A. Well, the text was the sermon of the seventh Sunday after Pentecost. It is read every year. It is in Chapter VII of Matthew. “Beware of false prophets who walk around in the cloak of lambs but who in their interior are roaring wolves. You will recognize them from their cloaks.” That was the beginning of my sermon.
Q. Father, was this verse from Matthew the text of the sermon on that day every year?
A. Every year we use the same text.
Q. Now, Father, of the witnesses that were called against you—I believe you said there were four or five, which was it?
A. There were four witnesses from Vilseck and the Gestapo official Alt, but during the trial he didn’t talk at all.
Q. Well, of those four witnesses that did speak at the trial for the prosecution, how many of them heard your sermon of the preceding year, on the seventh Sunday after Whitsuntide?
A. Two witnesses had heard my sermon. It was the wife of the Ortsgruppenleiter and the newspaper distributor Meyer Johann.
Q. What did the newspaper distributor say or testify about your sermon?
A. During the interrogation by the Gestapo official, he declared that my preaching had been aggressive; he said that my sermon was an incitement.
Q. Father, you said that during the Gestapo investigation, he said that your sermon was aggressive and inciting, but that during the trial he denied that. Is that true?