The Nuremberg Interviews (76 page)

He was present also at the Disarmament Conference in Geneva in 1929 to 1933, which, he said, “began but never ended.” Germany withdrew from this conference because, he said, “We obtained the equality of rights on paper but Hitler decided we did not really obtain equal rights and so in 1933 we withdrew completely.”

At that point he smiled. “When we withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933, I made the remark that we were throwing overboard our instruments, our diplomatic navigation, and had installed a few brass bands in the passenger cabins. Strangely enough, the passengers seemed to like it. They played and sang patriotic hymns to these brass bands without seeming to realize the danger to the ships.” Schmidt seemed quite pleased with this allegorical remark.

He served as the interpreter for Hjalmar Schacht in 1929 at a meeting of the Young Committee, among other meetings. At that time Schacht was president of the Reichsbank and was employed as a government financial and economic expert. This led to the 1929 Hague Conference and its subsequent meeting of January 1930. In the latter conference the evacuation of occupied German territory was decided upon. “My former chief, Stresemann, set what I consider a minister’s record in that he succeeded in removing a foreign army without using an army of his own. The reverse is true of Hitler and Ribbentrop, who used armies of their own and ended by having Germany occupied by Allied armies.

“There were many conferences with Chancellor Bruening at the time of the 1931 crisis and the subsequent depression in America and Europe. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald of England presided over a six-power meeting in 1931. It was there that I met Andrew Mellon, your former secretary of the Treasury, who impressed me as being a fine man. I especially liked his head, which was finely chiseled and impressive.”

Schmidt continued his recollections and mentioned that he met Cordell Hull for the first time at the World Economic Conference in 1933. “Hull impressed me as being singularly inelastic for a foreign minister — rather stubborn. I agree with Sumner Welles on that account.”

We discussed his family history. His father died in 1930 at the age of seventy of a ruptured appendix. He was a railway official in Berlin, having begun his career as a clerk and having ended it as the deputy head of the district railway administration in Berlin. “All his life my father was a man of principles. He had started his career in the army, in which he served twelve years as a sergeant — a not unusual beginning in Germany — and then he was given a job in the civil administration. Thus began his railway career.

“Some of the principles my father had I didn’t like. For example, he was too strict with me until I reached the age of about sixteen, when he became softer. I don’t know why he gave me a pipe on my sixteenth birthday. That day my uncle came and also gave me a pipe, admonishing me to keep it a secret from my father. But I told my uncle that Father had just given me one himself. My father was strict about obeying orders, which was more or less the military influence. I never discussed politics with him but he was a Conservative and subscribed to the
Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger
.”

I asked him whether his father used corporal punishment. “He used to spank me whenever I deserved it but he never went to extremes.”

Schmidt’s mother was seventy, lived as a refugee in the American zone after her house in Berlin was bombed. She was considerably younger than her husband and always enjoyed fairly good health. She now lived with a former nurse who had been a governess for Schmidt’s baby. This nurse had invited Schmidt or his mother to live with her if they ever needed to do so.

“My mother is completely uninterested in politics and is only concerned with her family.” Neither parent had any particular ability as far as speaking other languages. His father could speak Polish because he came from the eastern German region near Posen. Schmidt said, however, that he had no Polish or Slavic relations.

I asked him what he thought of Bach-Zelewski’s statement before the tribunal that Himmler wanted to exterminate 30 million Slavs. Schmidt replied promptly and with conviction, “I think it is a fact. Himmler hated Poles and Slavs and was quite capable of not only making such a statement but of putting it into practice if given the opportunity.”

He described his mother’s personality in general terms. “A typical housewife and good cook whose interest concentrated on me because I was the only child.” I asked him whether he thought that his mother might have been possessive in her attitude toward him. He replied, “I don’t think so because I would have felt that when I married at the age of twenty-four. I imagine that a possessive mother would have raised some objection to her son’s marrying.”

