VON PAPEN: Sir David, you are confusing two completely different things, political Catholicism...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Defendant, I don’t want to interrupt you, but I have made that point quite clear. The point I am putting to you is not the elimination of political Catholicism. I am not, for the moment, dealing with the relation between you and Monsignor Kaas. What I am dealing with is your other statement, that it had been done without touching the Christian foundations of Germany. What I am putting to you is what His Holiness is saying, that the Christian foundations of Germany were being destroyed. I don’t mind, for the moment, about the views that Monsignor Kaas had of you or you had of Monsignor Kaas. I know what they are.
VON PAPEN: Let me explain these things to you. The struggle against the Church and its institutions, against which His Holiness the Pope inveighs in his encyclicals in the years 1937 and 1945, and in which he recognized the intensification of the situation obtaining during the war—all of these things were an attack on the Christian foundations of Germany, an attack which I always condemned most strongly. But this has no connection at all with the elimination of so-called political Catholicism for which I hoped and which I demanded. These are two completely different things. Perhaps it is hard for you to understand, since you are not familiar with circumstances in Germany.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Please believe, Defendant, that I have spent a great deal of time in pursuing the troubles between you and Monsignor Kaas. I am not going to bring them out before the Tribunal because they are not important. I appreciate and agree—not as well as you do, but I appreciate the position of political Catholicism and I am not asking you about that. I am asking you about your statement. Why did you say to Hitler that he had not touched the Christian foundations of Germany? That is what I want to know. You must have known in 1935 that that wasn’t true?
VON PAPEN: But, Sir David, that is a complete distortion of the contents of this report. I am telling Hitler that the Christian foundations of Germany must not be weakened and that may still be read in the report today: “Political Catholicism must be eliminated without weakening the Christian foundations of Germany.”
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, you appreciate how it begins. You say “....that a clever hand which eliminates it without touching....” Just let me remind you: Didn’t you say, in your interrogation, that your trouble—part of your trouble in the summer of 1934, before you made the Marburg speech, was due to the nonfulfillment of the Concordat, that after it had been signed, with the consent of Hitler, “....he treated it just as a scrap of paper and I couldn’t do anything”? Then there was the persecution of the Churches and the Jews at the same time. That was late in 1933 and in 1934. Is that your view in 1934, “....that there had not only been treating of the Concordat as a scrap of paper but persecution of both the Churches and the Jews”?
VON PAPEN: I do not know which document you are quoting from, Sir David.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: This is your interrogation on the morning of 19 September 1945.
VON PAPEN: Yes, of course. When I delivered the Marburg speech, I believed that the State was violating all these things; otherwise, I would not have made the speech. But in this speech, Sir David, I again expressly emphasized the fact that no European occidental state can exist without a Christian foundation, and that by disregarding our Christian basis we would cut ourselves off from the group of Christian peoples and from our mission in Europe. I could scarcely say it more clearly than that. And perhaps I can tell you something else on the subject of political Catholicism. You have...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Do as you want to. I especially want to avoid burdening the Tribunal with the exchanges between you and Monsignor Kaas, because both of you used harsh language and it might not sound very good if I repeated it now. If you want to go into it, do, but don’t open it up unless you must.