One Hundred and Fifty-Third Day:
Wednesday, 12th June, 1946
[Page 188] [Page 189]
A. That affidavit is correct, but I demand that the explanations
which I gave in connection with it and which were taken down in
shorthand, be added to it.
Q. Why did you not ask that there be included in the affidavit
anything that you wanted about this report if it was not
altogether true? You were swearing to it. Did you ask that
something be added to it or that it be changed?
A. I considered it to be a statement of the genuine character of
the documents which had been submitted to me. The record of my
statements contained my opinion of the contents of these
documents, and as a precaution I added a statement that in this
case, too, I wished certain reservations to be taken down. They
were subsequently formulated by one of the gentlemen
interrogating me, stating "to the best of my knowledge and belief
..." and then he went on to say that all these reservations which
I had stated had been expressed in accordance with the method
customary with you.
Q. Now, are you really serious in telling this to the Tribunal
today about this affidavit? Are you really serious about this
last statement?
A. I am absolutely serious about it. I have nothing to hide.
Q. Now maybe we can shed a little more light on the kind of
reports that you make. I have another one here that you have not
seen. You made a speech in 1942.
MR. DODD: This is Document 4005-PS. It becomes Exhibit USA 890.
BY MR. DODD:
Q. You had better have a copy of this in front of you, USA-890.
Do you remember that speech that you made on the 11th of March,
1942 in Klagenfurt before the Leaders Corps and the bearers of
honour insignia and blood orders of the Gau Carinthia, in which
you told the whole story of the development of the events of
March of 1938? Do you remember the day you made that speech?
A. I did make a speech of that kind.
Q. All right. Now, let us look at it. Were you telling the truth
the day you made that speech?
A. I represented the events in a way in which my audience would
understand.
Q. Were you telling the truth when you made that speech? I did
not ask you if you made it interesting; I asked you if you told
the truth.
A. I believe I spoke the truth at the time, but I also believe
that there were certain things about which I was not correctly
informed.
Q. Now, let us take a look and see what you said in 1942 with
reference to this report, Document PS-812.
Now, if you will turn to - I think it is Page 8 of your text, I
am trying to locate for you the sentence that begins:
Do you find that?
A. No. Did you say Page 18 of the German text?
Q. I said Page 8.
A. Yes.
Q. Have you found it?
Q. Do you find that?
A. Yes; I have it.
[Page 190]
A. It is not known to me where that record of the speech
originates. I should have to have an opportunity -
Q. I will tell you. It is a captured document that was found down
there in the files, so you need not worry about that. What I want
to know is whether or not you now admit that you made this speech
and you said these things at the time that you made it.
A. I made the speech, but I declare emphatically that whatever I
have said under oath today about that point is the true version.
This is a broad statement designed for the audience of that time,
which cannot be taken as literally as something which I say
today, conscious of my responsibility.
Q. You are not speaking broadly for the benefit of an audience
here today, are you?
A. That is correct.
Q. Let us turn a page and see what you said about Papen, and
about the conference. You go on to say how you got information,
how you met in the Ringstrasse, and so on. If you will follow
right along now, we will not lose the places.
A. I cannot today check this document against a correct
reproduction of what I said then.
Q. Well, why not? It was in 1942. Do you not remember? Do you
mean that you do not know whether you told the truth or not, or
you do not know whether you said this or not?
A. In those days I gave a description before the simple people of
Carinthia and I -
Q. Did you lie to them or did you tell them the truth?
A. No, but I speak to people like that in a way different to that
in which I would speak under oath before this Tribunal, having to
make concrete statements about concrete points. It seems
incredible to me that I should today be required to confirm
individual points of a speech which was made four years ago.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you have an answer? He is not answering your
question?
MR. DODD: No Sir, he is not.
BY MR. DODD:
Q. I asked you whether or not you made these statements on that
day, and if you did so, were they true? Now, you can tell us that
very simply and we do not
[Page 191]
You do not need to read any more. You have read it once and I
have read it to you. Was that true and did you say it?
