COL. PHILLIMORE: Turn to Page 10. You will see that it purports to be signed by you; is that correct?
COL. PHILLIMORE: You remember the letter? I will read you the first paragraph to refresh your memory. “The Reich Foreign Minister...”
COL. PHILLIMORE: “...has ordered the creation of Information Department XIV (Anti-Jewish Action Abroad) under the leadership of Envoy I. K. Schleier, whose task it is to deepen and strengthen the anti-Jewish information service abroad by the incorporation of all experts of the departments and working units of the Foreign Office who have an interest and take part in the anti-Jewish information service abroad, in close co-operation with all offices outside the Foreign Office which are engaged in anti-Jewish work and with the German missions in Europe.”
Then you set out the co-workers, number of departments of the Foreign Office, and then one permanent representative of the Reich Security Main Office—that’s Himmler’s office, isn’t it?
COL. PHILLIMORE: And one representative of the office of Reichsleiter Rosenberg. That department just up above “Inland II,” that is the Foreign Office which had liaison with the SS, isn’t it?
COL. PHILLIMORE: At that time the chief was a man called Wagner and the assistant chief, Von Thadden?
COL. PHILLIMORE: Do you still say that you were against the policy of persecution of the Jews?
VON STEENGRACHT: Yes, I maintain that now as before. I also say, as I have already said during earlier interrogations, that even the holding of an anti-Jewish congress in its effect would not have been directed against the Jews because what was happening in Germany was all taking place under the seal of secrecy and no one was informed in any way. The Jews disappeared. But if there had been an international congress, one would have been forced in the first place to bring up the question: where are these Jews anyway? What is actually happening to these Jews?
COL. PHILLIMORE: Is the point this, that you wanted to put off an anti-Jewish congress because that would be known to the world, but you were quite prepared to set up an organization in the Foreign Office?
VON STEENGRACHT: Gentlemen, we must separate two completely different problems here. The one problem is this: There were offices in Germany which conducted and carried out anti-Jewish measures. These organizations also reached abroad and there, without the knowledge and without the participation of the Foreign Office, did away with the people in foreign countries. Consequently, an improvement and a policy guided to some extent into normal channels could exist only if some German department had really assumed responsibility for these things at that time. For we did not hear of these matters; we always heard the complaints which we received from foreign mission heads about events which took place. But we had no means of control. If I applied to the inner German offices...