SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: What position did Herr Köpke have in your Ministry on the 31st of May 1934?
VON NEURATH: He was the Ministerial Director.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Ministerial Director: Quite a responsible position, was it not?
VON NEURATH: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Do you remember Herr Köpke reporting to you on the 31st of May 1934, on a visit of Baron von Wächter?
VON NEURATH: No, I cannot remember that.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, just think; you know. Baron von Wächter was one of the leaders of the Putsch against Dollfuss 6 weeks later on the 25th of July. Don’t you remember Herr Köpke making a report to you and you passing it on to Hitler?
VON NEURATH: No, I cannot remember that.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Let’s refresh your memory if you don’t remember it. Would you look at Document D-868? It will become Exhibit GB-515. Just look at it. I will read it over, but just look at the signatories carefully; and if you will be good enough to look at the top, I think you will find on the original, there are your own initials; and on the left hand side there is a note: “The Reich Chancellor has been informed 6/6.” That is on the 6th of June. That is initialed “L” by Lammers—Dr. Lammers. Then there is a note below that: “From the Reich Chancellor on 6th June,” also initialed by Lammers I think. And on the other side you will see there is a note which is certainly initialed “Lammers.” “Habicht is coming today... L 6/6.” And this memorandum comes back from the Reich Chancellor to the Foreign Office on the same day. Now just let’s see what report you were getting from Austria and passing on to Hitler. We will omit, unless you want it particularly, a description of Baron von Wächter’s fresh, youthful appearance in Paragraph 1; but it goes on to say:
“His statements were obviously made in full consciousness of serious responsibility. His estimation of the affairs and personalities that came under review was clear and definite. Herr Von Wächter drew up for me, too, a picture of the situation in Austria which was, in some of its colors, even darker and more serious than it had appeared to us here up till now. The extremist tendencies of the National Socialists in Austria were constantly on the increase. Terrorist acts were multiplying. Regardless of who actually undertook the demolitions and other terrorist acts in individual cases, each such act provoked a new wave of extremism and also of desperate acts. As Herr Von Wächter repeatedly and sadly stressed, uniformity of leadership was lacking. The SA did what it wanted and what it, for its part, considered necessary. The political leadership at the same time introduced measures which sometimes meant the exact opposite. Thus the great terrorist action, as the result of which the railway lines leading to Vienna were blown up, was by no means committed by Marxists but by the Austrian SA and indeed against the wishes of the political leadership which, as he believed, did not participate in any way either in the act or its preparation. Such is the picture as a whole. In detail, in individual provinces and districts, the confusion was, if possible, even greater.”