A. In details it is not correct.
Q. Well, is it true in any respect? Is it true that Papen was
informed and that Seyss-Inquart knew about that conference long
before it took place or sometime before it took place? That is
what we want to know.
A. When we met during the winter Olympic games in Garmisch, we
encountered -
Q. Now, just a minute. You are not answering my question. That is
the next paragraph or the next sentence which you have been
reading. I know that is coming and I am going to ask you about
the meeting in Garmisch. I am now asking you if what you said
about von Papen and Seyss-Inquart is the truth, and that is all I
want to know.
A. It is correct that at about this time we were informed about
the intention of having a conference.
Q. And that Seyss-Inquart knew about it.
Now, let us go on a little bit further and find out about this
Garmisch meeting. You were invited down there to the Olympic
games, you say, and you had a meeting with Papen and
Seyss-Inquart and they went through some negotiations, and then
you went on to Berlin.
Now, I want to read a little further on. There is a lot of
interesting material here. We do not have the time to go into it
all just now. Now, still further on; I want to ask you about what
you say you had already prepared.
The result of the conversation Seyss communicated to me in a
shop in the Kartnerstrasse. I called the telephone number
through which Globus was to be reached in Berlin -"
A. Yes.
"In the meantime, Keppler had gone to Munich by sleeping car." [Page 192]
"Ribbentrop told me he really pitied Schuschnigg. He only
stood at attention before the Fuehrer, with his hands touching
the seams of his trousers and all he said was 'Yes, Sir,'
'Jawohl'."
A. The events as I have described them here are, as a whole,
correct. Individual expressions which I read here are not mine.
In that point this document has been supplemented by somebody
else. Whether the events described here are correct in detail, is
something I cannot say for certain because much of it did not
happen in my presence.
Q. I just wanted to know if you said it, that is all. Very well,
we will go on.
You also told them that Schmidt finally went to Ribbentrop and
asked him to give Schuschnigg one cigarette and so they gave him
one. Let us go on quite a few pages to a more important matter.
It is on Page 13.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, will you be able to finish tonight,
because we were going to adjourn at a quarter to.
MR. DODD: Yes, I will. I shall need only two more minutes to
finish. I do not think it takes much time. I have just one or two
items in this speech.
BY MR. DODD:
Q. You know in this speech you told your listeners about the day
that Seyss-Inquart came to a meeting and told you that he had
been bound by his word of honour not to talk about the
plebiscite. You know what you told your listeners that day. You
will find it on ... well, you can find it, I can assure you it is
in the text and it will save time if you believe me. It is on
Page 13 of the English text. You say:
A. The description here coincides with my memory.
MR. DODD: Just one last matter and I am not going to have many
more questions for him.
BY MR DODD:
Q. You also told your listeners that during the night from
Thursday, 10th March to Friday, 11th March, all Gauleiter were in
Vienna waiting for information:
A. With arms and in barracks? That cannot be right. The
instructions at that time were, and it is unlikely that I
recounted them otherwise, that half the strength should remain
assembled at home, that is, in assembly areas. There is no
question of barracks, and as to weapons, we had almost none.
Q. You know in this whole speech is contained almost everything,
except in more detail, you wrote in your report to Burckel. The
truth of the matter is that you were telling, in both instances,
what you believed to be the truth, is it not? That is the truth
of the matter. When you made your report to Burckel, and when
[Page 193]
A. I cannot recognize this matter as being authentic.
MR. DODD: Well, I certainly do not have many more questions, my
Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 13th June, 1946 at 10.00 hours.)
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(Part 12 of 12)
[MR. DODD continues his cross examination of Dr. Friedrich Rainer] "Only in co-operation with us, Jury and a number of co-workers
of Leopold ...
That is on Page 2 of the English text, about the middle of the
page, the lower third of the page.
