VON PAPEN: No.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You didn’t know that was Göring’s view?
VON PAPEN: Please let me say something. Of course, I knew that Göring’s wish was to bring about a union of the two States, and I myself was present at the talk with Mussolini.
Please consider, however, that at that time Herr Göring was not competent to decide foreign policy. The question of what our policy in Austria should be had been agreed upon between Hitler and myself exclusively and I do not remember discussing it with Marshal Göring in the years between 1936 and 1938.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am dealing with November 1937, at the moment, and 3 months later the Defendant Göring was very competent in foreign politics in the Austrian question, as you, who listened to the accounts of his telephone conversations, must know.
I just want you to take the dates as we have got them now. Göring had told Schmidt his views; you and Schmidt were discussing this meeting between Schuschnigg and Hitler. In January you had a political discussion with Dr. Seyss-Inquart at Garmisch.
I am one date out of order. On 11 November, as Mr. Dodd put to Dr. Seyss-Inquart, he had written a letter to Dr. Jury saying, “I don’t think anything will happen this year, but the developments will take place in the spring.” Then, after that letter, he sees you at Garmisch in January, and in February you finally arrange this meeting between Schuschnigg and Hitler.
VON PAPEN: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Didn’t you know very well that the whole object of the meeting was to get Herr Schuschnigg to agree to the Reich’s wishes, the appointment of Seyss-Inquart, a general political amnesty which would release all the members of the Nazi Party in Austria and put them at the disposal of their leaders, and a declaration of equal rights for the Party? Didn’t you know that the whole object of the meeting was to get Herr Schuschnigg to agree to these terms so that you would have the Austrian National Socialist Party unfettered and free to work for Germany’s interests in Austria?
VON PAPEN: In my talk with Dr. Seyss-Inquart in Garmisch-Partenkirchen we discussed the necessity of making the Austrian Nazi Party independent, that is, under all circumstances removing it from the influence of the Reich, in the form agreed upon in the July Agreement, and with the aim that the way should be paved for a union of our two countries, and that that aim should be pursued from the Austrian side in terms of foreign policy, and not by the Reich.