That, as I understand it, will complete the British case under Count Two and will probably take the rest of this week.
Then it will be necessary for the American prosecuting staff to come back to Count One to cover certain portions which have not been covered, specifically, persecution of the Jews, concentration camps, spoliation in occupied territories, the High Command, and other alleged criminal organizations, particularly evidence dealing with individual responsibility of individual defendants.
Roughly, I would anticipate that that would carry through the following week—two weeks. However, that is a very rough estimate.
Thereupon, the French chief prosecutor will make his opening statement and will present the evidence as to Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes under Counts Three and Four as to Western Occupied countries.
Following that, the Russian chief prosecutor will make his opening statement and will present corresponding evidence regarding War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the Eastern countries.
That, in very rough outline, is what we have in mind to present.
I turn now to the third section in the detailed chronological presentation of the aggressive war case: Aggression against Czechoslovakia. The relevant portions of the Indictment are set forth in Subsection 3, under Section IV (F), appearing at Pages 7 and 8 of the printed English text of the Indictment.
This portion of the Indictment is divided into three parts:
(a) The 1936-38 phase of the plan; that is, the planning for the assault both on Austria and Czechoslovakia.
(b) The execution of the plan to invade Austria; November 1937 to March 1938.
(c) The execution of the plan to invade Czechoslovakia; April 1938 to March 1939.
On Thursday, last, I completed the presentation of the documents on the execution of the plan to invade Austria. Those documents are gathered together in a document book which was handed to the Tribunal at the beginning of the Austrian presentation.
The materials relating to the aggression against Czechoslovakia have been gathered in a separate document book, which I now submit to the Tribunal and which is marked “Document Book 0.”
The Tribunal will recall that in the period 1933 to 1936 the defendants had initiated a program of rearmament, designed to give the Third Reich military strength and political bargaining power to be used against other nations. You will recall also that beginning in the year 1936 they had embarked on a preliminary program of expansion which, as it turned out, was to last until March 1939. This was intended to shorten their frontiers, to increase their industrial and food reserve, and to place them in a position, both industrially and strategically, from which they could launch a more ambitious and more devastating campaign of aggression.
At the moment—in the early spring of 1938—when the Nazi conspirators began to lay concrete plans for the conquest of Czechoslovakia, they had reached approximately the half-way point in this preliminary program.
The preceding autumn, at the conference in the Reich Chancellery on November 5, 1937, covered by the Hossbach minutes, Hitler had set forth the program which Germany was to follow. Those Hossbach minutes, you will recall, are contained in Document 386-PS as United States Exhibit Number 25, which I read to the Tribunal in my introductory statement a week ago today.
“The question for Germany,” the Führer had informed his military commanders at that meeting, “is where the greatest possible conquest can be made at the lowest cost.”
At the top of his agenda stood two countries, Austria and Czechoslovakia.
On March 12, 1938 Austria was occupied by the German Army, and on the following day it was annexed to the Reich. The time had come for a redefinition of German intentions regarding Czechoslovakia. A little more than a month later two of the conspirators, Hitler and Keitel, met to discuss plans for the envelopment and conquest of the Czechoslovak State.
Among the selected handful of documents which I read to the Tribunal in my introduction a week ago to establish the corpus of the crime of aggressive war was the account of this meeting on 21 April 1938. This account is Item 2 in our Document Number 388-PS, as United States Exhibit Number 26.
The Tribunal will recall that Hitler and Keitel discussed the pretext which Germany might develop to serve as an excuse for a sudden and overwhelming attack. They considered the provocation of a period of diplomatic squabbling which, growing more serious, would lead to an excuse for war. In the alternative—and this alternative they found to be preferable—they planned to unleash a lightning attack as the result of an incident of their own creation.
Consideration, as we alleged in the Indictment and as the document proved, was given to the assassination of the German Minister at Prague to create the requisite incident.
The necessity of propaganda to guide the conduct of Germans in Czechoslovakia and to intimidate the Czechs was recognized. Problems of transport and tactics were discussed, with a view to overcoming all Czechoslovak resistance within 4 days, thus presenting the world with a fait accompli and forestalling outside interventions.
Thus, in mid-April 1938, the designs of the Nazi conspirators to conquer Czechoslovakia had already readied the stage of practical planning.
Now all of that occurred, if the Tribunal please, against a background of friendly diplomatic relations. This conspiracy must be viewed against that background. Although they had, in the fall of 1937, determined to destroy the Czechoslovak State, the leaders of the German Government were bound by a treaty of arbitration and assurances freely given, to observe the sovereignty of Czechoslovakia. By a formal treaty signed at Locarno on 16 October 1925—Document TC-14, which will be introduced by the British prosecutor—Germany and Czechoslovakia agreed, with certain exceptions, to refer to an arbitral tribunal or to the Permanent Court of International Justice matters of dispute. I quote, they would so refer:
“All disputes of every kind between Germany and Czechoslovakia with regard to which the parties are in conflict as to their respective rights, and which it may not be possible to settle amicably by the normal methods of diplomacy.”
And the preamble to this treaty stated:
“The President of the German Reich and the President of the Czechoslovak Republic equally resolved to maintain peace between Germany and Czechoslovakia by assuring the peaceful settlement of differences, which might arise between the two countries; declaring that respect for the rights established by treaty or resulting from the law of nations, is obligatory for international tribunals; agreeing to recognize that the rights of a state cannot be modified save with its consent, and considering that sincere observance of the methods of peaceful settlement of international disputes permits of resolving, without recourse to force, questions which may become the cause of divisions between states, have decided to embody in a treaty their common intention in this respect.”
That ends the quotation.
Formal and categoric assurances of their good will towards Czechoslovakia were both coming from the Nazi conspirators as late as March 1938. On March 11 and 12, 1938, at the time of the annexation of Austria, Germany had a considerable interest in inducing Czechoslovakia not to mobilize. At this time the Defendant Göring assured Masaryk, the Czechoslovak Minister in Berlin, on behalf of the German Government that German-Czech relations were not adversely affected by the development in Austria and that Germany had no hostile intentions towards Czechoslovakia. As a token of his sincerity, Defendant Göring accompanied his assurance with the statement, “Ich gebe Ihnen mein Ehrenwort (I give you my word of honor).”
At the