of my own office staff, that was something about which Hitler was to ascertain the truth.
When he told me that he himself would assume responsibility, I considered this an excellent act on his part, though not, as it was actually done afterwards by Hitler, when he stated to the Reichstag that these events were proper. I understood it to mean that if he himself assumed responsibility for these events he would clarify them to the world and not state to the world in a law without any investigation that they were proper.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Would you tell the Tribunal that on 12 July you thought there was any doubt or any possibility that your friend Jung could be guilty of treason against the Reich or of a plot against Hitler? Did you believe that for an instant?
VON PAPEN: Herr Hitler explained to me at that time that the shooting of Bose was first of all only a...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No, I asked first of all about yourself. I asked, did you believe for a moment that Jung had been guilty of treason against the Reich or of a plot against Hitler?
VON PAPEN: No, certainly not.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, you knew very well that Hitler was worried from the point of view of foreign opinion as to publicity being given to the effect of a break between you and him, did you not?
You knew that the support, after the blood purge, of an ex-Chancellor of the German Reich and, as you have told us, a Catholic of old family with great position amongst the German population—the support of someone of that kind would be of great value to him after this blood purge, which had caused foreign opinion to be very disturbed, did you not? You knew that?