“After I had repeatedly asked....”
THE PRESIDENT: No, you read that down to “Gestapo,” but you did not go on with the rest.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: “But if he persists in his resolve to avoid this interrogation, even though he knows that this means social and material ruin for himself and his family, and as he has given me his word that he will do nothing while an émigré which would be harmful to the Führer and to the country, I can only add my wish that everything should be avoided which could turn this affair into an open scandal.”
I am grateful, My Lord.
Now, Defendant, you had already said to Hitler on 31 January, which was 5 days before that—Page 84, My Lord, and the foot of Page 55 and the beginning of 56 of the German book:
“Herr Von Tschirschsky, whom I have, incidentally, for the time being relieved of his duties, has now learned from several sources which he—and I myself as well, unfortunately—regards as authentic, that some persons belonging to the Gestapo have for some considerable time been planning to liquidate him.”
My Lord, that will be Document D-683, Exhibit GB-511.
You believed that it was authentic on 31 January that the Gestapo wished to neutralize him. On 5 February, in the part that the Tribunal just asked me to read, you say it will be the ruin of his social and material position for himself and his family, but if the thing is kept quiet, your wish is that everything be done to avoid a scandal.
Now, Defendant...
VON PAPEN: My wish was first of all that everything possible should be done to have the matter cleared by means of a public trial.