DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: But for what reason did you especially emphasize in your letter to Lammers that you shared the opinions expressed in Frank’s report?
VON NEURATH: I considered it right to do this because Frank was a member of the SS and a subordinate and confidant of Himmler. On the other hand, I knew already at that time that Hitler was prejudiced against me, because of my attitude toward the Czech people, which he considered much too mild and lenient; and I was, therefore, convinced that together with Frank I would be more likely to be successful in influencing Hitler to my way of thinking than if I went to him alone. That was the reason why I suggested that Frank should participate in the report. For the same reason I did not write directly to Hitler, as I did usually, but to Lammers. According to previous experience, I had to assume that if I had written directly to Hitler, who on top of it was not in Berlin at the time, he would either not read the report at all or would refer it to Himmler.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: How was this letter to Lammers and its enclosures handled in your office?
VON NEURATH: I had the draft of the report of Frank submitted to me. Then I dictated my letter to Lammers, and I sent it with my report and Frank’s draft back to Frank’s office for a final review of the Frank report and for the dispatch of the letter to Lammers together with both versions. I did not see the letter to Lammers and the two reports again before they were sent out nor did I see them, by the way, in Berlin at the conference with Hitler.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: The last question. How did you reach the conviction that the photostatic copies, submitted here, of the two reports could not be identical with the reports which were enclosed in the letter to Lammers, according to your instructions?
VON NEURATH: As for the first report which I prepared, I have already stated that according to my recollection it was much shorter than the one submitted here in photostatic copy. Furthermore, this photostatic copy does not bear my signature, not even my initials. But it is out of the question that the final copy of this report, which was enclosed at my office in the letter to Lammers, would not have been signed or at least initialed by me; and the certificate of correctness, which, remarkably enough, is contained in this report and which was prepared by an SS Obersturmbannführer, is not signed. The photostatic copy which is said to have been enclosed in the letter to Lammers does not even bear my initials. The most noticeable thing, however, is the certificate of correctness on the photostatic copy. This can have a meaning only if the document enclosed in the letter to Lammers, in spite of not bearing my signature, was enclosed in the letter nevertheless. But since the final copy which my office sent to State Secretary Frank’s office with the letter to Lammers was certainly signed by me, this certificate proves that it was not the report signed by me which was enclosed in the letter sent to Lammers but another one drafted by Frank or by officials in his office. As for Frank’s own report, the text of the photostatic copy here, to my recollection, is not identical with the text of the report which I approved and which I then sent on together with my report to Lammers...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Von Lüdinghausen, we have heard the explanation more than once, I think, that the enclosure which was in the letter was not the same as the one which he drew up. It does not get any more convincing by getting told over again.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: I only wanted to express it again. But if the Tribunal believes that that explanation has been made previously, I may dispense with it.
VON NEURATH: Mr. President, may I be permitted to make another statement as to how I imagine—of course, I can only imagine—these things took place? I am firmly convinced that if the two photostatic copies submitted here were actually enclosed in the letter to Lammers, they were prepared in Frank’s office, and enclosed without my knowledge. Another possibility would be, of course, that Czech...
THE PRESIDENT: We are quite as able to imagine possibilities as you are.