SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And you had a pretty good idea, had you not, apart from the treatment of Field Marshal Von Blomberg, that Von Fritsch had been the subject of a trumped-up charge in order to prevent him becoming head of the Armed Forces? You knew that, didn’t you?
VON PAPEN: In any case, that became clear to me later, when I learned of the circumstances.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No, no, that is not the important thing, Defendant, your state of mind on 5 February 1938. You knew by then that the Nazi clique in the Government had brought a framed-up charge against a man whom you regarded as the soul of honor, did you not?
VON PAPEN: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now with that knowledge, on 5 February, after you see Hitler, you tell him about the fact that Schuschnigg may come, and he jumps to it at once. He says, “Go and get Schuschnigg,” doesn’t he? He was quite bored, if I may put it that way, with what you had to say up to that point. As soon as you say there is a chance of a meeting with Schuschnigg, Hitler seizes it like a trout to a May fly, doesn’t he, or rather, like a lion to the kill; that is right, isn’t it?
VON PAPEN: Yes, Sir David. I described to the Court the impression made on me by events in Berlin and by my own dismissal on 4 February. Do you think it is surprising that I now tried, just because I was afraid another course would be adopted, to bring about this long-desired discussion between the two chiefs of state which I hoped would clear up the differences and prevent the adoption of a radical course? I told Foreign Minister Schmidt and Chancellor Schuschnigg that, when I asked them both to take part in a discussion to clear up matters if they could possibly do so.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, Defendant, I am not going to go through the circumstances of the meeting of 12 February, because I went through them with the Defendant Von Ribbentrop and the Court is well aware of them.
I want to ask you this one question, and I do ask you to consider it carefully because the question of your own veracity may depend on it.
Are you now saying that there was no pressure put on Herr Schuschnigg at that interview?
VON PAPEN: Sir David, I never made such a statement—you know that yourself, because it is in my reports; I myself said that pressure was exerted.