Schmidt married in 1925, at the age of twenty-four. His wife was about the same age. Their only child, a boy, was born in 1926. Schmidt believed that this boy was serving as an interpreter in a British POW camp. “I think he’s free because he draws a salary. It’s quite surprising to me that he can be an interpreter. It may be he was gifted for languages. I remember that as a young child he had an extraordinary ability to reproduce the sounds of American and English phonograph records, which we always had in abundance in our home. For example, there was a tune called ‘Hallelujah,’ and my son, even as a small boy, could pronounce the word perfectly. That word is extremely difficult for a German to pronounce because we have no such sounds in our language.”

Schmidt’s wife, when he last heard from her, was in Berlin in good health, and living with her sister because her own home had been destroyed by bombs. “I met my wife when we were both students at the University of Berlin. She specialized in English and German literature. During the First World War she was a teacher of languages in an elementary school.” He described his marriage as “happy.”

His previous illnesses were not remarkable. About ten years ago he suffered a mild cerebral concussion as result of an automobile accident, which incapacitated him for eight weeks. The only other illness of importance was the case of nephritis that began in November 1945 while he was a prisoner at Oberursel. This started after a severe cold or “maybe because I hate the heavily spiced food to which I was not accustomed.” In general, his health was good. Recently, urinalyses here revealed no albumen, casts, or other signs of nephritis.

He described his wife’s personality in glowing, chivalrous terms. “She has the best of all qualities you can think of. She is very intelligent, has high moral standards in the real sense of the word. That is why she objected to National Socialism from the very beginning, and strongly. She didn’t like my contacts with National Socialism, which were, of course, necessary for my job. When the bombing of Berlin began, she
decided that she would rather remain in Berlin than accept favors from the party or Foreign Office. Most of the wives and families of members of the Foreign Office were evacuated to Lake Constance on the Swiss border.”

His son was drafted into the air force in October 1944. He wanted to become a pilot and actually succeeded in becoming a glider pilot. Then suddenly many members of the air force were transferred to the infantry. “One day in 1945 my son turned up in Berlin on his way to the Russian front. He was an auxiliary antiaircraft man. He served on the Russian front near Stettin. The last time I heard from him was at Christmas, when he wrote from the British POW camp. I think my wife hears from him more regularly. Apparently he is not allowed to return to Berlin.”

We discussed his career after 1933. “At first I did nothing but remain in the Foreign Office as a secretary of a legation. I first started working for Hitler personally in 1935. Before that, from 1933 to 1935, I worked in the Foreign Office relative to private industry, cartels, for instance, the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

“In 1935 when Sir John Simon and Anthony Eden visited Berlin, I was called in by Neurath to act as interpreter. I was told that Hitler inquired where I had worked previously. When he was told that I had worked at Geneva in the League of Nations, Hitler said, ‘He can’t be any good, then.’

“After the morning conference in 1935 with Simon and Eden, Hitler was softened and very complimentary to me. He said he liked what I had done and that he wanted me to work for him personally. From that time forward I was present at every one of his conferences or contact with foreigners. Hitler never spoke English or French. Eventually, Hitler’s example was followed by Goering and Ribbentrop. The latter took me to London in 1935 for negotiations about the naval agreement. Britain and Germany were negotiating. They at that time agreed on a naval ratio: one hundred for the British to thirty-five for the Germans. We had been convicted of violating the Treaty of Versailles only six weeks before and it was remarkable that Britain agreed to sit at the conference table with us. It was one of the encouragements Hitler received from the appeasers.

“At that time the Stanley Baldwin government was in power in Great Britain and Sir Samuel Hoare was foreign minister. The German naval
expert present was Admiral Schuster. He is now in American custody. That conference was one of the most outspoken steps in the policy of appeasement. It was definitely encouraging to Hitler because the conference occurred such a short time after the disarmament violation of Versailles on the part of Germany.”

I asked Schmidt for his own opinions or views of these events. “I was not in favor of rearmament or of treaty breaking. I felt that with a little more patience we could have achieved equality of armaments. Under Bruening, with Neurath, we had received assurances of ‘equal rights in a system of security.’ That was the French idea — security. The French wanted real assurances from Great Britain and the United States that they would be supported in case of any trouble with Germany.

