SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I see.
VON PAPEN: It was a task of pacification and normalization and a continuation of the policy of the grafting together of the two States in an evolutionary way. And now may I say a few words more concerning this affidavit of Dr. Schmidt? At the time when the witness sat here in this chair we established the fact that this affidavit was placed before him when he was still in bed in the hospital after a severe illness, and this document was given to him for his signature...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, with respect to that, the Tribunal will deal with it. We have heard all about it and Dr. Schmidt has been cross-examined and I think you may take it that the Tribunal know everything about the circumstances of the affidavit. If you have anything to comment on the contents of it, I am sure the Tribunal would willingly let you, but you need not comment on the circumstances. That is all before the Tribunal.
VON PAPEN: I will comment on the contents, I will state that Minister Schmidt, who later played a highly influential role with Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop, in the years which are under discussion here had a very subordinate position in the Foreign Office which did not afford him insight—any exact insight—into conditions in Austria and into my policy and my reports.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, if that is so...
VON PAPEN: Sir David, Herr Von Neurath will be able to confirm that for you tomorrow or the day after.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, we won’t argue that any further. The Tribunal have the whole of Dr. Schmidt’s record before them and the affidavit. Now you said you told the Tribunal about your conception of your mission in Austria. If that was your conception of your mission in Austria, why was it necessary for you to get hold of the position of the explosive chambers in Austrian strategic roads? That was rather going back to the development of the “top hat” idea to which you objected so strongly, wasn’t it?—Well, if you don’t remember, let me remind you. It is Document D-689, Page 101.
The Tribunal will find the passage actually on Page 102, and it is 90 and 91 in the German version of Document Book 11, becoming GB-504.
This is the opening of the Grossglockner Road, which, as you know, is a road of some strategic importance going from Salzburg to Carinthia. Do you remember that, after your description about the people being in Salzburg and singing everything except the Horst-Wessel song, and then the German drivers competing, in the third and next paragraph you say:
“The building of this road is undoubtedly a first-class work of culture, in which Reich-German construction firms took the main and decisive part. The chief engineer of the Reich-German firm which built the tunnel at the highest point offered to inform me of the position of the explosive chambers in this tunnel. I sent him to the military attaché.”