The concentration camp to which they had been taken was the camp at Oranienburg. Later on I learned of the existence of a camp at Dachau, and in 1939 I also heard of Buchenwald, because the Czech students who had been arrested by Himmler were taken there.
The extent of the concentration camps as it has become known here, and in particular the treatment of the prisoners and the existence of the extermination camps, are things which I learned about for the first time here in Nuremberg.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: By whom and when were you appointed Reich Foreign Minister, and how did that appointment come about?
VON NEURATH: I was appointed Foreign Minister on 2 June 1932 by Reich President Von Hindenburg. Already in 1929, after Stresemann’s death, Hindenburg had wanted to appoint me Foreign Minister. At that time I refused, because in view of the party conditions existing in the Reichstag in those days I saw no possibility for a stable foreign policy. I was not a member of any of the 30 or so parties, so that I would not have been able to have found any kind of support in the Reichstag of those days.
Hindenburg, however, obtained my promise that I would answer his call if the fatherland should find itself in an emergency.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: In this connection may I quote the telegram in which the Foreign Office informed Herr Von Neurath of the fact that the Reich President desired that he should take a leading position in the Government at this time. This is a copy of the telegram which was transmitted to him by telephone, Number 6 in my document book:
“For the Ambassador personally, to be deciphered by himself.
“Berlin, 31 May 1932.”
It was addressed to London.
“The Reich President requests you, in view of your former promise, to take over the Foreign Ministry in the presidential cabinet now being formed, which will be made up of right-wing personalities free from political party allegiance and will be supported not so much by the Reichstag as by the authority of the Reich President. The Reich President addresses an urgent appeal to you not to refuse your services to the fatherland in this difficult hour. Should you not be able to give an affirmative answer immediately I ask you to return at once.”