SCHMIDT: I admit that on occasions conferences with Hitler took place or could have taken place, while these people you have just named were present at the headquarters.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I think you agree with me, do you not, that as far as one can find any organism or organization through which the government of the Reich was being carried on, it was this succession of meetings or conferences at Hitler’s headquarters; is that not so?
SCHMIDT: Well, I do not know whether you can regard that as governmental activity, because if I drew a parallel with the conferences at which I was present with these foreign gentlemen, then you will find that the person who spoke and who pushed through decisions was Hitler alone. If it was the same at those conferences, then you could call it a government discussion; but it was only a one-man government. The others were there only as an audience or to be questioned regarding individual points. That is how I imagine it, but I was not present.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I quite appreciate your point, but these were the occasions at which each service and each department and each organization—like the SS through the Reichsführer SS, Himmler—put its point of view and put the facts before Hitler on which decisions were come to, were they not? And that is what happened for the last 2 years of the war.
SCHMIDT: One could have drawn that conclusion from the presence of those people, yes, but as I say it could of course have been that there was only a sort of taking of orders at headquarters. Both possibilities exist, but which is applicable I cannot say.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: At any rate, I think you will agree with this, will you not, Herr Schmidt, that there was no other place at which the government of Germany took place except that?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Would you be good enough to look at your affidavit? I will just read the rest of it. It is quite short, but I want it to be on the record. Paragraph 4:
“The attempted Putsch in Austria and the murder of Dollfuss on 25 July 1934 seriously disturbed the career personnel of the Foreign Office, because these events discredited Germany in the eyes of the world. It was common knowledge that the Putsch had been engineered by the Party, and the fact that the attempted Putsch followed so closely on the heels of the blood purge within Germany could not help but suggest the similarity of Nazi methods both in foreign and domestic policy. This concern over the repercussions of the attempted Putsch was soon heightened by a recognition of the fact that these episodes were of influence in leading to the Franco-Soviet Consultative Pact of 5 December 1934, a defensive arrangement which was not heeded as a warning by the Nazis.