MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: All right. Yesterday you stated here that in 1936 you had differences of opinion with Hitler and that on 27 of July 1936 you asked to be relieved of your duties as a Minister. This document was cited here yesterday, but did you not write to Hitler then?—and I will read the last sentence of your letter to him:
“Even if I am no longer Minister, I shall be constantly at your disposal, if you so desire, with my advice and my years of experience in the field of foreign policy.”
Did you write these words in your letter to the Führer?
VON NEURATH: Yes indeed; yes indeed.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: And did you fulfill the promises you made to Hitler? Whenever it was necessary to cover by diplomatic manipulations the aggressive actions of Hitler, as for instance at the time of the annexation of the Sudetenland, during the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and so on? Did you help Hitler with your experience? Is that right?
VON NEURATH: That is a great mistake. On the contrary, as I have stated here yesterday and today, I was called in by Hitler only once; and that was on the last phase of the Austrian Anschluss. With that my activities came to an end, but in 1938, to be sure, I went to see him of my own accord, to restrain him from starting the war. That was my activity.
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: We have already heard this. I would like to ask you another question concerning the memorandum of Friderici without repeating what has already been said here concerning it. You remember this memorandum well, as it was just presented to the Court a short time ago. In the last part of the memorandum of Friderici—it is the last paragraph but one—it is stated:
“If the governing of the Protectorate were in reliable hands and guided exclusively by the order of the Führer of the 16th of March 1939, the territory of Bohemia and Moravia would become an integral part of Germany.”
It was for this purpose that Hitler chose you to be Protector; is that not so?
VON NEURATH: Not a bit; that was not the reason at all. The reason was—I have described it in detail yesterday.