“Herewith submitted to the personnel department with a request for approval. Increase of payments with retroactive effect from 1 August is requested.”—signed—“Woermann.”
Under this signature is a footnote:
“Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle”—Central Office for Racial Germans—“will be informed by the Political Department”—handwritten marginal note.
We may only conjecture what financial support the Henlein movement received from other agencies of the German Government.
As the military preparations to attack Czechoslovakia moved forward in the late summer and early fall, the Nazi command made good use of Henlein and his followers. About the 1st of August, the Air Attaché in the German Legation in Prague, Major Moericke, acting on instructions from Luftwaffe headquarters in Berlin, visited the Sudeten German leader in Freudenthal. With his assistance and in the company of the local leader of the FS, the Henlein equivalent of the SS, he reconnoitered the surrounding countryside to select possible airfield sites for German use. The FS leader, a Czech reservist then on leave, was in the uniform of the Czech Army, a fact which, as the Attaché noted, served as excellent camouflage.
I now read from the enclosure to Document 1536-PS, which I offered in evidence earlier and which bears United States Exhibit Number 83. I have already read the first four paragraphs of the enclosure:
“The manufacturer M. is the head of the Sudeten German Glider Pilots in Fr.”—that’s Freudenthal—“and said to be absolutely reliable by my trusted man. My personal impression fully confirmed this judgment. No hint of my identity was made to him, although I had the impression that M. knew who I was.
“At my request, with which he complied without any question, M. travelled with me over the country in question. We used M.’s private car for the trip.
“As M. did not know the country around Beneschau sufficiently well, he took with him the local leader of the FS, a Czech reservist of the Sudeten German Racial Group, at the time on leave. He was in uniform. For reasons of camouflage, I was entirely in agreement with this—without actually saying so.
“As M., during the course of the drive, observed that I photographed large open spaces out of the car, he said. ‘Aha, so you’re looking for airfields!’ I answered that we supposed that in the case of any serious trouble, the Czechs would put their airfields immediately behind the line of fortifications. I had the intention of looking over the country from that point of view.”
In the latter part of the Air Attaché’s report, reference is made to the presence of reliable agents and informers, which he called “V-Leute” (V-people), apparently drawn from the ranks of the Henlein party in this area. It was indicated that these agents were in touch with the “Abwehr Stelle” (the Intelligence Office) in Breslau.
In September, when the Nazi propaganda campaign was reaching its height, the Nazis were not satisfied with playing merely on the Sudeten demands for autonomy. They attempted to use the Slovaks as well. On the 19th of September the Foreign Office in Berlin sent a telegram to the German Legation in Prague. I offer the document in evidence, Number 2858-PS, Exhibit USA-97, another captured German Foreign Office document—a telegram:
“Please inform Deputy Kundt that Konrad Henlein requests to get in touch with the Slovaks at once and induce them to start their demands for autonomy tomorrow.”—signed—“Altenburg.”
Kundt was Henlein’s representative in Prague.
As the harassed Czech Government sought to stem the disorders in the Sudetenland, the German Foreign Office turned to threatening diplomatic tactics in a deliberate effort to increase the tension between the two countries. I offer in evidence Documents 2855-PS, 2854-PS, 2853-PS, and 2856-PS, as United States Exhibits respectively 98, 99, 100, and 101. Four telegrams from the Foreign Office in Berlin to the Legation in Prague were dispatched between the 16th and 24th of September 1938. They are self-explanatory. The first is dated 16 September.
“Tonight 150 subjects of Czechoslovakia of Czech blood were arrested in Germany. This measure is an answer to the arrest of Sudeten Germans since the Führer’s speech of 12 September. I request you to ascertain as soon as possible the number of Sudeten Germans arrested since 12 September as far as possible. The number of those arrested there is estimated conservatively at 400 by the Gestapo. Cable report.”
A handwritten note follows:
“Impossible for me to ascertain these facts as already communicated to the chargé d’affaires.”
The second telegram is dated September 17:
“Most urgent.
“I. Request to inform the local government immediately of the following:
“The Reich Government has decided that:
“(a) Immediately as many Czech subjects of Czech descent, Czech-speaking Jews included, will be arrested in Germany as Sudeten Germans have been in Czechoslovakia since the beginning of the week; (b) If any Sudeten Germans should be executed pursuant to a death sentence on the basis of martial law, an equal number of Czechs will be shot in Germany.”
The third telegram was sent on 24 September. I read it:
“According to information received here, Czechs have arrested two German frontier policemen, seven customs officials, and 30 railway officials. As counter measure all the Czech staff in Marschegg were arrested. We are prepared to exchange the arrested Czech officials for the German officials. Please approach Government there and wire result.”
On the same day the fourth telegram was dispatched, and I read the last paragraph:
“ ‘Confidential’. Yielding of Czech hostages arrested here for the prevention of the execution of any sentences passed by military courts against Sudeten Germans is, of course, out of question.”
In the latter half of September, Henlein devoted himself and his followers wholeheartedly to the preparations for the coming German attack. About 15 September, after Hitler’s provocative Nuremberg speech in which he accused Beneš of torturing and planning the extermination of the Sudeten Germans, Henlein and Karl Hermann Frank, one of his principal deputies, fled to Germany to avoid arrest by the Czech Government. In Germany Henlein broadcast over the powerful Reichsender radio station his determination to lead the Sudeten Germans home to the Reich and denounced what he called the Hussites-Bolshevist criminals of Prague. From his headquarters in a castle at Donndorf, outside Bayreuth, he kept in close touch with the leading Nazi conspirators, including Hitler and Himmler. He directed activities along the border and began the organization of the Sudeten German Free Corps, an auxiliary military organization. You will find these events set forth in the Czechoslovak official government report, 998-PS, which has already been offered as Exhibit USA-91.
Henlein’s activities were carried on with the advice and assistance of the German Nazi leaders. Lieutenant Colonel Köchling was assigned to Henlein in an advisory capacity to assist with the Sudeten German Free Corps. In a conference with Hitler on the night of September 17, Köchling received far-reaching military powers.
At this conference, the purpose of the Free Corps was frankly stated—the maintenance of disorder and clashes. I read from Item 25, a handwritten note labelled “most secret,” on Page 49 of the Schmundt file, Document 388-PS:
“Most