VON STEENGRACHT: By a typical National Socialist, I mean a man who fanatically acknowledges and represents all the doctrines of National Socialism.
Herr Von Ribbentrop, as I said, followed Hitler personally, but he really knew uncommonly little of any of the other ideology and never bothered about it. He never spoke at meetings, never participated in large rallies, and therefore, he really knew extremely little about the people and the mood of the people.
COL. PHILLIMORE: By “a typical Nazi,” do you mean someone who was persecuting the churches?
VON STEENGRACHT: I did not understand that question.
COL. PHILLIMORE: I will repeat it. By “a typical Nazi,” do you mean a man who was engaged in persecution of the churches?
VON STEENGRACHT: At any rate, someone who, if Adolf Hitler considered it right, did not state his personal opinion on the matter.
COL. PHILLIMORE: And a man who would take his full share in persecution and extermination of Jews?
VON STEENGRACHT: That I would not like to say either. That was limited to a certain circle of people. A large number even of fanatical Nazis knew nothing about these atrocities and repudiated them and would have repudiated them, had they been properly informed of them.
COL. PHILLIMORE: I understand you to say that you knew nothing of them yourself. Is that so?
VON STEENGRACHT: In my position as State Secretary and because I read foreign papers, and particularly since I had contact with the opposition, I knew of many things connected with concentration camps. In all these cases, as far as it was in my power, I intervened. But regarding the things which I have heard here now, I knew nothing at all.
COL. PHILLIMORE: Now, I want to ask you about another matter. You have told us that Ribbentrop had no responsibility in the occupied territories. Your words were that “the Foreign Office lost responsibility at that moment at which the German bayonet crossed the frontier.” Is that right?
VON STEENGRACHT: I said that at that moment at which the German bayonet crossed the frontier the Foreign Office lost the sole right to negotiate with foreign governments everywhere. Beyond that, in most countries, the Foreign Office did not have the right to have even a diplomatic observer without authority, particularly in Norway and the Eastern Territories.