“The special situation makes it necessary that these demands be met (even if the code word has not been previously issued) immediately and without being referred to higher authority.
“OKW requests that subordinate offices be given immediate instructions to this effect, so that the mobilization of the Armed Forces can be carried out according to plan.”
Then I skip to the last paragraph:
“The Supreme Command of the Armed Forces further requests that all measures not provided for in the plans which are undertaken by Party organizations or Police units, as a result of the political situation, be reported in every case and in plenty of time to the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces. Only then can it be guaranteed that these measures can be carried out in practice.
“The Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, Keitel.”
Two additional entries from the Defendant Jodl’s diary reveal the extent to which the Nazi conspirators carried out all of their preparations for an attack, even during the period of negotiations which culminated in the Munich Agreement. I quote the answers in the Jodl diary for 26 and 27 September, from Page 7 of the translation of Document 1780-PS. 26 September . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Have you got in mind the dates of the visits of Mr. Chamberlain to Germany, and of the actual agreement? Perhaps you can give it later on.
MR. ALDERMAN: I think it will be covered later, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
MR. ALDERMAN: The agreement of the Munich Pact was the 29th of September, and this answer then was 3 days before the Pact, the 26th of September:
“Chief of the Armed Forces High Command, acting through the Army High Command, has stopped the intended approach march of the advance units to the Czech border, because it is not yet necessary and because the Führer does not intend to march in before the 30th in any case. Order to approach towards the Czech frontier need be given on the 27th only.
“Fixed radio stations of Breslau, Dresden and Vienna are put at the disposal of the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda for interference with possible Czech propaganda transmissions.
“Question by Ausland whether Czechs are to be allowed to leave and cross Germany. Decision from Chief of the Armed Forces High Command: ‘Yes.’
“1515 hours: The Chief of the Armed Forces High Command informs General Stumpf about the result of the Godesberg conversations and about the Führer’s opinion. In no case will X-Day be before the 30th.
“It is important that we do not permit ourselves to be drawn into military engagements because of false reports, before Prague replies.
“A question of Stumpf about Y-Hour results in the reply that on account of the weather situation, a simultaneous intervention of the Air Force and Army cannot be expected. The Army needs the dawn, the Air Force can only start later on account of frequent early fogs.
“The Führer has to make a decision as to which of the Commanders-in-Chief is to have priority.
“The opinion of Stumpf is also that the attack of the Army has to proceed. The Führer has not made any decision as yet about commitment against Prague.
“2000 hours: The Führer addresses the people and the world in an important speech at the Sportpalast.”
Then the entry on 27 September:
“1320 hours: The Führer consents to the first wave of attack being advanced to a line from where they can arrive in the assembly area by 30 September.”
The order referred to by General Jodl was also recorded by the faithful Schmundt, which appears as Item 33 at Page 57 of the file. I’ll read it in its entirety. It is the order which brought the Nazi Army to a jumping-off point for the unprovoked and brutal aggression:
“28.9.38.; most secret; memorandum.
“At 1300 hours 27 September the Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces ordered the movement of the assault units from their exercise areas to their jumping-off points.
“The assault units (about 21 reinforced regiments, or seven divisions) must be ready to begin the action against Grün on 30 September, the decision having been made 1 day previously by 1200 noon.
“This order was conveyed to General Keitel at 1320 through Major Schmundt”—pencil note by Schmundt.
At this point, with the Nazi Army poised in a strategic position around the borders of Czechoslovakia, we shall turn back for a moment to examine another phase of the Czech aggression. The military preparations for action against Czechoslovakia had not been carried out in vacuo.
They had been preceded by a skillfully conceived campaign designed to promote civil disobedience in the Czechoslovak State. Using the techniques they had already developed in other uncontested ventures underhandedly, the Nazi conspirators over a period of years used money, propaganda, and force to undermine Czechoslovakia. In this program the Nazis focused their attention on the persons of German descent living in the Sudetenland, a mountainous area bounding Bohemia and Moravia on the northwest and south. I now invite the attention of the Tribunal to Document Number 998-PS and offer it in evidence as an exhibit.
This exhibit is entitled, “German Crimes Against Czechoslovakia” and is the Czechoslovak Government’s official report for the prosecution and trial of the German major war criminals. I believe that this report is clearly included within the provisions of Article 21, of the Charter, as a document of which the Court will take judicial notice. Article 21 provides:
“The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice thereof. It shall also take judicial notice of official governmental documents and reports of the United Nations, including the accounts and documents of the committees set up in the various Allied countries for the investigation of war crimes and the records and findings of military or other tribunals of any of the United Nations.”
Since, under that provision, the Court will take judicial notice of this governmental report by the Czech Government, I shall, with the leave of the Tribunal, merely summarize Pages 9 to 12 of this report to show the background of the subsequent Nazi intrigue within Czechoslovakia.
Nazi agitation in Czechoslovakia dated from the earliest days of the Nazi Party. In the years following the first World War, a German National Socialist Workers Party (DNSAP), which maintained close contact with Hitler’s NSDAP, was activated in the Sudetenland. In 1932, ringleaders of the Sudeten Volkssport, an organization corresponding to the Nazi SA or Sturmabteilung, openly endorsed the 21 points of Hitler’s program, the first of which demanded the union of all Germans in a greater Germany. Soon thereafter, they were charged with planning armed rebellion on behalf of a foreign power and were sentenced for conspiracy against the Czech Republic.
Late in 1933, the National Socialist Party of Czechoslovakia forestalled its dissolution by voluntary liquidation and several of its chiefs escaped across the border into Germany. For a year thereafter, Nazi activity in Czechoslovakia continued underground.
On 1 October 1934, with the approval and at the urging of the Nazi conspirators, an instructor of gymnastics, Konrad Henlein, established the German Home Front or Deutsche Heimatfront, which, the following spring became the Sudeten German Party (SDP). Profiting from the experiences of the Czech National Socialist Party, Henlein denied any connection with the German Nazis. He rejected pan-Germanism and professed his respect for individual liberties and his loyalty to honest democracy and to the Czech State. His party, nonetheless, was built on the basis of the Nazi Führerprinzip, and he became its Führer.
By 1937, when the powers of Hitler’s Germany had become manifest, Henlein and his followers were striking a more aggressive note, demanding without definition, “complete Sudeten autonomy”. The SDP laid proposals before the Czech Parliament which would in substance, have