DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: After, or rather simuLtaneously with his discharge from the foreign ministry, Von Neurath was appointed President of the Secret Cabinet Council. Do you know anything about this appointment-how and why he received it and what he did in this capacity?
STRÖLIN: He received this appointment as President of the Secret Cabinet Council at the same time that his resignation was accepted, but this Cabinet never convened; this was also true of the Reich Cabinet. The Secret Cabinet was to be convened by Hitler personally, and Hitler had simply not done this. Von Neurath believed later that he had been appointed to this post as president only in order to conceal from foreign countries that the former Foreign Minister no longer had any influence on the policy of the Reich.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Lüdinghausen, I do not see how this witness can know whether the Secret Cabinet Council was ever called.
In any event we have already heard it from Goring, and presumably we shall hear it again from the Defendant Von Neurath, in which case it is grossly cumulative. I do not think we should waste the time of the Tribunal with it.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Did you occasionally speak to Von Neurath regarding his attitude and relations toward the Nazi Party?
STRÖLIN: Von Neurath's attitude toward the Party was critical and disapproving; at first he disapproved and waited to see what would develop. His relations with the Party were bad. The Party was of the opinion that Von Neurath was not a National Socialist.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Did you ever discuss with him the policy of the Nazis toward the Christian churches, that is, the Catholic and the Protestant Church?
STRÖLIN: Von Neurath was a faithful Christian and disapproved of the policy of the Party toward the Christian churches. He particularly supported Bishap Bohr's efforts to maintain freedom of religion. He repeatedly used his influence to see to it that seminaries which had been requisitioned were released. Following a discussion with Von Neurath I visited Minister for Churches Kerrl personally and discussed with him the question of the policy toward the Church. I discovered that Minister for Churches Kerrl was making every effort to represent and carry out the ideas of positive Christianity.
However, he did not succeed because his work was continually sabotaged, particularly by Himmler and Bormann.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Later, when Herr Von Neurath retired to his estate of Leinfelden, did you discuss his activities as Reich Protector with him?
STRÖLIN: Von Neurath said that he took the post as Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia most unwillingly, and that he had refused it twice, but finally decided that he must make this sacrifice. He believed that it was precisely there that he could act as an intermediary and bring about reconciliation. He had personal difficulties with Himmler and Frank; he told me of his efforts to gain better treatment for the Czechs, and of the protests which he made to Hitler in vain. Once, when I visited Von Neurath in Prague, I was invited to visit President Hacha, who told me emphatically how pleased he was that Von Neurath had been sent to Bohemia and Moravia, for he enjoyed fullest confidence and performed in every respect a conciliatory function. Von Neurath told me that he was recalled and replaced because in his treatment of the Czechs he was too mild for the Führer, who preferred a particularly trustworthy SS leader in that position.
DR.VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Who was to be appointed to that post?
STRÖLIN: That was Heydrich.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Was that Herr Von Neurath's reason for resigning?
STRÖLIN: Evidently.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Now, Von Neurath was also an Honorary GruppenFührer of the SS. Did he tell you how he attained this-let us say-honor?
STRÖLIN: He told me that he was appointed honorary leader of the SS without having been consulted. When he asked the reason, Hitler told him that Mussolini was soon to pay visit and that he, Hitler, wanted everyone in his attendance to wear a uniform. Since Von Neurath had no uniform he appointed him an honorary leader of the SS. Von Neurath said he did not intend to become one of Himmler's subordinates. Thereupon Hitler told him that that was not necessary; it was merely a question of wearing a uniform.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: What was Herr Von Neurath's attitude toward war?
STRÖLIN: On the first day of the war I saw Von Neurath to .the railroad station. He was depressed and rather dismayed. He called the war a terrible disaster, a gamble with the existence of the nation.
He said that all his work from 1932 to 1938 had thereby been destroyed. I understood that during the war he saw the Führer occasionally, and on each such occasion he used the opportunity to ask Hitler to consider the idea of peace. That he, Neurath . . .
THE PRESIDENT: How can the witness say this? He was not present at these meetings; how can the witness tell us what the Defendant Von Neurath said to the Fuhrer?
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: As you will understand, that is what the defendant told him. That was told the witness by the defendant directly.
STRÖLIN: Von Neurath told me so repeatedly. He told me...
THE PRESIDENT: It will be all extremely cumulative.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: I do not believe so. The witness himself needs only to corroborate this to the Prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Lüdinghausen, the Tribunal imagines that the Defendant Von Neurath will give this evidence himself, and the Tribunal does not wish to hear evidence from witnesses that was told to them.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Very well, I shall dispense with any further questions along those lines. I should like to ask only one more question.
[Turning to the witness.] Did not Von Neurath, with you and other people, make an effort to put an end to the war and to the Hitler regime, or at least consider the possibility of doing so?
Now these are facts that the witness knows from his own observation.
STRÖLIN: Von Neurath discussed this question with me on several occasions after his return from Prague. He tried particularly to bring about a meeting of the Reich Cabinet, as did the other ministers, but he did not succeed, since Hitler disapproved of this Reich Cabinet as a "defeatists' club." As a preliminary step for ending the war Von Neurath tried to bring about a change of ministers and the appointment of a Reich Chancellor, which was also widely demanded. This also failed. During the year 1943 Neurath became more and more convinced. ..
THE PRESIDENT: This is the same thing over again-nothing about what Von Neurath did but all about what Von Neurath said to this witness.
DR. VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: I beg your pardon; these are only preliminary remarks to clarify what is to follow.
THE PRESIDENT: I thought you said you had one last question? DR.VON LÜDINGHAUSEN: Yes, we come to that now. The question shows the attempts he made to carry out his intentions.
STRÖLIN: When Von Neurath failed in his attempts at reform, that is, when he saw that it had miscarried and that Hitler's attitude was negative and intransigent, Von Neurath came to the conviction, at the beginning of 1944, that the saving of Germany from complete destruction must not be wrecked because of Hitler. He considered the question of how to speak to Hitler once more and persuade him to end the war. He thought of Field Marshal Romrnel and asked me to discuss the matters with him. Rommel was at that time very popular in Germany and abroad, and Von Neurath believed that due to the position he held, Rommel was the right person to replace Hitler, if necessary. In the beginning of March 1944, I went to Field Marshal Rommel and discussed the matter with him. Rommel was just as critical of the situation. I knew him from the first World War, so that I could speak to him frankly. He was also of the opinion that if the war could not be won on a military basis, unnecessary bloodshed and senseless destruction. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Lüdinghausen, we really do not want all this conversation