DR. LÜDINGHAUSEN: Very well, Mr. President. I asked about these matters only because they are rather extensively dealt with in the Indictment.
[Turning to the defendant.] And what about the film industry, Herr Von Neurath?
VON NEURATH: The same applied to the movie industry. It was even especially active.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Now, I should like to turn to the alleged suppression of religious freedom, of which you are being accused in the Czech indictment. The Czech indictment speaks of a wave of persecution which inundated the churches and which started immediately when the German troops marched in to occupy the country. What about that?
VON NEURATH: A systematic persecution of the churches is quite out of the question. The population was quite free as concerns public worship, and I certainly would not have tolerated any restrictions along this line. The former Under State Secretary Von Burgsdorff has testified to that point here already. It may be true that in individual cases pilgrimages or certain religious processions were prohibited by the Police, even though I personally do not remember it clearly. But that took place only because certain pilgrimages, consisting of many thousands of people, were exploited as political demonstrations at which anti-German speeches were made. At any rate, that had actually occurred several times and had been brought to my knowledge. It is true that a number of clerics were arrested in connection with the action at the beginning of the war, which we have already mentioned here. But these arrests did not take place, because the men were clerics but because they were active political opponents or people who were political suspects. In cases of this nature I made special efforts to have these people released.
My personal connections with the archbishop of Prague were absolutely correct and amicable. He and the archbishop of Olmütz specifically thanked me for my intervention on behalf of the Church, as I remember distinctly. I prevented any measure against the public worship of the Jews. Every synagogue was open to the time I left in the autumn of 1941.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: In connection with the last point, I should like to put one more question about the position of Jews in the Protectorate. What can you tell us about it?
VON NEURATH: The legal position of the Jews had to be co-ordinated with the position of the Jews in the Reich, according to instructions from Berlin. The directives with regard to this had been sent to me already in April of 1939. Through all sorts of inquiries addressed to Berlin, I tried and succeeded in not having the laws go into effect until June 1939, so as to give the Jews the opportunity to prepare themselves for the imminent introduction of these laws.
The so-called Nuremberg Laws were introduced into the Protectorate, too, at that time. Thereby the Jews were removed from public life and from leading positions in the economic life. However, arrests on a large scale did not take place. There were also no excesses against Jews, except in a few single instances. The camp at Theresienstadt was not erected until long after my time of office, and I prevented the erection of other concentration camps in the Protectorate, too.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: The Czech report accuses you of personally carrying through anti-Jewish measures. They maintain that, first of all, you charged the Czech Government, that is to say the autonomous government, with the carrying through of the anti-Jewish laws and that when Ministerpräsident Elias refused to do so, you personally took the necessary steps.