“The following incident is interesting. The Czech Legation secretary Dohalsky has made to Mr. Staud, (leader of the Freiheitsbund) the offer to make available to the Freiheitsbund any desired amount from the Czech Government which he would need for the strengthening of his struggle against the Heimwehr. Sole condition is that the Freiheitsbund must guarantee to adopt an anti-German attitude. Mr. Staud has flatly refused this offer. This demonstrates how even in the enemy’s camp the new grouping of forces is already taken into account. From this the further necessity results for us to support this movement financially as heretofore, and mostly in reference to the continuation of its fight against Jewry.”
DR. KUBUSCHOK: I must point out here a difficulty which has apparently been caused by the translation. In the original German text the word “mit Bezug” is used in regard to the transmittal in the following way: “. . . referring to the continuation of its fight against Jewry.” This word “mit Bezug” means here that under this heading the money must be transmitted, although this was not the real purpose, for the Austrian Freiheitsbund (Freedom Union) was not an anti-Semitic movement but a legal trade union to which Chancellor Dollfuss also belonged. This expression “mit Bezug” means only that the transmittal of the money demanded a covering designation because it was not permissible to transmit money from abroad to a party recognized by the state for any party purposes, as is shown by the rejected offer of the Czechoslovaks. I only wanted to point out here that the words “in reference” perhaps give a wrong impression and should rather be translated “referring.” In any case, I should like to point out that this “in reference” was a kind of camouflage for the transmittal of the money.
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know to which word you are referring, but as I understand it the only purpose of referring to this letter was to prove that in it Von Papen was suggesting that a certain organization should be financially assisted in its fight against Jewry. That is the only purpose of referring to the letter. I don’t know what you mean about some word being wrongly translated.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: That is exactly how the error originated. The money was not transmitted to fight Jewry for that was not at all the purpose of this Christian Trade Union in Austria, but a certain designation for the transmittal of the money had to be devised. So this continuation of its fight against Jewry was used. The purpose therefore was not the fight against Jewry but the elimination through financial support of another foreign influence, namely that of Czechoslovakia.
THE PRESIDENT: I should have thought myself that the point which might have been taken against the Prosecution was that the letter was dated nearly 3 years after the time with which you were then dealing.
MAJOR BARRINGTON: That is so, My Lord; it was not at the time of the previous one.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, the previous one was marked 1933, and this was 1936.
MAJOR BARRINGTON: Oh yes. I put it in, My Lord, only to show what Von Papen’s position was by then, at any rate. If Your Lordship has any doubt as to the translation I would suggest that it might now be translated by the interpreter. We have the German text, a photostat.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you can have it translated again tomorrow; if necessary, you can have it gone into again then.
MAJOR BARRINGTON: Yes, My Lord.
I come now to the Catholic Church. The Nazi treatment of the Church has been fully dealt with by the United States Prosecution. In this particular field Von Papen, a prominent lay Catholic, helped to consolidate the Nazi position both at home and abroad as perhaps no one else could have done.
In dealing with the persecution of the Church, Colonel Wheeler read to the Tribunal Hitler’s assurance given to the Church on the 23rd of March 1933 in Hitler’s speech on the Enabling Act, an assurance which resulted in the well-known Fulda Declaration of the German bishops, also quoted by Colonel Wheeler. That was Document 3387-PS, which was Exhibit USA-566. This deceitful assurance of Hitler’s appears to have been made at the suggestion of Von Papen 8 days earlier at the Reich Cabinet meeting at which the Enabling Act was discussed, on the 15th of March 1933. I refer to Document 2962-PS, which is Exhibit USA-578, and it is on Page 40 of the English document book. I read from Page 44, that is at the bottom of Page 6 of the German text. The minutes say:
“The Deputy of the Reich Chancellor and Reich Commissioner for Prussia stated that it is of decisive importance to coordinate into the new state the masses standing behind the parties. The question of the incorporation of political Catholicism into the new state is of particular importance.”
That was a statement made by Von Papen at the meeting at which the Enabling Act was discussed prior to Hitler’s speech on the Enabling Act in which he gave his assurance to the Church.
On the 20th of July 1933 Papen signed the Reich Concordat negotiated by him with the Vatican. The Tribunal has already taken judicial notice of this as Document 3280(a)-PS. The signing of the Concordat, like Hitler’s Papen-inspired speech on the Enabling Act, was only an interlude in the church policy of the Nazi conspirators. Their policy of assurances was followed by a long series of violations which eventually resulted in Papal denunciation in the Encyclical “Mit brennender Sorge,” which is 3476-PS, Exhibit USA-567.
Papen maintains that his actions regarding the Church were sincere, and he has asserted during interrogations that it was Hitler who sabotaged the Concordat. If Von Papen really believed in the very solemn undertakings given by him on behalf of the Reich to the Vatican, I submit it is strange that he, himself a Catholic, should have continued to serve Hitler after all those violations and even after the Papal Encyclical itself. I will go further. I will say that Papen was himself involved in what was virtually, if not technically, a violation of the Concordat. The Tribunal will recollect the allocution of the Pope, dated the 2d of June 1945, which is Document 3268-PS, Exhibit USA-356, from which on Page 1647 (Volume IV, Page 64) of the transcript Colonel Storey read the Pope’s own summary of the Nazis’ bitter struggle against the Church. The very first item the Pope mentioned is the dissolution of Catholic organizations and if the Tribunal will look at Document 3376-PS on Page 56 of the English document book, which I now put in as Exhibit GB-244 and which is an extract from Das Archiv, they will see that in September 1934 Von Papen ordered—and I say “ordered” advisedly—the dissolution of the Union of Catholic Germans, of which he was at the time the leader. The text of Das Archiv reads as follows:
“The Reich Directorate of the Party announced the self-dissolution of the Union of Catholic Germans.
“Since the Reich Directorate of the Party, through its Department for Cultural Peace, administers directly and to an increasing extent all cultural problems including those concerning the relations of State and churches, the tasks at first delegated to the Union of Catholic Germans are now included in those of the Reich Directorate of the Party in the interest of a still closer co-ordination.
“Former Vice Chancellor Von Papen, up to now the leader of the Union of Catholic Germans, declared about the dissolution of this organization that it was done upon his suggestion, since the attitude of the National Socialist State toward the Christian and Catholic Church had been explained often and unequivocally by the Führer and Chancellor himself.”
I said that Von Papen “ordered” the dissolutions, although the announcement said it was self-dissolution on his suggestion; but I submit that such a suggestion from one in Papen’s position was equivalent to an order, since by that date it was common knowledge that the Nazis were dropping all pretense that rival organizations might be permitted to exist.
After 9 months’ service under Hitler, spent in consolidating the Nazi control, Von Papen was evidently well content with his choice. I refer to Document 3375-PS, Page 54 of the English document book, which I put in as Exhibit GB-245. On the 2d of November 1933, speaking at Essen from the same platform as Hitler and Gauleiter Terboven, in the course of the campaign for the Reichstag election and the referendum concerning Germany’s leaving the League of Nations, Von Papen declared:
“Ever