Why were you so afraid of a nonintervention pact, if your idea was that there should only be an evolutionary solution of Austria based on Austria’s will? Why were you afraid of a nonintervention pact which would bind the Reich to not interfering in Austria?
VON PAPEN: For a very simple reason. All political combinations which our opponents were making at the time had only one end, that Austria should be pushed into such a situation, whether it was a Danube pact or a pact with Italy and France, which would make it impossible to advance the thought of the Anschluss. For that reason it had to be and remain our natural political aim that the international status of Austria should not be allowed to deteriorate, as I have expressed it here.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes. That is the answer which I thought you would have to give. Now, just look at Page 83, which is in the very next paragraph:
“The German nation has for centuries had to pursue a veritable path of suffering in order to secure its unity. With the dawn of National Socialism and the founding of the Third Reich by means of the final overthrow of all particulars, an opportunity, unique and never to be repeated, seemed to present itself to complete Bismarck’s work and to bring relations between Germany and Austria nearer to a solution, as a dynamic result of internal events in Germany.”
I will see if I can put quite shortly what you mean by the completion of this man’s work, because I hope we shall not disagree about ancient history, whatever we do about the other. As I understand, your view is that this, Bismarck’s setting up the German Empire in 1871, was merely an attempt at a solution which left the Hapsburg Empire separated from Germany, and the final completion of his work was that the old Hapsburg dominions should be brought back with the states which had been in the Holy Roman Empire. Is that roughly the truth?
VON PAPEN: Quite right; not all the Hapsburg states, but Austria, the German part.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: The original Hapsburg domains?
VON PAPEN: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Quite right. I hope I am putting it objectively enough.
VON PAPEN: Oh, yes.