SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And, Defendant, you have told us that up to this time you had been a diplomatist. When you became a Minister, did you not think that you had some responsibility for keeping the Government respectable and peace-loving as a Minister of the Reich?
VON NEURATH: To be sure, but the question was only how far it was in my power to accomplish this.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I don’t want to go into the workings of your mind too much, I just want to get this clear. You realized that as a Foreign Minister, and as a well-known figure to all the Chancelleries of Europe, that your presence in the Government would be taken throughout Europe, as a sign of your approval and your responsibility for what the Government did, did you not?
VON NEURATH: I doubt that very much. Perhaps one might have hoped so.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well now, just let’s consider it. Is it your case that up to November of 1937 you were perfectly satisfied with the peace-loving intentions and respectability of the Government?
VON NEURATH: I was convinced of the peaceful intentions of the Government. I have already stated that. Whether I was satisfied with the methods...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What about respectability? By “respectability” I mean the general standard of decency that is required by any government, under which its people are going to be reasonably happy and contented. Were you satisfied with that?
VON NEURATH: I was by no means in agreement with the methods, above all in connection with the domestic policy.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, I would just like to look at that for a moment. Did you know about the “Brown Terror” in March of 1933, some 6 weeks after the Government was formed?
VON NEURATH: I only knew of the boycott against the Jews, nothing else.