SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Do you remember the affidavit that has been put in evidence here, made by the American Consul, Mr. Geist, Document 1759-PS, Exhibit USA-420?
VON NEURATH: May I see it?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, just let me remind you. It is a long affidavit, and there are only one or two parts I want to put to you.
Mr. Geist gives detailed particulars of the bad treatment, the beating, and assaulting, and insulting, and so on, of Jews as early as March 1933. Did you know about that?
VON NEURATH: I know of these occurrences; I do not know this affidavit, I have not seen it, but I do know about the occurrences from complaints made by foreign diplomatic representatives. And according to them—and as concerns my attitude to these events—I repeatedly applied to Hitler and urgently implored him to have them stopped. But I do not know anything more about the details.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Just leaving that affidavit for the moment, as Foreign Minister, you would receive—you did receive, did you not, a synopsis or account of what was appearing in the foreign press?
VON NEURATH: Yes, that I did but whether I received all of those things I do not know.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Just let me take an example. You had been Ambassador at the Court of St. James from 1930 to 1932, if my recollection is right; had you not?
VON NEURATH: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And you realized—whether you agreed with what was in them or not—the London Times and the Manchester Guardian were newspapers that had a great deal of influence in England, didn’t you?