SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Let me put it quite clearly. Was a salary—that is, a fixed annual remuneration—appointed for Reich Ministers?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: How much was that?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That was kept secret?
SCHMIDT: That is not the reason that I cannot give you any information. I was not at all interested in how large a salary the Reich Foreign Minister received.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If you say that you do not know, that is good enough for me. I think, perhaps, you can answer this question. Had any previous Reich Foreign Minister been able to run six country houses and estates of various sizes on his salary, anyone that you had worked with?
SCHMIDT: Whether he could have done it I cannot say, but he did not do it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: He did not. We will leave it there for a moment.
Now, I want you to apply your mind to May 1939. That is about four months before the war, when the Polish question was just coming up. I mean, it was getting to be quite a serious question. Do you remember what I think they call in the German Foreign Office a _conduite de langage_ that was issued by Ribbentrop about that time and put out by Baron Von Weizsäcker?
SCHMIDT: No, I do not know that, or at any rate I should say that I cannot remember it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Let me try to remind you, to see if this draws it to your recollection:
“The Polish problem will be solved by Hitler in 48 hours; the Western Powers will be unable to give any assistance to Poland; the British Empire is doomed within the next 10 years; France will bleed to death if she tries to intervene.”
Do you remember a _conduite de langage_ to that effect issued by the Foreign Minister?
SCHMIDT: I cannot remember a _conduite de langage_ of that kind. It appears to me rather to resemble a _conduite de langage_ for propaganda purposes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Do you not remember that Von Ribbentrop issued instructions that no official of the Foreign Office was to issue any different views?
SCHMIDT: That is right, that one was to adhere to those _conduites de langage_.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And do you remember what he told Baron Von Weizsäcker to say would happen to anyone who expressed different views?
SCHMIDT: No, I do not recollect that, but I can imagine that severe penalties would have been threatened to such a person. But I do not remember the actual case.