And if the Tribunal will be kind enough to turn over to Page 3, about ten lines from the top, they will see the paragraph beginning:
“A Secret Cabinet Council to advise the Führer in the basic problems of foreign policy has been created by the decree of 4 February 1938”—and a reference is given.
“This Secret Cabinet Council is under the direction of Reich Minister Von Neurath, and includes the Foreign Minister, the Air Minister, the Deputy of the Führer, the Propaganda Minister, the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, the Commanders-in-Chief of the Army and Navy and the Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces. The Secret Cabinet council constitutes a closer staff of collaborators of the Führer which consists exclusively of members of the Government of the Reich; strictly speaking it represents a select committee of the Reich Government for the deliberation on foreign affairs.”
In order to have the formal composition of the body, that is shown in Document 2031-PS, which is Exhibit GB-217. I believe that has been put in. I need not read it again.
The next point that the defendant makes as to his offices is that he was not a member of the Reich Defense Council.
If I may very shortly take that point by stages, I remind the Tribunal that the Reich Defense Council was set up soon after Hitler’s accession to power on 4 April 1933; and the Tribunal will find a note of that point in Document 2261-PS, Exhibit USA-24; and they will find that on the top of Page 12 of the document book there is a reference to the date of the establishment of the Reich Defense Council.
The Reich Defense Council is also dealt with in Document 2986-PS, Exhibit USA-409, which is the affidavit of the Defendant Frick, which the Tribunal will find on Page 14. In the middle of that short affidavit, Defendant Frick says:
“We were also members of the Reich Defense Council which was supposed to plan preparations in case of war which later on were published by the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich.”
Now, that the membership of this Council included the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was then the Defendant Von Neurath, is shown by Document EC-177, Exhibit USA-390. If the Tribunal will turn to Page 16 of the document book, they will find that document and, at the foot of the page, the composition of the Reich Defense Council, the permanent members including the Minister for Foreign Affairs. That document is dated “Berlin, 22 May 1933” which was during this defendant’s tenure of that office. That is the first stage.
The functioning of this council, with a representative of this defendant’s department, Von Bülow, present, is shown by the minutes of the 12th meeting on 14 May 1936. That is Document EC-407, which I put in as Exhibit GB-247. The Tribunal will find at Page 21 that the minutes are for the 14th of May 1936, and the actual reference to an intervention of Von Bülow is in the middle of Page 22.
Then, the next period was after the secret law of 4 September 1938. This defendant was, under the terms of that law, a member of the Reich Defense Council by virtue of his office as president of the Secret Cabinet Council. That is shown by the Document 2194-PS, Exhibit USA-36, which the Tribunal will find at Page 24, and if you will look at Page 24, you will see that the actual copy which was put in evidence was enclosed in a letter addressed to the Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia on the 4th of September 1939. It is rather curious that the Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia is now denying his membership in the council when the letter enclosing the law is addressed to him.
But if the Tribunal will be good enough to turn on to Page 28, which is still that document, the last words on that page describe the tasks of that council and say:
“The task of the Reich Defense Council consists, during peacetime, in deciding all measures for the preparation of Reich defense, and the gathering together of all forces and means of the nation in compliance with the directions of the Führer and Reich Chancellor. The tasks of the Reich Defense Council in wartime will be especially determined by the Führer and Reich Chancellor.”
If the Tribunal will turn to the next page, they will see that the permanent members of the Council are listed, and that the seventh one is the President of the Secret Cabinet Council, who was, again, this defendant.
I submit that that deals, for every relevant period, with this defendant’s statement that he was not a member of the Reich Defense Council.
The second broad point that the Prosecution makes against this defendant is that in assuming the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs in Hitler’s Cabinet, this defendant assumed charge of a foreign policy committed to breach of treaties.
We say first that the Nazi Party had repeatedly and for many years made known its intention to overthrow Germany’s international commitments, even at the risk of war. We refer to Sections 1 and 2 of the Party program, which, as the Tribunal has heard, was published year after year. That is on Page 32 of the document book. It is Document 1708-PS, Exhibit USA-255.
I just remind the Tribunal of these Points 1 and 2:
“1. We demand the unification of all Germans into Greater Germany on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples.
“2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in respect to other nations; abrogation of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.”
But probably clearer than that is the statement contained in Hitler’s speech at Munich on the 15th of March 1939; and the Tribunal will find one of the references to that on Page 40 at the middle of the page. It begins:
“My foreign policy had identical aims. My program was to abolish the Treaty of Versailles. It is absolutely nonsense for the rest of the world to pretend today that I had not announced this program until 1933 or 1935 or 1937. Instead of listening to the foolish chatter of emigrees these gentlemen should have read, merely once, what I have written, that is written a thousand times.”
It is futile nonsense for foreigners to raise that point. It would be still more futile for Hitler’s Foreign Minister to suggest that he was ignorant of the aggressive designs of the policy. But I remind the Tribunal that the acceptance of force as a means of solving international problems and achieving the objectives of Hitler’s foreign policy must have been known to anyone as closely in touch with Hitler as the Defendant Von Neurath; and I remind the Tribunal simply by reference to the passages from Mein Kampf, which were quoted by my friend Major Elwyn Jones, especially those toward the end of the book, Pages 552, 553, and 554.
So that the Prosecution say that by the acceptance of this foreign policy the Defendant Von Neurath assisted and promoted the accession to power of the Nazi Party.
The third broad point is that in his capacity as Minister of Foreign Affairs this defendant directed the international aspects of the first phase of the Nazi conspiracy, the consolidation of control in preparation for war.
As I have already indicated, from his close connection with Hitler this defendant must have known the cardinal points of Hitler’s policy leading up to the outbreak of the World War, as outlined in retrospect by Hitler in his speech to his military leaders on the 23rd of November 1939.
This policy had two facets: internally, the establishment of rigid control; externally, the program to release Germany from its international ties. The external program had four points: 1) Secession from the Disarmament Conference; 2) the order to re-arm Germany; 3) the introduction of compulsory military services; and 4) the remilitarization of the Rhineland.
If the Tribunal will look at Page 35 in the document book, at the end of the first paragraph they will find these points very briefly set out, and perhaps I might just read that passage. It is Document 789-PS, Exhibit USA-23—about 10 lines before the break:
“I had to reorganize everything, beginning with the mass of the people and extending it to the Armed Forces. First,