"Only in co-operation with us, Jury and a number of co-workers
of Leopold, and also with Leopold's consent, was it possible
to achieve Seyss-Inquart's appointment to the post of State
Councillor (Staatsrat). More and more Seyss turned out to be
the clever negotiator."
A. Yes.
Q. " We knew he was the one who would best represent the
interests of the movement in the political field. He also,
unconditionally, subordinated himself to Klausner's
leadership. He always conducted himself as Klausner's deputy
and conscientiously followed Klausner's instructions. With
Seyss's appointment to the post of Staatsrat, we realised
there were fresh possibilities of entering into further
negotiations. At that time there were a number of grotesque
situations. We were informed of events in the Schuschnigg camp
by members of the political organization; our contact with
Ribbentrop, Goering and Himmler was through Keppler."
Did you say that in your speech as reported there in the text of
it, and how do you reconcile that now with what you have told the
Tribunal about the report to Burckel?
"Papen had been expressly told to keep secret the preparations
for the conference. In Austria, only Schuschnigg, Schmidt and
Zernatto knew about it. They believed that on our side only
Papen was informed. Papen, too, thought that only he knew
about it, but we too were informed and had had conversations
with Seyss about the subject."
That is the Berchtesgaden conference. Now, were you telling the
truth when you said this in 1942, or not? Or was that a broad
statement for the benefit of the audience?
"We had already prepared the following:" -
and you are talking about Schuschnigg and the impending
conference. It is on the back of Page 9 of your text, witness,
and it is on Page 5 of the English text, the last paragraph. You
say:
"We had already prepared the following:-
by the way, for the benefit of the Tribunal, Globus is Globocnik,
is he not? He is the same person, is he not?
Q. " ... and told him about the negative result of the
conversation. I could speak with Globus entirely freely. We
had a secret code for each name, and besides we both spoke a
terrible dialect so that not a soul would have understood us.
Globus immediately wrote down this report ..." and so on.
Then, a sentence or two further down:
"I then forwarded instructions by Party Member Muhlmann who
proved to be an excellent liaison man with government offices
in the Reich. He left for Salzburg on the same train as
Schuschnigg. While Schuschnigg had his car taken off at
Salzburg and spent the night there and continued the journey
to the Obersalzberg by car, Muhlmann travelled on direct and
was in Berchtesgaden. Keppler and he went to the Fuehrer
before Schuschnigg and were able to tell him everything.
Schuschnigg arrived in the morning, was received, and
experienced boundless surprise that the Fuehrer took up the
negotiations where they had been broken off without results
the day before between Seyss and himself. The Fuehrer did not
conduct the negotiations as Schuschnigg expected. He went the
whole hog. Schuschnigg was finished off that time, in a manner
one can hardly imagine. The Fuehrer got hold of Schuschnigg,
assaulted him, and shouted at him and reproached him for all
the dirty tricks he had committed during the past years.
Schuschnigg had become a heavy smoker. We had connections even
into his bedroom. We knew about his way of life. He was
smoking fifty to sixty cigarettes a day. Now, in the presence
of the Fuehrer, he was not allowed to smoke. Schuschnigg could
not smoke even!
Now, what about that? You say all these things in your speech and
were they true when you said them? Right up to that point,
witness, you have read it with me. Did you say this or not, and
was it true when you said it?
"We asked Seyss: Is it true? Seyss said: I am bound by my word
of honour not to speak, but we want to act as if it is true."
"Diplomat that he was" - was your observation - "The matter
was clear to us."
He let you know, did he not, that Schuschnigg had told him about
the plebiscite. He let you know, did he not? Please, cannot you
answer my question without ...? You will not find the answer to
that on that page.
"On 10th March we issued orders to the SA and SS, Lukesch and
Kaltenbrunner, to call out, beginning Friday, half of the
formations, and that the best men were to remain armed in
their barracks in the event of a civil war,"
and so on. Did you say that?