VON NEURATH: Yes, I knew that, of course; and I learned of it and the fact that this charge was a fabrication of the Gestapo but not of Hitler, at least in my opinion.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, didn’t you know that those—these unsavory matters concerning Field Marshal Von Blomberg and Colonel General Von Fritsch had been faked up by members of the Nazi gang, who were your colleagues in the Government?
VON NEURATH: Yes. The details were unknown to me, of course.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You see, you remember that at the time of Munich, when you came back to the field—came back into activity for some time, President Beneš did appeal to this German-Czechoslovak Arbitration Convention and Hitler brushed the appeal to one side. Do you remember that? In September 1938?
VON NEURATH: No; that, I do not know, for at that time I was not in office any longer and I did not get to see these matters at all. I do not know about that.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, you don’t know; of course, it was in the German press and every other press that he appealed to this treaty and Hitler refused to look at it; but you say that you honestly believed on the 12th of March that Hitler would stand by that Arbitration Treaty; that’s what you said?
VON NEURATH: Yes, I had no misgivings.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, that might be a convenient moment to break off.
[A recess was taken.]
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Defendant, you spoke yesterday with regard to the memorandum of Lieutenant General Friderici. Do you remember in that memorandum he referred to a memorandum of yours on how to deal with Czechoslovakia?