“Therefore, I was opposed to these treaty-breaking methods. I was in opposition both privately and personally. I had a taste of the darker aspects of militarism when I was a corporal in the First World War. I don’t believe in the educational value of military training. I felt that military training as practiced in Germany or elsewhere was bad. I disliked the caste system, and bullies. From this general point of view, I was against the reintroduction of compulsory military service. Compulsory military service began again in Germany in 1936. It was a decision taken by Germany in violation of the terms of the Versailles Treaty.”

The conversation turned to some of his impressions of various leading international personalities whom he had met. “I knew Anthony Eden fairly well at Geneva. Although he may not carry the weight of a first-class statesman, he is an excellent foreign minister. I always admired the way he succeeded in bringing together forty-two nations in the sanctions meeting at the time of the Abyssinian war.
¹
It was a masterpiece of statesmanship because it was difficult to unite members of the League. Yugoslavia had to sacrifice the whole of her foreign trade. I hoped Eden would succeed in bringing Italy to her knees. Of course, I felt that such an example would serve as a useful warning to my own nation.

“Eden and the League were within an inch of success. If oral sanctions had gone through, the Abyssinian war would not have lasted another week. Mussolini told us as much in Munich. He stated definitely that if the oil sanctions had been applied, the Abyssinian war could not have succeeded. But Eden was stopped by the Frenchman Pierre Laval, who had fascist leanings. So ironically enough, France was the country which did not agree to the oil sanctions.

“The League was not the failure it is often called. It was within an inch of success — it all depended on oil. If that one thing had succeeded, war would have been averted. The oil sanctions would have served peace and would have been a warning to the people who later made trouble.

“Sir John Simon, who was the international expert on law, was engaged as counsel for the German concern Siemens, in a private arbitration case. Between that company and the American International Telephone and Telegraph Company it was a matter of international business concerning automatic telephone distribution of the world market between the two concerns. A private arbitration committee was set up. Simon, as counsel for Siemens, received a fee of ten thousand guineas.

“It was a private agreement and had nothing to do with politics. Simon was brilliant but not on that occasion. He lost the case for Siemens because he was busy with politics at the time. That was my first impression of Anglo-Saxon procedure, with cross-examination, et cetera.

“I interpreted for Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, and many others. I once interpreted for Goebbels at the League of Nations. He held a press meeting where he answered questions. He also made a speech as to the aims of Germany. It was a typical League of Nations speech. He used the old clichés.

“I was present at several interviews with Goebbels. Superficially he appeared intelligent, clever, and refined. He might have been a literary man or a professor of history. That was the astonishing thing when one met him privately. Even Hitler himself impressed many of his foreign visitors. Hitler was a charming host, very considerate, and so was Goebbels. Goebbels behaved and spoke as though he was a cabinet minister in any western democratic country. I disliked Goebbels’s public speeches and never listened to them. For that matter I disliked both Hitler and Goebbels in their loud public speeches, with the shouting of the multitude. I just turned the radio off when those speeches were on. I never went to any of the large mass meetings. I often remarked that a man who is employed as a stagehand for a show does not go to witness another show. It is too awful.

“That made me realize the difference all the more between public performances and private talks. Now, for example, Goering made an excellent impression. I must say I rather liked him. The fashion was for ‘strong men.’ Goering had his weaknesses — he was like a child in many respects — but he was a human being. Hitler could not be classed as a
human. He was too aloof from the very beginning and he never changed.”

Schmidt said that he saw Hitler for the last time in February 1945, when the Hungarian puppet government visited him. “I served as secretary at that meeting and wrote up the notes. Salasay was the Hungarian representative. Hitler appeared a little shaken after the explosion of July 20, 1944, and his right arm was stiff. Otherwise, he was the same as ever. The purpose of the meeting was to encourage the new Hungarian government — to give them backing and instructions on what they were to do. At that time the situation of Hungary was desperate. The better part of Hungary had been occupied by the Russians. At the time Hitler said we would start a new offensive and liberate Hungary from the Russians. It was fantastic but it was just about the only thing that we could have said.